”Gratis sex skulle också vara ganska coolt ’TBH’ men kärlek är bättre antar jag”. En netnografisk studie om incels syn på sin livssituation och gemenskapen på incel-forum

Abstract

Previous research and medial narratives often present incels as a violent outcast group. The involuntary celibates are rarely looked at as individuals, but as a homogenous mass which implicitly is equated with terrorism. After being partly shut out of the internet forum reddit, incels created their own exclusive forums. This qualitative study was made with netnographic hidden observations on two incel forums, with the purpose to study how the users on these forums define an incel, how they describe themselves and their current life situation and how they use these forums to get support and create social networks. Our ambition was to investigate this from a different point of view than the one that we found in media narratives and the previous research. Our data was analyzed with different theoretical concepts such as Symbolic interactionism; outsiders and labeling theory; Goffman’s frontstage, backstage and stigma; and Bourdieu’s classification struggles. Through the analyzes we learned that the incel community is everything but a homogenous group. Instead, the result showed us a much more complex reality than every individual being a potential terrorist. In the two forums, different forms of support take place and the individuals share their life stories. The violence presented by the media is also very present at the forums, but alongside with that there is a comforting, supportive and helping side to the forums where lonely men can talk to someone who is in a similar life situation as themselves. They shared their experience of grief due to lacking a life partner, and the importance of support from people around them. The grief took different directions, such as the thoughts of deadly violence towards others or oneself, in form of suicide, while some just wanted to talk to friends and share their experiences or get advices on how to feel better in their involuntary celibacy.