The incel lexicon: Deciphering the emergent cryptolect of a global misogynistic community

• Main Authors: Gothard, Kelly, Dewhurst, David Rushing, Minot, Joshua R, Adams, Jane Lydia, Danforth, Christopher M, Dodds, Peter Sheridan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 25-05-2021
• Subjects: Computer Science - Computation and Language; Computer Science - Social and Information Networks
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2105.12006

Evolving out of a gender-neutral framing of an involuntary celibate identity,
the concept of `incels' has come to refer to an online community of men who
bear antipathy towards themselves, women, and society-at-large for their
perceived inability to find and maintain sexual relationships. By exploring
incel language use on Reddit, a global online message board, we contextualize
the incel community's online expressions of misogyny and real-world acts of
violence perpetrated against women. After assembling around three million
comments from incel-themed Reddit channels, we analyze the temporal dynamics of
a data driven rank ordering of the glossary of phrases belonging to an emergent
incel lexicon. Our study reveals the generation and normalization of an
extensive coded misogynist vocabulary in service of the group's identity.