SINGAPORE: The Singaporean student first came across online content on “looksmaxxing” – an incel subculture which provides solutions on how to enhance one’s physical appearance – in late 2023.

He subsequently identified as an incel, and at the same time began to be influenced and radicalised by violent extremist movements ranging from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to the far right.

Eventually, at 14 years of age, he was issued a restriction order under the Internal Security Act.

What is an incel?

The word is short for “involuntary celibate”. It describes a subculture of men – mostly online – who blame, objectify and denigrate women because of their inability to find a romantic or sexual partner.

Incels sometimes become part of the larger “manosphere”, which refers to an online network of communities promoting anti-feminist, misogynistic and hateful beliefs about women and sexual minorities.

“Most men do have to face female rejection at some point, but move on with life. In the case of incels, though, they are psychologically and emotionally unable to move on, and direct their rage not against individual women, but women as an entire category,” said the dean of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) think-tank Kumar Ramakrishna.

The term first appeared in 1997, when a queer woman called Alana, an undergraduate student at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, started a website called “Alana’s Involuntary Celibacy Project”. It was meant as a space for people of all backgrounds to support each other through their dating struggles.

However, this benevolent idea was, over the years, co-opted by newer, increasingly misogynistic forums, eventually transforming into what some perceive as a hate‑filled belief ecosystem.

In incel culture, attractive women are known as Stacys, while the most desirable men – also targeted by incels – are called Chads.

Incels also believe in an “80/20 rule”, according to which 80 per cent of women are purported to compete for only the top 20 per cent of men.

The incel community has also adopted certain principles, such as “looksmaxxing", which was how the 14-year-old Singaporean entered the subculture.

Incel beliefs have in recent times also gone mainstream, discussed by popular figures in the West such as Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate and Bill O’Reilly, who have large audiences that are not necessarily incel in identity, yet conform to its notions.

Who are incels, and where do they operate?

Young males are the prime group to become incels, as they are vulnerable while still emotionally maturing and seeking to define a positive self-identity, said experts.

They are also digital natives who may be exposed to all sorts of misogynistic ideas and worldviews online.

“If they come from weak family backgrounds and lack access to positive male role models in the family or community who can guide them informally on how to relate to members of the opposite sex, they may have problems handling rejection,” said Professor Ramakrishna.

The environment they grow up in could also be a factor. Some communities have religious and cultural norms which tend to value women in more conventional roles – including as child-bearers or homemakers – compared to more liberal societies where female empowerment and women’s rights are advocated for or embraced, said RSIS professor of security studies Rohan Gunaratna.

While he identified those between 12 and 18 years old as especially vulnerable to incel influence, he noted that, ultimately, there is no universal turning point for a man to become an incel, as every person has a different threshold.

“Perhaps one of the tell-tale signs that could differentiate between ‘light-hearted fun talk’ from the real risk is the tendency for that person to persuade or influence others into endorsing like-minded hostile narratives of women put forth by incel groups,” he said.

The incel network is relatively accessible to the public.

From 2010, Reddit – with its subreddits such as r/foreveralone, r/incels, and r/braincels – became a space for incels to frequent. The site removed r/incels in 2017 and r/braincels in 2019 for violating its rules on violent content.

The incel community then moved to independent forum Incels.co, now known as Incels.is, founded by the same person who started Looksmax.org, an incel‑adjacent site where men discuss looks.

The “incelosphere” also includes blogs, YouTube channels and other social media platforms, like TikTok, Telegram, 4chan and Discord.

All these platforms host content and discussions surrounding key grievances around dating, women, looks‑based hierarchies and personal anecdotes of individual inceldom.

“Depending on the platform model, there will be different levels of moderation and regulation – meaning that some incel spaces host more extreme content than others,” according to a 2024 report by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College London.

“For example, in more mainstream incel spaces such as YouTube and Reddit, harmful content that triggers company policies is likely to be removed.”

How does it lead to radicalisation and extremism in some cases?

The shift toward a more violent rhetoric within the incel community began in 2003 with the founding of a new incel website called LoveShy, where the community became almost exclusively male.

“At least one of the website’s moderators openly praised mass murderers and reportedly encouraged other members to commit murder,” noted a Counter Extremism Project report.

In extreme cases, it has led to real-world violence, according to experts.

“There have been terror attacks conducted by members of the incel community, motivated by the sense of injustice and victimhood central to the incel ideology,” said Ms Yasmine Wong, associate research fellow at the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS) at RSIS.

She cited the example of 22-year-old Elliot Rodger – often referred to as a key early incel figure – who killed six people in Isla Visa, California, in 2014 before killing himself.

His manifesto explicated his extreme hate of women, whom he blamed for his lack of sexual experiences, and is highly influential in the incel community, said Ms Wong.

“Rodger himself has attained sainthood within the community. There have also been attacks by self-proclaimed incels who announce Rodger as inspiration,” she said.

Among them is 25-year-old Alek Minassia, who in April 2018 killed 10 people – eight of them women – by ramming into them with his car in Toronto. He had reportedly told police that his attack was a mission for the incel movement.

In February 2020, a 17-year-old male killed a woman and wounded another woman and a man at a massage parlour in Toronto. He became the first incel to be prosecuted as a terrorist.

Some experts note, however, that while incel culture does not directly propagate terrorist acts, the escalation could still occur if multiple extremist beliefs are mixed together.

“There is no direct link, but possibly a stepwise approach. If the incel ideology that the person subscribes to is highly misogynistic and promotes violence, and this is coupled with far-right ideologies, it could spur them to act on these beliefs,” said Prof Gunaratna.

This is in line with the concept of the “salad bar”, which Singapore’s Internal Security Department (ISD) referenced in its Sep 9 announcement.

In the context of violent extremism, “salad bar” ideologies are belief systems where individuals pick and choose elements based on personal preference from various extremist ideologies, which can be conflicting or incompatible with each other.

Incels and the far right find common ground in their racism and antisemitism.

Incel forums, for instance, are full of antisemitic comments, with many users accusing Jews of controlling society and aiding in the social decay that has helped lead to women-empowerment movements.

The increasing intermingling between both communities has seen attackers regularly referencing both groups. For example, Nikolas Cruz, who killed 17 people at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018, had carved swastikas into the gun magazines he used.

“Strands of white supremacy, misogyny, anti-government sentiments and racism are weaved into incel narratives,” according to a 2020 RSIS report, written by senior fellow Raffaello Pantucci and associate research fellow Kyler Ong.

They noted that incel groups are not typically included as terrorist organisations due to the “absence of a clear political goal, beyond a revenge for their personal rejection by the opposite sex”.

However, as general understanding of the incel subculture has increased, calls for the community to be treated as an emergent security threat have rung louder, according to the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation report.

Mr Pantucci and Ms Ong highlighted elements within the incel community that do mimic traditional terrorist modi operandi, such as the use of social media to network and radicalise and the employment of non-sophisticated weapons.

“By posting pre-attack manifestos or intent to start an ‘incel rebellion’, some incel attackers resemble traditional terrorists as they appear to have a wider goal, seek recognition, presence and broader meaning to their act,” they wrote.

Does Singapore have this issue?

An article by Singapore broadsheet The Straits Times in February reported on incel communities in Singapore, and spoke to some self-identified incels.

Mr Pantucci and Ms Ong noted in their report that there are many incels who are also non-white, despite the correlation between the subculture and the extreme right, which remains mostly a white supremacist movement.

“Pure Asians, especially the diaspora community found in Western countries, also embrace their own interpretations of inceldom, dubbing themselves ‘currycels’ or ‘ricecels’ depending on their ethnic origin,” they said.

Here in Asia, societies tend to be dominated by an uncontested patriarchy, where misogyny and its associated violence are not uncommon.

“The growing women’s rights movement may provide the same impetus that has in part produced incels in the West,” wrote the duo.

They added that incel narratives are already visible in online communities in Singapore, such as the dissatisfaction of losing girls to white immigrants.

“Others take on a slightly different but equally misogynistic flavour, such as the sentiment of how military conscription sets men back in their (careers) whilst self-serving and career-minded women are given a step ahead to advance in life,” wrote the duo.

But Prof Gunaratna noted that in the case of the 14-year-old Singaporean picked up by the ISD, it remains unclear just how much incel extremism was a factor.

“Incel extremism contributed to his overall radicalisation, he held incel-inspired beliefs and admired violent figures, but he was also influenced by far-right, far-left, and Islamic State ideologies, making it difficult to attribute his threat level to incel culture alone,” he said.

Prof Ramakrishna said it was important to distinguish between casual exchanges and extremist tendencies.

“I think, as the saying goes, ‘boys will be boys’,” he said.

“To me, it is only when such locker room chatter – whether in a closed physical group, or in an online chat group – becomes highly misogynistic, and shows evidence of being influenced almost exclusively by online incel influencers, tropes and ideas, would the possibility of an incel extremist enclave developing, be something to be possibly concerned about.”

What are some solutions in this space?

The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation said one challenge in detecting and tracking incel developments is that the language they use is “constantly evolving, and keeping up with its lore requires spending long periods of time in the incelosphere itself”.

“Due to the masking of potentially more extreme messaging using visuals and irony, it is often difficult to determine the veracity of incel content, which makes our overall assessment of the risks posed by the group challenging,” it said in its report.

Incels also use pseudonyms and avatars as identifiers on forums, and virtual private networks, or VPNs, to prevent detection.

Still, Prof Ramakrishna said that the approach to preventing young males from being radicalised by incel ideology is not that different from other extremist ideologies.

“Critical thinking skills to evaluate and see through the flaws in incel arguments online or in the real world are a basic requirement,” he stressed.

Ms Wong noted that incel narratives resonate because they tap on existing insecurities.

“There is a need to address the insecurities faced by teenage boys and young men, and address notions of victimhood premised on the perceived threat to traditional notions of masculinity,” she said.

Ultimately, any decision to draw incels into the realm of national security efforts has to be carefully considered, said Mr Pantucci and Ms Ong in their paper.

While there are benefits that come with heightened efforts to thwart potential threats, there is also the risk of pushing the community further underground, they said.

After all, “a community of angry young men feeling they do not have a place in society is not a new human phenomenon”, wrote the duo.

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CNA Explains: What is incel culture and why does it sometimes lead to radicalisation?