Reply All: #120 INVCEL

May 10, 2018 6:50 AM

How a shy, queer Canadian woman accidentally invented one of the internet's most toxic male communities.
posted by Tevin (10 comments total)

Well, this is my nightmare.
posted by dinty_moore at 9:46 AM on May 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm stuck thinking about fifteen years worth of abandoned projects and communities and wondering what I would do if I found out that one day one of them became a haven for terrorism.
posted by dinty_moore at 9:51 AM on May 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

I started a ukulele discussion group on Yahoo and then forgot about it and when I checked in a few years later there were several thousand people actively discussing the topic. Nobody was planning any terrorism, though.
posted by maxsparber at 11:27 AM on May 11, 2018 [9 favorites]

That sounds like about as much as one can hope for out of a ukulele group
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:05 AM on May 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

I started a ukulele discussion group on Yahoo and then forgot about it and when I checked in a few years later there were several thousand people actively discussing the topic. Nobody was planning any terrorism, though.

Everything is subjective, I suppose
posted by Cogito at 10:22 PM on May 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

The twee army rises.
posted by maxsparber at 6:33 AM on May 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Great podcast.

That a queer academic invented INVCEL is astonishing. I suppose it's always easier to make a thoughtful and harmless thing horrible than to do the opposite. But, it's sad to see.

Now I can't help wondering what a neo-nazi amateur uke forum would look like. That's probably a question best left unanswered.
posted by eotvos at 9:55 AM on May 14, 2018

I felt bad for her that she took on so much guilt over what INVCEL had become. I wanted to tell her, "Don't take on that extra emotional labour!" Honestly, she had no way of knowing her thoughtful creation would go rancid, and it's not her fault.

I also listened to Canadaland's The Manosphere and it was another good look at this horror show.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:56 AM on May 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

I listened to this on a walk and the MGTOW dude's audio got a rare out-loud "oh fuck you" from me.

I feel like I really could have used a warning before the Elliot Rodger video, though; I deliberately chose to avoid it in 2014 and I was quite disturbed by it here.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:13 PM on May 22, 2018

This was mind blowing and terrible. I know that IRL, people come up with ideas that then mushroom in different and sometimes terrible directions, but there's something about how this can happen on the internet that is uniquely terrifying. Who knows, people probably felt that way about the printing press, but right now the internet megaphone is what we have and have so little control over.
posted by latkes at 10:00 AM on May 26, 2018