Blackpilled Masculinity, Media and Incels
By Meadhbh Park
Incels – involuntary celibates – are often cast as violent, misogynistic loners, consumed by resentment towards women. With shocking tragedies like the 2014 Isla Vista killings and the 2024 Bondi Junction stabbings heightening fears about the threat they pose, understanding this phenomenon has never been more crucial.
But it’s important not to view incels as aliens who came down to earth on women-hating spaceships from a distant women-hating planet. Though their belief system – referred to as the ‘blackpill’ – is no doubt extreme, they haven’t constructed it from nothing. These young men are shaped by the media they consume and the society that surrounds us.
In Blackpilled, Meadhbh Park takes an unflinching look at the incel movement through the lenses of masculinity and media studies. Drawing on interviews with incels across the globe and analysing cultural touchstones such as The Matrix, Fight Club, Taxi Driver, Euphoria, Joker and Blade Runner 2049, Park uncovers the origins of their beliefs and what they really think. She also examines potential ways to help incels break free from the nihilistic and hate-fuelled grip of the blackpill.
With extremist misogyny on the rise and governments debating whether incels should be labelled a terror threat, Blackpilled delivers urgent, thought-provoking conclusions that couldn’t be more timely.
Reviews
“An extensive deep dive into incel culture that explores how misogyny in wider society and culture, as well as cultural stereotypes about how men and women should be, have helped to shape the online subculture and its ugly attitudes towards women.”
Siân Norris, author of Bodies Under Siege: How the Far-Right Attack on Reproductive Rights Went Global
“A compelling and important book. It demonstrates that the misogynistic extremism of the incel community does not exist in a vacuum, detached from societal ideas, but rather originates from the heart of society – from its media.”
Susanne Kaiser, author of Political Masculinity: How Incels, Fundamentalists and Authoritarians Mobilise for Patriarchy
“A forensic examination into the online incel movement that is both critical and compassionate. I came away from Meadhbh Park’s important investigation with a far better understanding of what draws men into misogynistic online subcultures. This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what is happening in the darker corners of the internet.”
James Bloodworth, author of Lost Boys: Undercover Adventures in Toxic Masculinity
“Blackpilled is a timely and critically important contribution to the wider public understanding of the incel phenomenon. Grounded in research with incels (an achievement in itself!), Meadhbh Park addresses this vexed issue with intellectual depth, nuance, reflexivity and, crucially, empathy. Blackpilled sheds new light on this often-misunderstood online world and its misogynistic ideology, demonstrating both the vulnerabilities of the young men drawn in and their violent potential. It’s an essential contribution to the study of online misogyny and radicalisation.”
Josh Roose, co-author of Masculinity and Violent Extremism and associate professor at Deakin University, Australia
“Blackpilled provides a key insight into the very dark and complex issues currently influencing and spreading among vulnerable young men online. Meadhbh Park performs a worthy dissection of a complicated web of difficult concepts and has created a compelling text of essential reading for anyone wishing to better understand the rise of incel ideology.”
Travis D. Frain OBE DL, co-founder of Survivors Against Terror
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- Hardback, 352 pages
- ISBN: 9781785908941
- 3 April 2025
- £20.00
- eBook
- ISBN: 9781837360000
- 3 April 2025
- £14.99