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Comment by JohnBooty | Hacker News Reader

Yes, you do see that.

The etymology here is muddled... as etymology almost always is. It's also pretty interesting.

The Wikipedia article has a really (surprisingly) good rundown on the history of the term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel

So, yes, it was originally a term of self-identification dating all the way back to the 1990s.

Usage as an insult began after self-identified incels began making headlines by murdering people. After that, "incel" became shorthand for men who were bitter, alienated, misogynistic, and potentially violent.

A very similar thing happened in the 1990s, after a string of workplace killings by postal workers in the U.S. -- the phrase "going postal" entered the vernacular for a time.

When "incel" is used as an insult like this, I don't believe it is ever meant as a literal reference to the subject's sexual activity or lack thereof; only as a reference to their bitter attitude.

View on HN

The same holds true for the words [censored] and [censored] however, yet somehow both of these are bad but "incel" is okay.

I had to repost it because https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24250085 does not appear when viewing it outside of my account.

Those two are used by the far right, while this one is used by the (far) left. Much like folks on imgur will unironically call for lynchings of right wing idiots who did some heinous stuff but will be outraged if some right wing forum calls for the same of left wing idiots who did some heinous stuff. Controlling slurs (and even more so: pretending that a slur that you use as a slur isn't a slur) is a tactical maneuver on the rhetorical battle field.

A common argument is "but this is given based on behavior". It's a bad argument, because the same is true for most usages of any slur.

- One is a slur based strictly on the color of one's skin

- One is a slur based on one's sexual preferences

- One is a slur based on a self-applied label some have chosen for themselves and represents (and I am phrasing this as neutrally as possible) a very specific set of beliefs

Which one of these is not like the others?

All three words are generally considered OK when used by people in those communities, and generally considered as slurs when used by people who are not.

Yeah. Additionally, all three terms have consonants and vowels! The more we look, the more similar they get.

You've badly missed the point.

Intrinsic properties like a person's skin color are not even remotely comparable to an misogynistic ideology they have chosen. To do so is to embarrass yourself and convince nobody.

> - One is a slur based strictly on the color of one's skin

I've talked to far-right people who would dispute that. They'd say there's a difference between a black man and a n., and you can be a n. if you're white, because it's the behavior that defines it.

> - One is a slur based on one's sexual preferences

That one is even more questionable, I believe. Effeminate men are called f., especially homosexuals. Nobody calls a bear that. Sissy would be a similar term, and it's used in similar ways as a pejorative towards heterosexual men when they act "unmanly" in the same way.

> One is a slur based on a self-applied label

As was mentioned: it is not always self-applied, especially not when used as a slur, where the usage has reached inflationary levels on e.g. imgur.

> I've talked to far-right people who would dispute that. They'd say there's a difference

You are correct that they do this. I've heard it for decades.

The primary problem with this is that people don't get to make up their own definitions for words, and force those definitions on the rest of society.

A secondary reason is that it's a BS cop-out. They know what they mean when they use the word. We know what they mean when they use the word. Lying about it when they get called on exposes them as the hateful cowards that they are.

> The primary problem with this is that people don't get to make up their own definitions for words, and force those definitions on the rest of society.

Do you think that certain communities should not have their own dialect? Or do you think that if a member of such a community happens to use said dialect outside of the community and later clarified the specific definitions of the words that they used, they should not be given the benefit of the doubt?

> that it's a BS cop-out. They know what they mean when they use the word. We know what they mean when they use the word. Lying about it when they get called on exposes them as the hateful cowards that they are.

I am not black and I have been called a [censored] in the past, quite a few times in fact. It used to be quite common in multiplayer games and certain online communities around a decade ago, it still is but less so. If you know what they meant when they used that word then please do tell me, because I seriously doubt that they believed that I was an african american.

There’s an auto-censoring mechanism on HN which is triggered by certain words:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23259073#23269284

That is a shockingly poor comparison, defying all logic.

"Incel" was a term of self-identification chosen by a subculture of people and refers to a specific set of beliefs they subscribe to.

It is not even remotely equivalent to the slurs you mentioned in your original comment. One of those slurs is based on the color of one's skin. Another one is based on one's sexual orientation.

(I can see your original post because I have "showdead" turned on in my HN prefs)

> "Incel" was a term of self-identification chosen by a subculture of people and refers to a specific set of beliefs they subscribe to.

And [censored] was originally a unit of measurement, while a variant of [censored] is commonly used between members of the african-american community to self-identify/refer to each other.

Regardless, we are talking about the use of incel to refer to someone who does not identify as part of said community.

> One of those slurs is based on the color of one's skin. Another one is based on one's sexual orientation.

And the other is based on whether they are virgins or not.

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