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Article published In: Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict
Vol. 7:2 (2019) ► pp.240–268

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Online hatred of women in the Incels.me forum

Linguistic analysis and automatic detection

 | University of Hildesheim
 | University of Antwerp
 | University of Munich
 | Columbia University
 | University of Hull
 | Textgain
Published online: 8 July 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00026.jak
Abstract
This paper presents a study of the (now suspended) online discussion forum Incels.me and its users, involuntary celibates or incels, a virtual community of isolated men without a sexual life, who see women as the cause of their problems and often use the forum for misogynistic hate speech and other forms of incitement. Involuntary celibates have attracted media attention and concern, after a killing spree in April 2018 in Toronto, Canada. The aim of this study is to shed light on the group dynamics of the incel community, by applying mixed-methods quantitative and qualitative approaches to analyze how the users of the forum create in-group identity and how they construct major out-groups, particularly women. We investigate the vernacular used by incels, apply automatic profiling techniques to determine who they are, discuss the hate speech posted in the forum, and propose a Deep Learning system that is able to detect instances of misogyny, homophobia, and racism, with approximately 95% accuracy.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.State-of-the-art
  • 3.Methods and materials
    • 3.1Aim of the study and research questions
    • 3.2Materials
    • 3.3Methods
  • 4.Text analysis
    • 4.1Quantitative analysis
      • 4.1.1Keyword analysis
        • 4.1.1.1Keywords top 10
        • 4.1.1.2Keywords top 100
        • 4.1.1.3Keywords top 1,000
        • 4.1.1.4Keywords top 2,000
      • 4.1.2Word combinations
      • 4.1.3Hate speech
    • 4.2Qualitative analysis
      • 4.2.1Homophobia
      • 4.2.2Racism
      • 4.2.3Misogyny
      • 4.2.4Anti-feminism
  • 5.Text profiling
    • 5.1Quantitative Analysis
      • Sentiment Analysis
      • Demographic Profiling
        • 5.1.1Psychological profiling
    • 5.2Qualitative analysis
      • 5.2.1Demographic profiling
        • Gender
        • Age
        • Race
      • 5.2.2Physical profiling
      • 5.2.3Psychological profiling
        • Isolation
        • Inhibition
        • Negativity
        • Neglect
      • 5.2.4Profile summary
  • 6.Relation to violent extremism
    • 6.1Group dynamics
      • 6.1.1Incitement to violence
      • 6.1.2Threatening
      • 6.1.3Automatic detection
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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2023. The ‘tarrant effect’: what impact did far-right attacks have on the 8chan forum?. Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 15:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Baselice, Kathryn
2023. Incels. In Encyclopedia of Sexual Psychology and Behavior, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Bogetić, Ksenija
2023. Race and the language of incels. English Today 39:2 ► pp. 89 ff. DOI logo
Bogetić, Ksenija, Frazer Heritage, Veronika Koller & Mark McGlashan
2023. Landwhales, femoids and sub-humans. Metaphor and the Social World 13:2 ► pp. 178 ff. DOI logo
Broyd, Josephine, Lauren Boniface, Damon Parsons, David Murphy & Jonathan D Hafferty
2023. Incels, violence and mental disorder: a narrative review with recommendations for best practice in risk assessment and clinical intervention. BJPsych Advances 29:4 ► pp. 254 ff. DOI logo
Chan, Esli
2023. Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence, Hate Speech, and Terrorism: A Risk Assessment on the Rise of the Incel Rebellion in Canada. Violence Against Women 29:9 ► pp. 1687 ff. DOI logo
Chan, Esli
2025. Toxic Monetization and Amplification in Digital Platform Design: The Case of Online Gendered Hate. In Hate Crime Perpetrators: New Perspectives from Theory, Research and Practice, Volume II [Palgrave Hate Studies, ], ► pp. 145 ff. DOI logo
Dickel, Valerie & Giulia Evolvi
2023. “Victims of feminism”: exploring networked misogyny and #MeToo in the manosphere. Feminist Media Studies 23:4 ► pp. 1392 ff. DOI logo
Han, Xiaoting & Chenjun Yin
2023. Mapping the manosphere. Categorization of reactionary masculinity discourses in digital environment. Feminist Media Studies 23:5 ► pp. 1923 ff. DOI logo
Heritage, Frazer
2023. Introduction. In Incels and Ideologies [Palgrave Studies in Language, Gender and Sexuality, ], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Heritage, Frazer
2025. ‘I’d Say That Being Here Has Helped Me’. In Manipulation, Influence and Deception, ► pp. 177 ff. DOI logo
Jaki, Sylvia
2023. Hate Speech in sozialen Medien: Ein Forschungsüberblick aus Sicht der Sprachwissenschaft. In Digitale Hate Speech, ► pp. 15 ff. DOI logo
Lindner, Miriam
2023. The Sense in Senseless Violence: Male Reproductive Strategy and the Modern Sexual Marketplace as Contributors to Violent Extremism. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology 9:3 ► pp. 217 ff. DOI logo
Ophir, Yotam, Meredith L. Pruden, Dror Walter, Ayse D. Lokmanoglu, Catherine Tebaldi & Rui Wang
2023. Weaponizing reproductive rights: a mixed-method analysis of White nationalists’ discussion of abortions online. Information, Communication & Society 26:11 ► pp. 2186 ff. DOI logo
O’Malley, Roberta Liggett & Brenna Helm
2023. The Role of Perceived Injustice and Need for Esteem on Incel Membership Online. Deviant Behavior 44:7 ► pp. 1026 ff. DOI logo
Proust, Valentina & Magdalena Saldaña
2023. “What a nasty girl!” incivility and gendered symbolic violence in news discussions. Feminist Media Studies 23:8 ► pp. 3866 ff. DOI logo
Shrestha, Amendra, Lisa Kaati & Nazar Akrami
2023. Proceedings of the International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, ► pp. 619 ff. DOI logo
Solea, Anda Iulia & Lisa Sugiura
2023. Mainstreaming the Blackpill: Understanding the Incel Community on TikTok. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 29:3 ► pp. 311 ff. DOI logo
Stijelja, Stefan & Brian L. Mishara
2023. Psychosocial Characteristics of Involuntary Celibates (Incels): A Review of Empirical Research and Assessment of the Potential Implications of Research on Adult Virginity and Late Sexual Onset. Sexuality & Culture 27:2 ► pp. 715 ff. DOI logo
Tastenhoye, Camille A., Juliette Dupré, Nina E. Ross, Tanya V. Bodnar & Susan Hatters Friedman
2023. Incels: An Introduction for Mental Health Clinicians. Journal of Psychiatric Practice 29:5 ► pp. 384 ff. DOI logo
Thorburn, Joshua, Anastasia Powell & Peter Chambers
2023. A world alone: Masculinities, humiliation and aggrieved entitlement on an incel forum. The British Journal of Criminology 63:1 ► pp. 238 ff. DOI logo
Zhou, Linda, Andrew Caines, Ildiko Pete & Alice Hutchings
2023. Automated hate speech detection and span extraction in underground hacking and extremist forums. Natural Language Engineering 29:5 ► pp. 1247 ff. DOI logo
Atari, Mohammad, Aida Mostafazadeh Davani, Drew Kogon, Brendan Kennedy, Nripsuta Ani Saxena, Ian Anderson & Morteza Dehghani
2022. Morally Homogeneous Networks and Radicalism. Social Psychological and Personality Science 13:6 ► pp. 999 ff. DOI logo
Bosson, Jennifer K., Gregory J. Rousis & Roxanne N. Felig
2022. Curvilinear Sexism and Its Links to Men’s Perceived Mate Value. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 48:4 ► pp. 516 ff. DOI logo
Carian, Emily
2022. “No Seat at the Party”: Mobilizing White Masculinity in the Men’s Rights Movement. Sociological Focus 55:1 ► pp. 27 ff. DOI logo
Chang, Winnie
2022. The monstrous-feminine in the incel imagination: Investigating the representation of women as “femoids” on /r/Braincels. Feminist Media Studies 22:2 ► pp. 254 ff. DOI logo
Costello, William, Vania Rolon, Andrew G. Thomas & David Schmitt
2022. Levels of Well-Being Among Men Who Are Incel (Involuntarily Celibate). Evolutionary Psychological Science 8:4 ► pp. 375 ff. DOI logo
DeCook, Julia R. & Megan Kelly
2022. Interrogating the “incel menace”: assessing the threat of male supremacy in terrorism studies. Critical Studies on Terrorism 15:3 ► pp. 706 ff. DOI logo
Fowler, Kurt
2022. From Chads to Blackpills, a Discursive Analysis of the Incel’s Gendered Spectrum of Political Agency. Deviant Behavior 43:11 ► pp. 1406 ff. DOI logo
Grunau, Karolin, Helena E. Bieselt, Pelin Gul & Tom R. Kupfer
2022. Unwanted celibacy is associated with misogynistic attitudes even after controlling for personality. Personality and Individual Differences 199 ► pp. 111860 ff. DOI logo
Habib, Hussam, Padmini Srinivasan & Rishab Nithyanand
2022. Making a Radical Misogynist. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 6:CSCW2 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Horten, Barbara & Marleen Orth
2022. Kriminologischer Beitrag. Forensische Psychiatrie, Psychologie, Kriminologie 16:4 ► pp. 355 ff. DOI logo
Iveson, Mandie & Federica Formato
2022. Men of today, soyboys of tomorrow: Constructions of masculinities in YouTube responses to Gillette’s The Best Men Can Be. Discourse, Context & Media 49 ► pp. 100628 ff. DOI logo
Menzie, Lauren
2022. Stacys, Beckys, and Chads: the construction of femininity and hegemonic masculinity within incel rhetoric. Psychology & Sexuality 13:1 ► pp. 69 ff. DOI logo
Modha, Sandip, Prasenjit Majumder & Thomas Mandl
2022. An empirical evaluation of text representation schemes to filter the social media stream. Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 34:3 ► pp. 499 ff. DOI logo
O'Donnell, Catharina & Eran Shor
2022. “This is a political movement, friend”: Why “incels” support violence. The British Journal of Sociology 73:2 ► pp. 336 ff. DOI logo
Prøitz, Lin, Fredrik Langeland, Kamilla Knutsen Steinnes & Henry Mainsah
2022. Hybride maskuliniteter og hatideologi på nett:. Norsk medietidsskrift 29:2 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Rajesh, E., Shajahan Basheer, Rajesh Kumar Dhanaraj, Soni Yadav, Seifedine Kadry, Muhammad Attique Khan, Ye Jin Kim & Jae-Hyuk Cha
2022. Machine Learning for Online Automatic Prediction of Common Disease Attributes Using Never-Ending Image Learner. Diagnostics 13:1 ► pp. 95 ff. DOI logo
Sabry, Sana Sabah, Tosin Adewumi, Nosheen Abid, Gyorgy Kovacs, Foteini Liwicki & Marcus Liwicki
2022. 2022 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Sparks, Brandon, Alexandra M. Zidenberg & Mark E. Olver
2022. Involuntary Celibacy: A Review of Incel Ideology and Experiences with Dating, Rejection, and Associated Mental Health and Emotional Sequelae. Current Psychiatry Reports 24:12 ► pp. 731 ff. DOI logo
Sparks, Brandon, Alexandra M. Zidenberg & Mark E. Olver
2024. One is the loneliest number: Involuntary celibacy (incel), mental health, and loneliness. Current Psychology 43:1 ► pp. 392 ff. DOI logo
Sparks, Brandon, Alexandra M. Zidenberg & Mark E. Olver
2024. An Exploratory Study of Incels’ Dating App Experiences, Mental Health, and Relational Well-Being. The Journal of Sex Research 61:7 ► pp. 1001 ff. DOI logo
Trott, Verity Anne
2022. ‘Gillette: The best a beta can get’: Networking hegemonic masculinity in the digital sphere. New Media & Society 24:6 ► pp. 1417 ff. DOI logo
Becksmann, Jakob
2021. Zum Zusammenhang von männlicher Sexualität und Misogynie innerhalb der INCEL-Community. GENDER – Zeitschrift für Geschlecht, Kultur und Gesellschaft 13:3 ► pp. 89 ff. DOI logo
Beran, Ondřej
2021. To Each Incel According to His Needs?. SATS 22:2 ► pp. 191 ff. DOI logo
Fahd, Ryan Muhammad & Akbar Mohammad Arief
2021. Involuntary Celibacy (Incel) Phenomenon, the Latest Generation of Terrorism?. Jurnal Global & Strategis 15:2 ► pp. 321 ff. DOI logo
Hajarian, Mohammad & Zahra Khanbabaloo
2021. 2021 7th International Conference on Web Research (ICWR), ► pp. 169 ff. DOI logo
Kerr, Selina E.M.
2021. Misogynistic Males. In Mitigating Mass Violence and Managing Threats in Contemporary Society [Advances in Psychology, Mental Health, and Behavioral Studies, ], ► pp. 321 ff. DOI logo
Kerr, Selina E.M.
2022. Misogynistic Males. In Research Anthology on Modern Violence and Its Impact on Society, ► pp. 954 ff. DOI logo
Pelzer, Björn, Lisa Kaati, Katie Cohen & Johan Fernquist
2021. Toxic language in online incel communities. SN Social Sciences 1:8 DOI logo
Preston, Kayla, Michael Halpin & Finlay Maguire
2021. The Black Pill: New Technology and the Male Supremacy of Involuntarily Celibate Men. Men and Masculinities 24:5 ► pp. 823 ff. DOI logo
Saragoza, Philip A., Stephen G. White & Victor Hong
2021. Threat Assessment on College Campuses. In College Psychiatry [Psychiatry Update, 1], ► pp. 123 ff. DOI logo
Schwartz, Martin D.
2021. Masculinities, Sport, and Violence Against Women: The Contribution of Male Peer Support Theory. Violence Against Women 27:5 ► pp. 688 ff. DOI logo
Sear, Rebecca
2021. The male breadwinner nuclear family is not the ‘traditional’ human family, and promotion of this myth may have adverse health consequences. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 376:1827 DOI logo
Sugiura, Lisa
2021. ‘Women Get Away with the Consequences of Their Actions with a Pussy Pass’: Incel’s Justifications for Misogyny. In The Palgrave Handbook of Gendered Violence and Technology, ► pp. 355 ff. DOI logo
Tranchese, Alessia & Lisa Sugiura
2021. “I Don’t Hate All Women, Just Those Stuck-Up Bitches”: How Incels and Mainstream Pornography Speak the Same Extreme Language of Misogyny. Violence Against Women 27:14 ► pp. 2709 ff. DOI logo
van der Vegt, Isabelle, Maximilian Mozes, Bennett Kleinberg & Paul Gill
2021. The Grievance Dictionary: Understanding threatening language use. Behavior Research Methods 53:5 ► pp. 2105 ff. DOI logo
Williams, D. J., Michael Arntfield, Kaleigh Schaal & Jolene Vincent
2021. Wanting sex and willing to kill: Examining demographic and cognitive characteristics of violent “involuntary celibates”. Behavioral Sciences & the Law 39:4 ► pp. 386 ff. DOI logo
Dynel, Marta
2020. Vigilante disparaging humour at r/IncelTears: Humour as critique of incel ideology. Language & Communication 74 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Dynel, Marta & Fabio I. M. Poppi
2020. Arcana imperii*. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 8:1 ► pp. 57 ff. DOI logo
Gill, Paul, Zoe Marchment, Sanaz Zolghadriha, Nadine Salman, Bettina Rottweiler, Caitlin Clemmow & Isabelle Van Der Vegt
2020. Advances in Violent Extremist Risk Analysis. In Radicalization and Counter-Radicalization [Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, ], ► pp. 55 ff. DOI logo
Heritage, Frazer & Veronika Koller
2020. Incels, in-groups, and ideologies. Journal of Language and Sexuality 9:2 ► pp. 152 ff. DOI logo
Jones, Callum, Verity Trott & Scott Wright
2020. Sluts and soyboys: MGTOW and the production of misogynistic online harassment. New Media & Society 22:10 ► pp. 1903 ff. DOI logo
Modha, Sandip, Prasenjit Majumder, Thomas Mandl & Chintak Mandalia
2020. Detecting and visualizing hate speech in social media: A cyber Watchdog for surveillance. Expert Systems with Applications 161 ► pp. 113725 ff. DOI logo
Mussiraliyeva, Shynar, Milana Bolatbek, Batyrkhan Omarov, Zhanar Medetbek, Gulshat Baispay & Ruslan Ospanov
2020. 2020 21st International Arab Conference on Information Technology (ACIT), ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Prażmo, Ewelina
2020.  Foids are worse than animals. A cognitive linguistics analysis of dehumanizing metaphors in online discourse. Topics in Linguistics 21:2 ► pp. 16 ff. DOI logo
Prażmo, Ewelina
2022. In dialogue with non-humans or how women are silenced in incels’ discourse. Language and Dialogue 12:3 ► pp. 383 ff. DOI logo
Prażmo, Ewelina
2024. “All women are like that”: an overview of linguistic deindividualization and dehumanization of women in the incelosphere. Linguistics Vanguard 10:1 ► pp. 163 ff. DOI logo
Sang, Yisi & Jeffrey Stanton
2020. International Conference on Social Media and Society, ► pp. 5 ff. DOI logo
Witt, Taisto
2020. ‘If i cannot have it, i will do everything i can to destroy it.' the canonization of Elliot Rodger: ‘Incel’ masculinities, secular sainthood, and justifications of ideological violence. Social Identities 26:5 ► pp. 675 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. References. In The Incel Rebellion: The Rise of the Manosphere and the Virtual War Against Women, ► pp. 129 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2025. The Dark Side of Persuasion. In Manipulation, Influence and Deception, ► pp. 155 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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