Although I never engaged with cheering on violence or praised math shooters, there is something I am ashamed that I took some delight in.
I will not name specific content creators (but you can probably find them if you seek them out), but the general trend I’m talking about is catfish style videos produced by incel/incel adjacent creators .
They would usually follow a similar script and serve a similar purpose. They would go something like this:
A Fake profile on a dating site with pictures of a “Chad” (a conventionally attractive guy …for the un-initiated) usually featuring some picture of a male model or even an AI product would be created. The creator behind the fake profile would match with various women and set up dates.
The catfisher would approach the woman at the public meeting place. Often the catfisher would ask the woman if she is single or hit on her (not identifying himself as the one who set up the date but pretending to be another man who happens to be present) and often the woman would respond that she had a boyfriend.
This would prompt the catfisher to then pull out his phone and expose the deception. He would often posture like he was “exposing” the woman for lying about having a boyfriend (TBH I’ve come to to realize that’s actually a fairly polite way to reject someone…aside from doing it out of fear I think women who don’t are actually showing a level of compassion by allowing the man to save some face).
Often the catfisher would then hurl insults at her appearance…calling her ugly/fat and mockingly asking if she thought she deserved a guy who look like the fake photo (or fake as in misattributed…the photo was often a male model or attractive influence).
At this point the woman would often awkwardly deflect or look away before heading for an exit. The catfisher often yelling insults all the way out the door or even into the parking lot.
At the time I mostly thought this was just an awkward encounter that the woman might feel briefly uncomfortable and maybe experience a little hurt/embarrassment…but thinking she would be back matching with attractive guys and enjoying female privilege in no time.
I felt that most average looking women don’t experience rejection in any way remotely close to what men experience.
Part of me enjoyed seeing women confronted with this…that the guy they thought had agreed to meet them wasn’t real and it was too good to be true.
The shoe was on the other foot and for once a woman was overconfident and put in her place as she crashed back for to earth. I imagined she had rejected many guys that were her equivalent in looks and this would check her ego a bit. I thought of it as a social experiment that was mostly harmless.
I don’t think I realized the weight of what I was watching. I now realize the primary emotion that most of these women probably felt was terror and fear.
It didn’t occur to me that those women had no idea what the intentions of the man approaching them was…or what he was capable of doing.
I hope each woman that was approached like that has moved on from that incident and doesn’t feel any fear to this day and it’s something they can simply move on and consign to a crazy story from the past .
I was in a darker place then, mostly living in my head and online. I think I was so detached that certain human realities just didn’t register with me.
In addition to that…I’ve come to despise the “score settling” and nastiness playing out online between both women and men.
I can’t judge women who resent incels for some of the poison they’ve released into the online ecosystem.
Whenever I see women expressing delight at male loneliness or even suicide… I try and tell myself they probably are operating at a place I was at…thinking the grass was greener and wanting it fade a few shades. Wanting men to suffer a bit just as they feel they suffer. I’ve come to just accept we all suffer in unique ways and maybe it’s not equal…but ultimately none of us completely escape it.