Identity Construction in a Misogynist Incels Forum
This research addresses the issue of misogynist hate speech in online communities for researchers and practitioners in automated detection, though it is incremental as it applies existing methods to new data.
The study tackled the problem of understanding identity construction in a misogynist incels forum by using quantitative text and network analysis, finding that the community produces novel identity terms and exhibits an essentialist ideology based on physical appearance and hierarchies.
Online communities of involuntary celibates (incels) are a prominent source of misogynist hate speech. In this paper, we use quantitative text and network analysis approaches to examine how identity groups are discussed on incels-dot-is, the largest black-pilled incels forum. We find that this community produces a wide range of novel identity terms and, while terms for women are most common, mentions of other minoritized identities are increasing. An analysis of the associations made with identity groups suggests an essentialist ideology where physical appearance, as well as gender and racial hierarchies, determine human value. We discuss implications for research into automated misogynist hate speech detection.