by Evelyn San Miguel ‘26

With the recent release of Netflix series Adolescence, whose plot revolves around a young boy whose path down the alt-right incel pipeline push him to fatally stab his female classmate, those who have been in the dark about this dangerous subculture of young male insecurity have found themselves horrified by the true-to-life themes the series discusses. Those who have some semblance of an online presence, however, found themselves unsurprisingly unsurprised.

Short for involuntary celibate, incel subculture has existed for decades — coalescing with other overlapping spheres of right-wing extremism, misogyny, sexism, and rape culture. Usually starting on social media sites, young men are groomed through hyper-specific algorithms that recommend more and more extreme views as they click from one video to the next. From podcasters and talk-show hosts like Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, and Andrew Tate, young men are taken down the rabbit hole that is the incel subculture. From then on, platforms like Reddit, Discord, and 4Chan place men and boys in an echochamber of insecurity and a radical hatred of women. The recent sparking of debate around the existence and the dangers of incel subculture comes at a time in which the race is already over — those who are just noticing the radicalization of America’s young men brewing beneath the surface find themselves horrendously late to the party.