Speaker 1: From the dark corners of the web. An emerging mindset.
Speaker 2: I'm a loser if also we know wouldn't pay me either.
Speaker 1: A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women at
Speaker 1: a deadly tipping point.
Speaker 3: In Cells will be added to the terrorism Guide. I
Speaker 3: see literally zero hope.
Speaker 1: This is in Cells, a production of Kat's Studios and iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: Season one, episode five, From Victim to Violence.
Speaker 4: So we're injured by women's beauty and so men often
Speaker 4: see rape as getting even did you get any did
Speaker 4: she put out she has, he wants, he gets or
Speaker 4: he takes.
Speaker 2: There's plenty of guys out there who hate women and
Speaker 2: they do just fine. Okay, we don't live in some
Speaker 2: just world.
Speaker 5: Are you also complete genetic trash with no redeeming qualities?
Speaker 1: I'm Courtney Armstrong, a producer at KATI Studios with Stephanie Leidecker.
Speaker 1: Gave Castillo, Connor Powell, and Carolyn Miller. Last episode we
Speaker 1: heard from three self described in cells. Hopelessness was a
Speaker 1: reoccurring theme and the loneliness was palpable. We found them
Speaker 1: mostly through Facebook and Reddit, but reaching another corner of
Speaker 1: the community proved harder men who gather in darker online
Speaker 1: spaces with angrier, more hostile perspectives. Investigative journalist Connor Powell
Speaker 1: reminds us why this divide exists.
Speaker 5: On the Intel discussion board intl dot co or insel
Speaker 5: dot is, those names are all anonymous, they don't use
Speaker 5: their real names. In fact, there was a whole discussion
Speaker 5: thread about how you can best protect yourself, about protecting
Speaker 5: your identity so that you can essentially post as angrily
Speaker 5: as obscene as you want without having to have any repercussions.
Speaker 5: And I think you see a lot more abusive language,
Speaker 5: a lot more sort of obscene language on this in
Speaker 5: cell website.
Speaker 6: Online anonymity means no repercussions for being nasty.
Speaker 4: Add all this together and you get what psychologists call
Speaker 4: the online disinhibition effect, and effectively it dictates that people
Speaker 4: will do things online that they wouldn't do in the.
Speaker 1: Real world because of the strict anonymity and security on
Speaker 1: these forums. We weren't able to speak directly with the men,
Speaker 1: but we wanted you to hear their own words. It's
Speaker 1: important to understand exactly what's being discussed and internalized by
Speaker 1: young men. Connor share some of these conversations and forum
Speaker 1: posts with crime Analyst, Body Movement Listener. Warning, some of
Speaker 1: the language you'll hear in this episode is offensive.
Speaker 5: When you look at some of the posts, there are
Speaker 5: some that are sort of indicative of the conversations that
Speaker 5: are happening in regular and this is just what I
Speaker 5: found yesterday. The headline of this thread is called which type.
Speaker 3: Of women do you hate?
Speaker 1: More?
Speaker 3: Ugly women or pretty women?
Speaker 5: And you know, the first post is, well, that's a
Speaker 5: difficult question for me to answer. I hate both, to
Speaker 5: be honest, And then the thread conversation goes sort of
Speaker 5: sort of self loathing to loathing of the women. One
Speaker 5: person says, you know, both would tear me apart because
Speaker 5: the moment I show any interest and try to make
Speaker 5: a move, they would sort of destroy me. It sort
Speaker 5: of goes back and forth, but it's all very derogatory
Speaker 5: towards the women. It's about the ugly women are the
Speaker 5: cruelest or the pretty women are the cruelest. This type
Speaker 5: of conversation is what you see play out really in
Speaker 5: almost every thread on this discussion board.
Speaker 6: Viewing it from the outside, it's almost like they like
Speaker 6: this self hatred and they want to wallow in it.
Speaker 5: But there's other ones about like it pisses me off,
Speaker 5: how men pay for everything is the norm, and then
Speaker 5: there's a whole discussion about how much these members on
Speaker 5: this website hate, how men are responsible for pay for dates,
Speaker 5: for mortgages, nights out, and about women sort of being useless.
Speaker 5: The men are responsible everything, and it's very much the
Speaker 5: men are the victim, and that's what you see time
Speaker 5: and time again.
Speaker 6: So on one hand they're complaining they're not dating right,
Speaker 6: and on the other hand they're complaining that if they
Speaker 6: do date, they're not to pay for it too.
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: We spoke with a self identified Inceel who goes by
Speaker 1: Brian about his experiences with dating, feeling taken advantage of,
Speaker 1: and rejection. It's a glimpse at how real world pain
Speaker 1: can spill over and sometimes twist into the anger we
Speaker 1: see on these forums.
Speaker 7: When you're young, you're always trying. I mean, it's just
Speaker 7: testosterone hormones. When you're young, you feel like you need
Speaker 7: a woman. I always tried. I'd go to nightclubs, I
Speaker 7: tried dating sites and things like that, and nothing was working.
Speaker 7: And I had some success, but it was not real success.
Speaker 7: The kind of women that I would get and it
Speaker 7: didn't happen often, but the kind that I did, they
Speaker 7: would always.
Speaker 8: Have a alterior motive, like they would want money or
Speaker 8: something like that, or you know, didn't want to constantly
Speaker 8: go out so that you could afford their lifestyle, you
Speaker 8: know what I mean.
Speaker 1: We asked Brian if you had an example of a
Speaker 1: woman having the kind of ulterior motive he described.
Speaker 7: I'll give you an example. I did go on it.
Speaker 7: I can't even call it a date. That tells you
Speaker 7: how bad it is for me, because it was more
Speaker 7: like a scam. I went out with a woman and
Speaker 7: we went to see a movie and that went well.
Speaker 7: Of course, it went well because you don't have to talk.
Speaker 7: And after I didn't know what to do, and she
Speaker 7: kind of took charge and she's like, let's go drinking.
Speaker 7: So I went drinking with her, and then she invited
Speaker 7: her sister to come, and I don't even think it
Speaker 7: was really her sisters, and we didn't really talk. They
Speaker 7: just partied and by the end of the night I
Speaker 7: got the bill for all the drinks. I mean, nothing happened.
Speaker 7: They just party together and drank and you know, by
Speaker 7: the end of the night, I ended up paying like
Speaker 7: three hundred bucks for you know what I mean like that.
Speaker 7: That's been my experience and that was years ago. That's
Speaker 7: the kind of experiences I've had. I never got to
Speaker 7: chance to really get to know or loving, and they
Speaker 7: never got a chance to get to know me.
Speaker 1: Here's doctor Rob Whitley. He is a professor of psychiatry
Speaker 1: at McGill University and has been studying men's mental health
Speaker 1: for over twenty years. He wrote a book called Men's
Speaker 1: Issues and Men's Mental Health. Doctor Whitley talks about why
Speaker 1: in cells may in fact be less desirable in the
Speaker 1: dating pool, as in being looked over is not in
Speaker 1: their imagination.
Speaker 9: There's another effect which is very relevant to this discussion,
Speaker 9: which is that of gender related mating preferences or dating preferences.
Speaker 9: The average man and the average woman has a template
Speaker 9: in mind about who is the ideal partner, and if
Speaker 9: we look at female dating preferences, there is research that
Speaker 9: shows that the type of profile that the typical in
Speaker 9: cell meets is very low in terms of desirability for
Speaker 9: female dating preferences.
Speaker 1: Doctor Whitley breaks it down looking at why some men
Speaker 1: actually may be shut out or overlooked when it comes
Speaker 1: to dating.
Speaker 9: Many in cells have a lower level of education, many
Speaker 9: of them are unemployed, many of them have mental health issues.
Speaker 9: Whereas female dating prefators and male dating prefaces are typically
Speaker 9: looking for somebody who's employed, who's successful, who's well established,
Speaker 9: perhaps who's involved in sports or has a certain type
Speaker 9: of masculinity and a certain type of physicality and a
Speaker 9: certain type of energy, and the in cells do not
Speaker 9: fit that profile, and therefore their interpretation that society is
Speaker 9: a difficult place for them is matched by the social
Speaker 9: scientific research in terms of searching for and accomplishing and
Speaker 9: achieving romantic or sexual relationships.
Speaker 1: We continued speaking with experts from different fields about how dating,
Speaker 1: both the reality and idea of it, shapes the in
Speaker 1: cell world. Here's doctor Sarah Day, whose work on in
Speaker 1: cells began from an unexpected research path that led her here.
Speaker 10: At PhD and master's degree in criminal justice. And then
Speaker 10: while I was in my doctoral program, I studied mass shootings.
Speaker 10: I started this around the time of Sandy Hook, and
Speaker 10: I eventually began really exhausted by that. It's emotional work.
Speaker 10: So as I was thinking about something to pivot to,
Speaker 10: I came back to thinking about how many men who
Speaker 10: were mass shooters were really aggrieved and targeted women. When
Speaker 10: I came across in cells in twenty eighteen and I
Speaker 10: initially started on their sites, and since then I've been
Speaker 10: interviewing a lot of in.
Speaker 1: Cels by public.
Speaker 10: A lot of articles have brief local, state, and federal
Speaker 10: agencies about it. Doctor Daily continues with their thoughts on
Speaker 10: in cells dating and how early expectations around love can
Speaker 10: become damaging when they go unmet. I think men and
Speaker 10: women alike are told from a very young age that
Speaker 10: when you grow up, you'll meet somebody, you'll get married.
Speaker 10: I think that's typically been viewed as a woman's stereotype, right,
Speaker 10: that we look forward to our wedding day. But I
Speaker 10: think wanting to be paired and be loved is a
Speaker 10: natural human response, and when that doesn't happen, you're missing
Speaker 10: major milestones in your life.
Speaker 1: Connor continues reading excerpts from INSUL forums. Even in the
Speaker 1: language they use, you can hear how missing key life
Speaker 1: milestones could lead to a kind of arrested development, a
Speaker 1: more adolescent way of expressing themselves.
Speaker 5: Well, then you also see people sort of trying to
Speaker 5: control their urges, and one of the threads I came
Speaker 5: across was was entitled thinking about sex all the time
Speaker 5: as a normy faggot trait, And then you sort of
Speaker 5: see them as they try to push back and not
Speaker 5: engage with women and not engage with their sexual desires.
Speaker 5: That then they also attacking themselves and people who have
Speaker 5: relationships and sex.
Speaker 3: And then it looks back to I don't even want
Speaker 3: to be a part.
Speaker 5: Of those groups and societies, but they also do want
Speaker 5: to be a part of those groups and societies.
Speaker 1: Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
Speaker 1: a moment. Doctor Michael Kimmel is a professor emeritus of
Speaker 1: sociology and Studies at Stonybrook University in New York. He's
Speaker 1: written extensively about masculinity, and his books include Manhood in America, Guyland,
Speaker 1: and Angry White Men. The last one explores why so
Speaker 1: many American men feel angry and how that frustration connects
Speaker 1: to in cell culture and the challenges they face in
Speaker 1: dating and relationships.
Speaker 4: They're now starting to think, well, what's wrong? Why have
Speaker 4: I not been able to do that? Now? Prior to
Speaker 4: the year, say, two thousand, these guys would have been
Speaker 4: sitting alone miserable going to a bar. Perhaps they're the
Speaker 4: guys who would have been yelling at the walls of
Speaker 4: a subway station at two in the morning. But now
Speaker 4: there's social media, now there's the Internet, and instead of
Speaker 4: yelling in the abandoned subway station, they yell on the internet.
Speaker 4: And some other guy comes along and go, oh, yeah, man,
Speaker 4: I feel your pain. I think this. You know. The
Speaker 4: reason is because those women they I will refrain from
Speaker 4: using the kind of words that they would use. Those
Speaker 4: women just won't let you get any It's their fault.
Speaker 4: So now you have something that was missing twenty five
Speaker 4: years ago, and what was missing with social support, and
Speaker 4: it's social support from other men for this strange idea
Speaker 4: that I am not getting what I'm entitled to, and
Speaker 4: it's their fault.
Speaker 1: Doctor Kimmel explains what contributed to the emergence of inceel
Speaker 1: identity and the sense of entitlement that often goes along
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 4: It's a collision of two phenomena. One is the fact
Speaker 4: that girl power and women are far more sexually aware,
Speaker 4: agentic out there in the public sphere. They're not quiet,
Speaker 4: they're not demure, They're loud and proud and it's fantastic.
Speaker 4: They've entered every workplace arena. And so women's presence, women's sexuality,
Speaker 4: women's ownership of their sexuality, means that women know that
Speaker 4: they can like sex and want it. Now, that's one thing.
Speaker 4: The other piece is the dominant emotional experience of in
Speaker 4: cells is what I call aggrieved entitlement. And let me
Speaker 4: look at each of those words, because I think that
Speaker 4: the idea of the intell idea, the founding ideology, is entitlement.
Speaker 1: Doctor Kimmel shares an experience that first sparked his thinking
Speaker 1: of aggrieved entitlement. He was on a TV talk show
Speaker 1: opposite four wet men who believed that they were the
Speaker 1: victims of reverse discrimination in the workplace. They shared stories
Speaker 1: about how they were qualified for jobs they didn't get,
Speaker 1: and doctor Kimmel was brought on to respond to them.
Speaker 4: The title of this particular episode of the show was
Speaker 4: a quote from one of the men, a black woman
Speaker 4: stole my job. So when it was my turn to speak,
Speaker 4: I just said, I have one question for you guys
Speaker 4: about this, and it's about the title of the show,
Speaker 4: A black woman stole my job. Actually, I want to
Speaker 4: know about the word my where did you get the
Speaker 4: idea it was your job? Why isn't the title a
Speaker 4: black woman got the job or a black woman got
Speaker 4: a job. Because without confronting men's sense of entitlement, will
Speaker 4: never understand why so many men believe that gender equality
Speaker 4: is a zero sum game and that if women, women
Speaker 4: are going to lose. Now, that's what entitlement sounds like. I,
Speaker 4: as a man, was in a benign sort of way.
Speaker 4: I was raised to believe that one day I will
Speaker 4: fall in love, get married, and have children, and that
Speaker 4: sort of includes having sex. And in a less benign way,
Speaker 4: you might quote the president, you know grammed by the pussy,
Speaker 4: they let you do it. You're entitled to women's bodies.
Speaker 4: You're entitled to access to women's bodies.
Speaker 1: He discusses the language many men use when describing women's
Speaker 1: beauty and how those word choices can reinforce the idea
Speaker 1: that women are manipulative, dangerous, or somehow out to get men.
Speaker 4: Years and years ago are really really smart. Journalist wrote
Speaker 4: a book called Men on Rape, and he talked about
Speaker 4: how the metaphors we use to describe women's beauty, very
Speaker 4: many of them are words of violence against men. She's
Speaker 4: a knockout, a bombshell dressed to kill right, So we're
Speaker 4: injured by women's beauty, and so men often see rape
Speaker 4: as getting even, Like we're you've done a violence to
Speaker 4: us just by being hot and gorgeous and accessible and
Speaker 4: wearing a short skirt or whatever, so that that's an
Speaker 4: injury to us. Now we're one down. We have to
Speaker 4: get even, and getting even means taking what we want.
Speaker 4: Did you get any did she put out? She has?
Speaker 4: He wants, he gets, or he takes. That's what entitlement
Speaker 4: sounds like. Sexual entitlement means you have something I want,
Speaker 4: and if I want it, I'm gonna get it. And
Speaker 4: that's why some of these men actually believe, for example,
Speaker 4: that rape with sexual assault is really just dating by
Speaker 4: another term.
Speaker 1: Connor shares another excerpt from an in cell forum with
Speaker 1: crime analyst Body Movin.
Speaker 5: One of the ones I'm looking at right now is
Speaker 5: again the threat is called if you don't have at
Speaker 5: least a seven point three inch cock, no foid will ever.
Speaker 3: Have sex with you.
Speaker 5: Even if she has, that foid will never be satisfied.
Speaker 5: The conversation then sort of devolves into a a whole
Speaker 5: back and forth about sex, whether or not the women
Speaker 5: would ever be happy.
Speaker 3: These conversations just.
Speaker 5: Go all over the place, but all of the language
Speaker 5: is just pretty offensive, which goes back to what we
Speaker 5: were talking about. Why they are so concerned about having
Speaker 5: their true identities pop up is that they know that
Speaker 5: this stuff, if it got out generally, could do damage
Speaker 5: to their real world personas, their jobs, their families, their relationships.
Speaker 5: Then the perception is that they just simply want to
Speaker 5: live in this online space one way and live in
Speaker 5: the real world another way.
Speaker 6: It's almost like the real world is their mass right.
Speaker 6: What I find interesting too is the transition from Stacy's
Speaker 6: to foids. It really dehumanizes women. Okay, so they were
Speaker 6: Stacy's in the transition to foids is interesting. It's female humanoid.
Speaker 6: It really kind of depersonalizes these women. In my mind,
Speaker 6: that's what I think of when I hear the term foid.
Speaker 6: It's just very depersonalized, you know. It's it's almost like
Speaker 6: we're not people.
Speaker 1: Doctor David Lee is a clinical psychologist, sex therapist, and writer.
Speaker 1: He further explains foids and how the use of that
Speaker 1: term perpetuates misogyny and hatred.
Speaker 11: One of the ones that I think is a little
Speaker 11: sad and really really emphasizes the core misogyny here is
Speaker 11: that they oftentimes in the NZEL community refer to women
Speaker 11: as foid and that means female humanoid, because they don't
Speaker 11: want to give them the benefit the credit of being
Speaker 11: a person of being human. And I think that that
Speaker 11: just really underscores how much misogyny, hatred, and fear of
Speaker 11: women is driving so much of the INZEL community.
Speaker 1: Language is important, especially when it starts getting thrown around repeatedly.
Speaker 1: For young boys eleven, twelve, fourteen years old to ingest
Speaker 1: and start using it can begin to shape young worldviews dangerously.
Speaker 1: Here again doctor Sarah Daly, who holds a PhD in
Speaker 1: criminal justice. She talks about the link between victimhood and violence.
Speaker 10: I think if we think about in cell violence relative
Speaker 10: to the number of in cels online, it's not a lot,
Speaker 10: which I think we're lucky about, but I mean, any
Speaker 10: act of violence is too much. But most of the
Speaker 10: in cels online share this notion of victimhood and frustration
Speaker 10: and loneliness. And when we look at the ones who
Speaker 10: have committed violence from their manifesi festos, from their posts,
Speaker 10: the ones who we've seen that have committed violence are
Speaker 10: the ones who have moved all of their anger outward.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 10: Lots of in cells view themselves as being ugly or
Speaker 10: weird or not worthy, But the most infamous inzels who've
Speaker 10: committed violence directed their anger outwards. It is at women,
Speaker 10: it's at society, it's at everyone who bullied them. So,
Speaker 10: like all the other perpetrators of mass violence, their attack
Speaker 10: becomes like an act of revenge and an active strength
Speaker 10: after a lifetime of being viewed as weak.
Speaker 1: Elliott Roger is an incell who murdered six innocent people
Speaker 1: and injured fourteen more in twenty fourteen. He left behind
Speaker 1: a lengthy written manifesto and posted a retribution video to
Speaker 1: YouTube before he took his own life to end the rampage.
Speaker 12: All those popular kids who live such lives of hedonistic pleasure,
Speaker 12: while I've had to rotten loneliness for all these years,
Speaker 12: they've all looked down upon me. I'll be a god
Speaker 12: exacting my retribution and all those who deserve it, And
Speaker 12: you do deserve it, just for the crime of living
Speaker 12: a better life than me. Oh, you popular kids, you've
Speaker 12: never accepted me. Now you'll all pay for it.
Speaker 1: Sickeningly, Roger is held up as an icon, a hero,
Speaker 1: referred to as a literal saint by some in cels.
Speaker 1: Doctor Daily continues referencing Roger's impact.
Speaker 10: Victimhood is the common bond with in cells. As much
Speaker 10: as he wants to be a very alpha male in
Speaker 10: this right saying that women should be caged in things,
Speaker 10: I think he wants to be seen as a victim,
Speaker 10: and so in cells that we do view him in
Speaker 10: this way. Understand this lifetime of hurt and this lack
Speaker 10: of friendship. And unfortunately, this is a part of American
Speaker 10: culture that when you are not viewed as a strong man,
Speaker 10: a gun and killing people is viewed as an act
Speaker 10: of strength. We as a society no better. But for
Speaker 10: those people who are homicidal, violent, this is an active
Speaker 10: of revenge. And if we look at societally, you know
Speaker 10: strong men, we look at men are who are violent
Speaker 10: action movies, Rambo, right, take your pick. So this is
Speaker 10: kind of an act of violent masculinity.
Speaker 1: Connor and Body discuss a final thread from the insull
Speaker 1: forums that illuminates the profound self loathing common and in
Speaker 1: cell communities and what that can lead to.
Speaker 5: There's a thread that says, are you also complete genetic
Speaker 5: trash with no redeeming qualities? I have no self worth,
Speaker 5: I have no value to society.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: I spoke to one person who said, I try to
Speaker 5: stay off of these websites. It's because they bring me down.
Speaker 5: They make me feel worse, they make me hate women more,
Speaker 5: But they also make me hate myself more as well.
Speaker 6: Right, because it's feeding, right, it's like self sustaining hatred.
Speaker 6: It's feeding that negative energy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean the genetic trash comment. It just shows
Speaker 5: a complete lack of self worth on their side, and
Speaker 5: so you see them sort of attacking themselves but then
Speaker 5: taking that anger and frustration about themselves and their self
Speaker 5: worth out on women as well.
Speaker 6: Viewing it from the outside, it's almost like they like
Speaker 6: this self hatred and they want to wallow in it.
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly. It's victimhood too.
Speaker 6: I think victimhood is a big talking point when it
Speaker 6: comes to in cells. They want to be the victim.
Speaker 6: It's real easy to say I'm not successful and like
Speaker 6: because I'm a victim instead of actually trying and failing
Speaker 6: and trying and failing and trying and succeeding. Right, you
Speaker 6: have to keep trying, and it's so much easier to
Speaker 6: sit back in your computer chair and be like, it's
Speaker 6: none of this is my fault.
Speaker 3: I'm the victim.
Speaker 5: To that point point, there were discussions on Facebook and
Speaker 5: read it about people trying to better themselves, and you
Speaker 5: saw self described in cells as offering advice and support
Speaker 5: in that effort. I can't find any of that type
Speaker 5: of support and advice on insul is. It is all
Speaker 5: just vitriolic hatred.
Speaker 1: Let's stop here for another break. We'll be back in
Speaker 1: a moment. Doctor David Lay sheds light on how the
Speaker 1: victimhood mentality can evolve from self pity to hostility.
Speaker 11: These communities. They have flavors of what philosophers called gnosticism,
Speaker 11: where they promote the idea that they and they alone
Speaker 11: hold secret knowledge. Gnosticism is a real core philosophical principle
Speaker 11: under the blue pill red pill kind of concept. But
Speaker 11: what's fascinating is that rather than this secret knowledge making
Speaker 11: these in cells more powerful or healthier, instead the secret
Speaker 11: knowledge that they are being fed is that they are
Speaker 11: victims and that their value in the community comes from
Speaker 11: acknowledging this victimhood. One of the things that has been
Speaker 11: fascinating over the past couple of years is that we've
Speaker 11: now identified that there are people who use victimhood identity
Speaker 11: as a manipulative tool to manipulate others. We see it
Speaker 11: a lot online and many of the people that embrace
Speaker 11: this victimhood identity have what we call the dark triad
Speaker 11: personality characteristics. These are any social traits of not following
Speaker 11: the rules and not having empathy for other people, narcissism,
Speaker 11: viewing yourself as being particularly special, and machiavelianism, being manipulative
Speaker 11: towards others. And as people in those dark Triad characteristics
Speaker 11: become more vocal in these online communities and become more powerful,
Speaker 11: they encourage and promote violence as an answer and a
Speaker 11: response to that victimhood. So they use the victimhood identity
Speaker 11: and then violence to manipulate and whip up these folks
Speaker 11: in dangerous and unhealthy ways. We've seen it in in
Speaker 11: cell communities where mann are encouraged towards greater misogyny, violent
Speaker 11: hatred towards women, and even to scientists and researchers like
Speaker 11: me who challenge their beliefs.
Speaker 1: Here again, doctor Michael Kimmel, who breaks down the manosphere
Speaker 1: and the largely toxic ideas it's spreading widely to men
Speaker 1: and boys in a continual outpouring on social media.
Speaker 4: The manosphere is a fairly substantial section of the Internet.
Speaker 4: That is, you know, the overall picture, the Internet is
Speaker 4: a marvel.
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 4: If you have a rare disease, you can put out
Speaker 4: a call and suddenly two hundred people from all over
Speaker 4: the world will say, oh, I have the same condition.
Speaker 4: It's amazing you have an instant support group. But just
Speaker 4: as it's miraculous in that way, it also provides support
Speaker 4: for all manner of crazy ideas, all manner of misinformation disinformation.
Speaker 4: One of the more pernicious parts of that is to
Speaker 4: look for others to blame. If you're unhappy, it must
Speaker 4: be somebody else's fault, and there are hundreds of thousands
Speaker 4: of people who will tell you whose fault it is
Speaker 4: besides yours. Now, the manisphere is a particularly gendered space
Speaker 4: where men are encouraging each other, complaining to each other,
Speaker 4: offering support to each other true, but also finding people
Speaker 4: that they can blame for their situation.
Speaker 1: Luis is a self identifying in cel who speaks with
Speaker 1: us about how men, especially young men are being lured
Speaker 1: into the manosphere. They feel hopeless, reach out for solace
Speaker 1: and find community, but too often that path leads to
Speaker 1: idolizing so called alpha males, like misogynist Andrew Tate. Tate
Speaker 1: is a former MMA fighter who has been charged with rape,
Speaker 1: human trafficking, and forming an organized criminal group to sexually
Speaker 1: exploit women. Tate also sells dating schemes tied to pick
Speaker 1: up artistry to men insecure about their status and masculinity.
Speaker 1: He has more than ten million followers on x alone.
Speaker 2: Here's Luis insults were former pickup artists, which is very interesting.
Speaker 2: There's actually research on that on pickup artist forums. When
Speaker 2: Internet traffic and user bases were going down. On insul forums,
Speaker 2: that were eight that were going up. So there's a
Speaker 2: pickup artist to insul pipeline. So you can imagine like
Speaker 2: a young man who's like struggling with women and goes
Speaker 2: into pickup artistry and all that bullshit they do, all
Speaker 2: those like stupid manipulative tactics that they use and work
Speaker 2: and then boom they become an insul. People call Andrew
Speaker 2: Tate an inso like insos hate all those I hate
Speaker 2: those people. Those people suck. So that's one misconception that
Speaker 2: it's not a guy who hates women. Look, I hate
Speaker 2: to say this, there's plenty of guys out there who
Speaker 2: hate women and they do just fine. You know, that's
Speaker 2: just the unfortunate reality. Okay, we don't live in some
Speaker 2: just world, and there are plenty of guys who don't
Speaker 2: hate women and their virgins.
Speaker 1: We've heard how isolation and victimhood can grow into violence,
Speaker 1: loneliness into identity, and resentment into community. This echo chamber
Speaker 1: is only getting louder. Next time, we'll step into the
Speaker 1: broader world of the manosphere, from online influencers to self
Speaker 1: proclaimed alpha males. We'll look at how their messages are
Speaker 1: reaching literally hundreds of millions of men and boys, and
Speaker 1: what that means for the rest of us. For more
Speaker 1: information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at kat on Score Studios. In Cells is produced
Speaker 1: by Stephanie Leideger, Gabriel Castillo and me Courtney Armstrong. Additional
Speaker 1: producing by Connor Powell and Caroline Miller, editing by Jeff
Speaker 1: tooi music by Vanicore Studios. In Cells is a production
Speaker 1: of Kat's Studios and iHeart Radio. For more podcasts like this,
Speaker 1: Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.