Reddit is one of the most popular websites on the world wide web. Millions of active users discuss everything there is to discuss on a daily basis. The inside joke is: if there's a "thing," there is a subreddit dedicated to it. This website is a great place for people to gather and discuss common interests, but, over the years, it has generated a lot of controversy. Every now and again a new subreddit pops up, enters the mainstream, and ends up in an online magazines or on television. This is the case with /r/the_donald, for example -- a subreddit dedicated to the current President of the United States.
More recently, a subreddit called /r/incels has come into the limelight.
What is /r/incels?
To quote the moderators, "/r/incels is a support group for people who lack romantic relationships and sex, but mostly geared towards those lacking a girlfriend or seeking marriage." At a glance, this seems like any other online lonely hearts club, but /r/incels is much more than that. Apart from being a "support group" for the involuntary celibate (the name of the subreddit is derived from these two words) it is considered a misogynistic echo chamber.
Misogyny and desperation, sprinkled with sexist memes
The rest of reddit is repulsed by /r/incels and most redditors consider this sub a hellhole reeking of desperation and anger.
Members of this community are predominantly socially awkward young men. While most posts in this subreddit are rich with self-depreciating humor, a lot of them are filled with hate, self-loathing and disgust. Hatred toward women is, predictably, the dominant theme.
Over time, the subreddit has developed its own lingo -- women are called "femoids" while non-incel men are called "normies." A psychologist would probably argue that this subreddit is a dangerous echo chamber in which its members reinforce their view of society, confirm their biases, and make the situation they've found themselves in even harder than it has to be.
The "truths" /r/incel members discuss are called black pills. However, hope seems to be the most bitter pill to swallow for incels -- they lost it long ago. They seem to masochistically enjoy, at least to an extent, being a part of this community, inadvertently elevating themselves above the average, clueless "normie" and the the rest of society.
Will this subreddit cease to exist sometime soon? At the moment, it's impossible to tell, but judging by how reddit has been shutting down and censoring "controversial" communities left and right, it just may.
