incel

An incel ( ; a portmanteau of "involuntary celibate") is a member of an online subculture of mostly male and heterosexual people who define themselves as unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one. They often blame, objectify, and denigrate women and girls as a result. The term inspired a subculture that rose to prominence during the 2010s, after being influenced by and associated with misogynist terrorists such as Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian.

The incel subculture's online discourse has been characterized by rejection, social isolation, resentment, hostile sexism, anti-feminism, sexual objectification and dehumanization of women, misogyny, misanthropy, self-pity and self-loathing, racism, a sense of entitlement to sex, nihilism, rape culture, and the endorsement of sexual and non-sexual violence against women and the sexually active. Incels tend to blame women and feminism for their inability to find a partner; their romantic failures are often attributed to biological determinism, where women are said to have an innate and unchangeable preference for mating with high-status males (nicknamed "Chads"). Incel communities have been criticized by scholars, government officials, and others for their misogyny, endorsement and encouragement of violence, and extremism. Over time the subculture has become associated with extremism and terrorism, and since 2014 there have been multiple mass killings, mostly in North America, perpetrated by self-identified incels, as well as other instances of violence or attempted violence.