The darker side of the incel world | Uncovering Incels (Part 2) | Short Documentary

In pockets of the internet there is a subset of men who call themselves incels and we've been meeting with them. Obviously, I had violent thoughts. You do me dirty. I will do you dirty. They're mostly young men, usually virgins who blame women and attractive guys for why they aren't in a relationship or having sex. There is most likely not a single female on the planet that would be willing to date me. In a growing online movement, many buy into a hateful, misogynistic and sometimes violent rhet

oric. I don't want to be in those spaces anymore. I don't want to see the things that they're saying. So, what happens when this online hate spills out into the real world? How did this young man who seemed to have everything become a mass murderer? Before we start this story we want to let you know that it contains violent and distressing content, including references to sexual violence and racist slurs. First up, we're meeting an incel who used to have violent fantasies about women. But now no

longer does. Hi there. Nice to meet you. I used to be a full blown incel. Hate women, f***ing you know. Obviously, I had violent thoughts. I always held back. You know, in real life. Thoughts of like women that I did want to you know, rape as a teenager. There was quite a few women that I did want to break their nose so they would be ugly and couldn't get a hot boyfriend. ‘Ryan’ which is not his real name, was 15 when incels started emerging online. Like it was everywhere and I got pretty invol

ved in it. All my friends got pretty involved in it. The website he visited is now the biggest incel forum on the internet. Where hatred towards women is encouraged. While I regret having those thoughts, I don't blame myself. Obviously it's bad I’ve recognised it’s bad. I don't have those thoughts anymore. But all in all, I felt the way I felt for a reason. And I feel like, you know, every other incel feels like that as well. Ryan says he's always felt like an outcast. In his teenage years he wa

s bullied for his height and he says all of those bullies were women. I was taught women are queens, you know, respect women, all that stuff. I wasn't allowed to ever discuss how bad women could be. I have had a sexual partner before, but I've really struggled with expressing myself to anybody at all. Now 21, Ryan still identifies as an incel but is trying to move away from a community that he calls toxic. The majority opinion is kind of disgusting. I see the most foul s*** of my life every day.

The paedophilia, it's quite rampant. They can't get a girlfriend, so they're resorting to whatever women they can find. Ryan says he's seen other incels laugh at videos of people being dismembered and sometimes even more. There's a lot of them that just enjoy seeing people suffer like ‘ha ha stupid b**** she got raped, she deserved it lol.’ It's really disgusting. They just sort of brush it to the side like, ‘Oh, these are just satirical posts.’ It's like, no, they do feel that way. Incels are

mostly young men who believe women will only ever date the most attractive guys. It's a community fixated on its inability to find a partner or have sex. But when Ryan got a girlfriend, he was shunned. ‘You're a f***ing traitor, get out’ ‘You're not incel.’ Slowly over time realised that if I keep having this horrible, toxic mindset, I'm never going to go anywhere in life Even though he's trying to leave the incel world, he still has some strong feelings towards women. It's more just jealousy th

at women sort of get dealt a little bit of an easier hand in life than men. Like it's always expected for men, you know, approach the girl, buy her stuff, s*** like that. These days I feel pretty neutral about women. I don't hate them as violently as I used to. And while Ryan hasn't acted on those violent thoughts, others have. Josh is a researcher who's been looking at the link between incels and violent terror attacks. We know that they're on the increase internationally in North America, 60 t

error attacks that can be linked to incel actors. One of those terror attacks was the infamous killing spree of Elliot Rodger. Seven people are dead and another 13 injured in what Californian police have called a premeditated mass murder. Before his attack, he published a lengthy manifesto blaming women and attractive men for why he hadn't found a girlfriend. More recently, a British incel posted videos raging against his mother and his inability to attract women. After posting those videos, he

killed five people including his mother. The vast majority of incels are reasonably peaceful. In relation to attacks carried out by incels in Australia. There are no known attacks. But he believes incels may be linked to other crimes. Law enforcement aren't always attuned to what may constitute an incel terror attack. In many cases, they've been treated as murders rather than terror attacks by authorities. On a number of occasions Australia's national intelligence agency ASIO, has called out inc

els as a potential threat to national security. They are just violent extremist misogynists who believe women are the root of all of their problems and they've killed people overseas. And we have people with those beliefs here in this country. I and a lot of the other younger girls and boys in these communities were effectively groomed by the older people around us. Although the majority of incels are men, Lani was one of the few women allowed into the community. She connected in online chat roo

ms. In most of these community servers you would find probably two to five women and everyone knows who they are. I guess I've always felt pretty outcasted in school. I'd say that was one of the main reasons I stuck around because you get that attention and I didn't really get that outside of the internet. Lani was 14 when she joined the incel community. But by 16, she wanted nothing to do with it. There were a lot of older men weaselling their way into your close circle and getting you to open

up, even get us to lie about our ages. And their only goal with me was to acquire some kind of relationship or sexual encounter. They go for younger women because they're typically more vulnerable. And what kind of things would they tell you? Like typical grooming things. Phrases like ‘you're so mature for your age’ or ‘you're not like the other girls.’ With some of the incels she had online and real life connections, but she says many of them used her. I experienced sextortion. My first experie

nces were them taking photos or videos of me without my knowledge in very compromising positions and then threatening me with those things to post it online and to the dark web possibly and have it circulate for the rest of your life. And she says what happened to her isn't even the worst of what she saw inside the community. In most of the communities, the majority of the guys had some story where they had been accused of something, the most severe being rape. Lani told me that other incels ove

rseas had been arrested for violence and being with underage girls. After the second or third one. I was like, ‘okay, there is definitely a pattern here.’ I don't want to be in those spaces anymore. I just don't want to be there. I don't want to see the things that they're saying and I don't want to know about, you know, what's happening in there. There are hundreds, potentially tens of thousands of men in Australia who feel so marginalised from wider society that they need to gather in these co

mmunities to find some sort of connection with others. Josh says it's difficult to engage with incels, who are often hidden away in private online communities. There is a vacuum of information for young men who spend a good chunk of their lives online, who are being hit with misogynistic material not only daily but hourly, by the minute. So, now that you're trying to put some distance between yourself and the community, where does that leave you? Well, it's only up from here I think. It’s nothin

g but toxicity for the most part. So I think I'm just going to move on from it completely. Eventually, I think it'll take a few years. Why do you think it'll take a few years? It's just all the mental conditioning that I've experienced as a teenager. I've got to sort of reverse most of that thinking. So, for someone who hasn't reached the same headspace as you, how do you think we can engage with those incels still in the community? Take them seriously. Treat them like humans because that's what

they've really sort of deep down, always wanted. If you like this video and want to see more. Subscribe to The Feed’s YouTube channel. If you missed part one, head to the Feed’s YouTube channel and you can find it there.