Radicalised Masculinity: The Systemic Roots of Incel Loneliness
6 min read
Incels are not an isolated phenomenon but a product of systemic forces – capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchal norms – that engineer loneliness and fuel resentment. Capitalism commodifies love and desirability, convincing incels that their lack of romantic success is a personal failure rather than a structural issue. White supremacy reinforces beauty hierarchies, making incels idolize unattainable ideals like the “Chad” while failing to see how they, too, are oppressed by these standards. The beauty ideals they chase exclude most men, including themselves, yet instead of questioning them, incels blame women for their loneliness. Meanwhile, wealth and power shape attractiveness far more than genetics, but incels mistakenly believe desirability is purely biological. Mainstream media misdiagnoses incels as cultural outliers, distracting from the deeper economic, racial, and aesthetic structures that sustain their grievances. The real solution is not in self-improvement or scapegoating women but in challenging the systems that manufacture incel loneliness – because without systemic change, this ideology will continue to evolve in new forms.
Let’s start with a radical idea: incels are not special. Yes, I said it. Shock. Horror. Etc. etc. - the internet being awash with think pieces that treat them like a terrifying new breed of disaffected men. But really, incels are not special – they’re just another byproduct of the systems we all live under, marinating in the same capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal stew as the rest of us.
Capitalism: Engineering Scarcity, Profiting from Loneliness
Capitalism – the overbearing matchmaker, telling everyone, “you’re only as valuable as your market worth”. When you’re an incel – isolated, disenfranchised, economically insecure – it’s easy to believe that your dating failures are a product of not being “competitive” enough in the market of desirability.
Additionally, the idea that love and sex should be transactional (e.g. “If I’m nice to a woman, she should sleep with me”) is a capitalist fantasy. Human relationships don’t operate like Amazon Prime deliveries – you can’t order it as and when and have it arrived by the next day. But capitalism, in its commodification of sex and relationships, would have us all believing it. From rom-coms promising that persistence wins the girl, to beauty industries profiting off manufactured insecurity, to dating apps designed to keep people swiping rather than connecting.
Capitalism, which thrives on scarcity mindsets would have us all believe that if only a select few men (or women) are considered desirable, then the rest must be “doomed” to loneliness. And this hierarchy of desirability is a system that capitalism upholds, because desperate people make excellent consumers. Who else would buy pheromone cologne or overpriced dating courses?
Dating markets and human relationship hierarchies may have always existed in some form or other, from the time there was…people. But enter capitalism, and with it the amplification, the monetisation, and the utterly inescapable feeling of these snakes and ladders. One such being white supremacy.
White Supremacy: Beauty Hierarchies and the Fragility of Privilege
Incels seem to have a strange relationship with white supremacy. On the one hand, they idolise hyper-masculine and racially homogenous beauty standards (“Chad”); while on the other, they feel victimised by the very system that created these standards.
But the racial hierarchy in dating isn’t an incel conspiracy – it’s a byproduct of a society that ranks white features as the gold standard of attractiveness and has made these beauty standards omnipresent. Yet, instead of directing their anger at white supremacy and its stranglehold on beauty ideals, incels lash out at anyone who is different from them.
White supremacy has long dictated who gets to love whom. To be deemed “unlovable” because you’re not at the pinnacle of the white supremacist pecking order is nothing new. And while not all incels are white – non-white incels often internalise the same white supremacist ideals, despite being excluded from them. But incels won’t critique any of that, because to do so would mean recognizing that they, too, are victims of the system they are supporting.
Beauty Standards: The Impossible Ideal That Even ‘Chad’ Can’t Win
Thus, the next irony, amidst all this, is that the beauty standards incels obsess over, were never designed to include them. But, a six-foot, square-jawed, billionaire alpha male excludes almost everyone.
The “Chad” is an unattainable standard for most men, let alone for those struggling with self-esteem, economic insecurity, and social alienation. And under capitalism, where everyone is made to feel inadequate, even “Chad” gets harmed by these beauty standards that, of course, must be maintained.
Furthermore, the pressure of the persona that must accompany these prized appearances – to be hyper-masculine, to avoid emotional vulnerability, to “dominate” rather than connect – all of it is part of the same oppressive structure that keeps incels convinced they are “inherently” unworthy of love.
But rather than reject these impossible standards, incels double down. Instead of questioning why a society should dictate their worth based on a jawline, they invest in jaw exercises. They seek validation from a system that profits from their misery, making themselves more miserable in the process of this endless cycle. And, being opposed to challenging this system that makes them feel so undesirable, they blame women for not “fixing” the problem their resulting loneliness.
Money, Power, and the True Price of ‘Attractiveness’
The fact that those with wealth and privilege can bypass many of the struggles of the average person, let alone the average incel, further highlights how manufactured it all is, and therefore, how misplaced the incel’s rage. Because beauty standards don’t just operate on “genetics” – they are attributed and regulated through access to resources.
The wealthy can afford cosmetic procedures, skincare treatments, personal trainers, and high-end fashion, making it easier to conform to idealized standards. They also have the time to maintain these routines, unlike those who are struggling just to make two ends meet.
Similarly, social status itself enhances attractiveness. Class, wealth, power, can all make someone appear more attractive, regardless of their actual features. And in the media: wealthy individuals (irrespective of their body shape, size, or physical features – be it Kardashian curves or Zuckerberg smiles) are photographed, styled, and curated to present their best image – setting trends, and reinforcing impossible standards for the rest of society.
So, “beauty” isn’t just about looks; and incels are screeding about something they don’t even realize is rigged by economic disparities. They believe attraction is rigidly biological but don’t see all these structural factors. They argue that women are “hardwired” to desire Chads, but can’t acknowledge how money, privilege, and the media shape beauty standards in ways that are neither natural nor even fixed.
The Media: Profiting from Panic, Ignoring the Real Problem
Now I get it, between the school curriculum and the modern media, it’s hard to get a proper education. And although some teachers, journalists, and researchers might attempt to examine the cultural aspects that shape incel ideology through a systemic lens, most narratives will simply reinforce the same; because it is those same systemic ideologies that those institutions were built on. And so mainstream discussions will focus on incels as a cultural pathology rather than a systemic byproduct, as ever, blaming individuals rather institutions and looking for symptoms rather than at the widespread root causes.
After all, it is easier to stoke panic over a select group, than it is to even ask these hard questions – let alone attempt to fix the answer to them. So, we’re asked to keep pretending incels are a unique phenomenon, instead of just another iteration of alienation under oppressive systems. We’re silenced into letting them scapegoat women instead of pointing them toward the real problem – an economic, racial, and aesthetic hierarchy designed to keep them lonely, desperate, and angry.
We permit news outlets to profit from the panic and cycles of outrage caused by the latest incel violence; and allow social media platforms to let these same incels fester in algorithmically curated misery. We smile and nod as they are framed as a terrifying, mysterious subculture rather than a sign of much bigger problems. And all the while capitalism happily continues its commodification of love; white supremacy entrenches further its rigid hierarchies; and beauty standards keep churning us all into consumers.
Nothing Changes Until the System Does
But the way out of inceldom is neither in their hyper-fixating on self-improvement to ‘earn’ desirability nor is it in mainstream deferral and defection. It is in recognizing that these systems are the problem. And until we do something about these systems, the incel will remain – in this iteration or another.
