The online incel community has taken a break from blaming women for their ongoing failures in life to issue a collective tantrum over Netflix’s new drama Adolescence, which dares—dares, mind you—to portray incel culture as the toxic, rage-filled echo chamber it so demonstrably is.
Judging by some of the responses in this thread, yes it seems like younger generations of men have completely warped ideas and expectations when it comes to dating and relationships. Which I guess just further proves that this has absolutely nothing to do with “boo hoo I’m poor” and a lot more to do with having a fucked up personality. Like you, I am in a 12 year relationship and almost all of my “dates” (and I use that word in quotations because I think people have a weird misconception that a date needs to be something expensive and unique) with my partner were just walks along the beach where we talked a lot. We also went to a movie one time and ate some cheap takeaway (we both paid). That’s literally it.
I don’t like this tho. The hypothetical incel thinks he is the victim, and while he should take responsibility for his misogyny, this just flips all the blame onto him and say “No, it’s your fault because of your fucked up personality”. Someone still gets shot or stabbed.
It’s objectively true. Why their personality has developed in that way could be down to any number of things, many of which should be examined more closely, but ultimately the individual needs to take responsibility for anything to change. Everyone has personality flaws, everyone can work on them over time. I have zero tolerance or sympathy for people suffering from a loser/victim mentality, it’s pathetic and cowardly behaviour.
This makes sense to me in theory but it’s very black and white. How does this apply to the thirteen year old in the story? He should have known not to believe the incel bullshit fed to him on the internet? He had a mother and a sister, so he should have known it was wrong to objectify women despite the constant stream of hypersexualized content in all media everywhere all the time? If not the girl who bullied him, was it inevitable that he’d eventilually stab or shoot someone because he had a “fucked up personality”?
“…ultimately the individual needs to take presponsibility for anything to change” doesn’t make sense to me when it comes to a 13 year old alone in his bedroom with a firehose of mysogny and twisted anti-logic.
It doesn’t, because I am not referring to children here. They are not the ones whining in this thread about being too poor to date or women being too picky, those are real adult men not fictional boys from a TV show.