Language 'gatekeeping' will look the same as filtering. Language and formatting filtering makes intention of the receieved egagement more clear, it doesn't have to be about in-group signaling.
This is off-topic however I really wish your comments page didn’t redirect me to the Substack app. I don’t like using the Substack app at all and it makes it much more cumbersome to engage with your content for me. I don’t remember the Substack redirect when I first started reading default blog.
Really good thoughts re: etymologynerd. I haven't read Algospeak and in general it seems like he has a good grasp of the McLuhanist internet language process but I agree with you that he totally missed the mark on the spread of Incel slang.
I actually think if he used his normal line of linguistic reasoning he would have arrived at the correct conclusion that you outlined: these words help people describe something real and experienced in their life. They are, mostly, acquired to either describe that experience literally or hyperbolically. In an age of 'acceptance', a lot of people come/came up against the still-powerful beauty & dating norms and incelspeak reflects a language-set developed to describe that. Add to that your additional notes which get at a more accurate understanding of internet radicalization.
What happened, imo, is that he imported a dangerously unhelpful liberal theory: Mainstreaming. Mainstreaming, for some reason, is still a dominant explanation in the academy for how radical ideas spread outside of their initially niche communities. It basically asserts a 100% intentional, self-aware, and propagandistic technique whereby niche communities package their ideas into a friendly form or intentionally confine their ideas to the most palatable then send them out to win converts.
It's not wrong, exactly, and it describes some instances of the more formal propaganda of earlier eras well (even up to and including TV, I remember Tucker being so popular among old and at-the-time normal white conservatives despite the 4chan freaks he had on writing staff in part because they knew how to write to an audience). It completely and utterly vaporizes on impact when applied to the internet though and I have no clue why he relied on it. He might not have even realized.
I have other thoughts on that video because I think it's actually pretty bad but that's one big one.
Totally agree re the incel “Trojan horse” being a misattribution of intention to organic language spread. I was thinking the other day how crazy it is that the language of such a definitionally marginalised group (ie most people don’t want to be associated with incels) became so mainstreamed/ubiquitous, thoughts follow:
- incel terminology is part of an extremely intricately plotted social theory, which is 1. often wildly wrong in its detail & extrapolations but 2. based on kernals of recognisably true intuitions about things in (particularly western) society . And to the extent that 2 is true, the jargon is “useful”, in the way Pinker talks about “good” jargon - ie provides an intelligible & consistent shorthand for an idea that makes thought easier. Eg, is chad sleeping with 5000 women? No, but we recognise what a chad is & it defines a concept that say “stud” or “jock” didn’t really cover. See also: rotting or looksmaxing.
- So, relatedly, these terms are basically appropriated by the mainstream to describe the same kind of qualitative concept, but without the fake/pseudo empiricism of incel culture - I’m bald and middle aged, I get “hitting the wall”, and it’s a “useful” (in a linguistic sense) term even though what it’s describing, in the real world, does not happen on turning 30
fwiw re: efil anxiety—there's this book titled I think just "Nature" that had some thoughtful critique of deep ecology. Basically, it's common to get all anti-human when you see how we're stewarding the planet; but any species that hacked language and technology to outpace natural selection as an evolutionary mechanism would have similar problems! Organisms evolve to consume energy, reverse entropy, and output waste; to figure out how to spread planet-wide without killing the planet is tricky and highly unlikely to have evolved naturally.
I used to worry about the Fermi paradox, but (1) it might have been becoming eukaryotic that was the filter, see PBS Spacetime on this theory and (2) SOMEone's gotta be first to be galactic elders, may as well be us~
In addition to providing training wheels, I think AI chatbots can take pressure off human relationships. A lot of people ask too much of their friends and loved ones; if you struggle to cope with hardship on your own, not even your own mother wants to hear about every little thing that goes wrong in your life. But AI will never get tired of listening to you complain. It will never get frustrated with you when you don't follow its advice but keep asking for more. It will have the exact same conversation with you over and over without getting bored. People who struggle to form stable relationships because they have needs no human being can satisfy might find that, with AI, they can put a better foot forward with mankind and maintain healthy boundaries.
I agree & im not sure it’s a bad thing. I offload a lot of my crazy validation seeking (“are you sure xyz otc med combination isn’t poisonous?”) to ai and I think it’s been a good thing
Of course the incel problem isn’t only about white men. It’s a huge problem among Asians living in democracies. “Ricecels” (Asian incels) probably have it the worst among men of all ethnicities in the United States today. For femcels it’s provably the worst among black women, although I read (10 years ago anyway, things may have changed a lot since then) that the Jewish and Mormon communities were full of involuntary spinsters (“inspin”? I think I read that somewhere?)
I don’t think enough attention gets paid to the femcel issue. I suspect there are a lot more than most people realize.
Also, you looked very nice in your femcel interview a few months back, Katherine. I didn’t want to say anything as you are married but then you wore the ugly hat for a long time afterwards so I felt guilty for not complimenting you.
Yes the incel slang is definitely becoming mainstream. I made a new friend on Twitter and when we met in person he said I must “mog” a lot of the men around me, introducing me to this slang. Neither of us I are incels in the traditional (lol) sense.
Language 'gatekeeping' will look the same as filtering. Language and formatting filtering makes intention of the receieved egagement more clear, it doesn't have to be about in-group signaling.
This is off-topic however I really wish your comments page didn’t redirect me to the Substack app. I don’t like using the Substack app at all and it makes it much more cumbersome to engage with your content for me. I don’t remember the Substack redirect when I first started reading default blog.
That's not me up to me, sadly. It's a site thing.
Figures.
Really good thoughts re: etymologynerd. I haven't read Algospeak and in general it seems like he has a good grasp of the McLuhanist internet language process but I agree with you that he totally missed the mark on the spread of Incel slang.
I actually think if he used his normal line of linguistic reasoning he would have arrived at the correct conclusion that you outlined: these words help people describe something real and experienced in their life. They are, mostly, acquired to either describe that experience literally or hyperbolically. In an age of 'acceptance', a lot of people come/came up against the still-powerful beauty & dating norms and incelspeak reflects a language-set developed to describe that. Add to that your additional notes which get at a more accurate understanding of internet radicalization.
What happened, imo, is that he imported a dangerously unhelpful liberal theory: Mainstreaming. Mainstreaming, for some reason, is still a dominant explanation in the academy for how radical ideas spread outside of their initially niche communities. It basically asserts a 100% intentional, self-aware, and propagandistic technique whereby niche communities package their ideas into a friendly form or intentionally confine their ideas to the most palatable then send them out to win converts.
It's not wrong, exactly, and it describes some instances of the more formal propaganda of earlier eras well (even up to and including TV, I remember Tucker being so popular among old and at-the-time normal white conservatives despite the 4chan freaks he had on writing staff in part because they knew how to write to an audience). It completely and utterly vaporizes on impact when applied to the internet though and I have no clue why he relied on it. He might not have even realized.
I have other thoughts on that video because I think it's actually pretty bad but that's one big one.
Totally agree re the incel “Trojan horse” being a misattribution of intention to organic language spread. I was thinking the other day how crazy it is that the language of such a definitionally marginalised group (ie most people don’t want to be associated with incels) became so mainstreamed/ubiquitous, thoughts follow:
- incel terminology is part of an extremely intricately plotted social theory, which is 1. often wildly wrong in its detail & extrapolations but 2. based on kernals of recognisably true intuitions about things in (particularly western) society . And to the extent that 2 is true, the jargon is “useful”, in the way Pinker talks about “good” jargon - ie provides an intelligible & consistent shorthand for an idea that makes thought easier. Eg, is chad sleeping with 5000 women? No, but we recognise what a chad is & it defines a concept that say “stud” or “jock” didn’t really cover. See also: rotting or looksmaxing.
- So, relatedly, these terms are basically appropriated by the mainstream to describe the same kind of qualitative concept, but without the fake/pseudo empiricism of incel culture - I’m bald and middle aged, I get “hitting the wall”, and it’s a “useful” (in a linguistic sense) term even though what it’s describing, in the real world, does not happen on turning 30
fwiw re: efil anxiety—there's this book titled I think just "Nature" that had some thoughtful critique of deep ecology. Basically, it's common to get all anti-human when you see how we're stewarding the planet; but any species that hacked language and technology to outpace natural selection as an evolutionary mechanism would have similar problems! Organisms evolve to consume energy, reverse entropy, and output waste; to figure out how to spread planet-wide without killing the planet is tricky and highly unlikely to have evolved naturally.
I used to worry about the Fermi paradox, but (1) it might have been becoming eukaryotic that was the filter, see PBS Spacetime on this theory and (2) SOMEone's gotta be first to be galactic elders, may as well be us~
All of a sudden I feel the power of a galactic elder 🤭 thank you for bestowing this upon us 🥰
In addition to providing training wheels, I think AI chatbots can take pressure off human relationships. A lot of people ask too much of their friends and loved ones; if you struggle to cope with hardship on your own, not even your own mother wants to hear about every little thing that goes wrong in your life. But AI will never get tired of listening to you complain. It will never get frustrated with you when you don't follow its advice but keep asking for more. It will have the exact same conversation with you over and over without getting bored. People who struggle to form stable relationships because they have needs no human being can satisfy might find that, with AI, they can put a better foot forward with mankind and maintain healthy boundaries.
I agree & im not sure it’s a bad thing. I offload a lot of my crazy validation seeking (“are you sure xyz otc med combination isn’t poisonous?”) to ai and I think it’s been a good thing
Yay :-) it’s been a long couple of weeks. The best part of the week is the call-in show :-)
Thank you!!
Of course the incel problem isn’t only about white men. It’s a huge problem among Asians living in democracies. “Ricecels” (Asian incels) probably have it the worst among men of all ethnicities in the United States today. For femcels it’s provably the worst among black women, although I read (10 years ago anyway, things may have changed a lot since then) that the Jewish and Mormon communities were full of involuntary spinsters (“inspin”? I think I read that somewhere?)
I don’t think enough attention gets paid to the femcel issue. I suspect there are a lot more than most people realize.
Also, you looked very nice in your femcel interview a few months back, Katherine. I didn’t want to say anything as you are married but then you wore the ugly hat for a long time afterwards so I felt guilty for not complimenting you.
Yes the incel slang is definitely becoming mainstream. I made a new friend on Twitter and when we met in person he said I must “mog” a lot of the men around me, introducing me to this slang. Neither of us I are incels in the traditional (lol) sense.
Traditional incel = “tradcel?” 😂
P.S. Being a long-time blackpiller I found your title refreshing!