Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
University of Reno, NV, USA.
J Interpers Violence. 2024 Nov;39(21-22):4573-4597. doi: 10.1177/08862605241239451. Epub 2024 Mar 21.
Involuntary celibates, or incels, are part of a growing online subculture. Incels are men who are unable to engage in a sexual relationship with a woman and who experience significant distress and anger as a result. In recent years, high-profile incidents of violence perpetrated by incels or those who share incel ideology have increased research attention. Incels communicate online and share several characteristics with other online extremist groups. While only a fraction of incels engage in such violence, a broader spectrum of violence should be considered, including online harassment or general violence against women. This study sought to examine how ongoing engagement on an online incel forum affects changes in incel comments in terms of expressed anger and sadness and use of incel violent extremist language. We collected comments made on an incel forum over a 3-month period. We then identified prolific users and included their comments in our analysis. To assess how their language changed, we used a text-processing program (LIWC: Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count) to assess the extent to which anger, sadness, and incel violent extremist language were expressed in the comments. Our findings indicated that incels express more anger in their comments than users on other platforms such as Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter. However, they did not express greater sadness. Further, we found that incels are already quite angry and sad when they join the forum, and they already use a fair amount of incel vocabulary. Initially, these aspects of their language increase, but they flatten over time. This pattern suggests that introduction to and embracing of incel ideology occurs elsewhere on the Internet, and prior to people joining an incel forum. Implications in terms of prevention of online radicalization and future directions are discussed.
独身主义者，或独身主义者，是不断发展的在线亚文化的一部分。独身主义者是指无法与女性发生性关系的男性，因此会感到极大的痛苦和愤怒。近年来，独身主义者或那些认同独身主义思想的人实施的暴力行为引起了人们的广泛关注。独身主义者在网上交流，并与其他在线极端组织有一些共同特征。虽然只有少数独身主义者会实施这种暴力行为，但应该考虑更广泛的暴力行为，包括在线骚扰或一般针对女性的暴力行为。本研究旨在探讨在一个在线独身主义者论坛上持续参与如何影响独身主义者评论中表达的愤怒和悲伤以及使用独身主义暴力极端主义语言的变化。我们收集了一个独身主义者论坛上在三个月期间发表的评论。然后，我们确定了活跃用户，并将他们的评论纳入我们的分析。为了评估他们的语言变化，我们使用了一个文本处理程序（LIWC：语言探究和词汇计数）来评估评论中表达愤怒、悲伤和独身主义暴力极端主义语言的程度。我们的研究结果表明，独身主义者在评论中表达的愤怒比 Reddit、Facebook 和 Twitter 等其他平台上的用户更强烈。然而，他们并没有表达更大的悲伤。此外，我们发现，独身主义者在加入论坛时已经非常愤怒和悲伤，并且已经使用了相当数量的独身主义词汇。最初，这些语言方面的表现会增加，但随着时间的推移会趋于平稳。这种模式表明，独身主义思想的引入和接受发生在互联网的其他地方，而不是在人们加入独身主义者论坛之前。我们讨论了在线激进化的预防以及未来的发展方向。
