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9 - ‘I’d Say That Being Here Has Helped Me’

Attracting New Members to Online Incel Communities

from III - The Dark Side of Persuasion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2025

By
Frazer Heritage
Edited by
Sofia Rüdiger  and
Daria Dayter
Sofia Rüdiger
Affiliation:
Universität Bayreuth, Germany
Daria Dayter
Affiliation:
Tampere University, Finland
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Summary

This chapter explores how members of the online incel community interact with (presumably) new members on the subreddit r/Braincels. It seeks to explore why new members might stay on a website known for hostility and poor mental health. Through the use of corpus linguistic methods, I explore ways that members of the community might interact with newcomers. I argue that users do not index their identity as new on the forum through lexemes such as new or first, and that there appears to be few repeated and explicit ways that members signal posting on the forum for the first time. As such, I analyse how incels construct their community, by using corpus linguistic methods and Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal framework. I argue that the members of the incel community constructed their group as ‘toxic’, but also as a place where they were able to receive mental health support. Ultimately, I argue that more work needs to be done to explore not only why people might engage with these kinds of forums, but also how members of the incel community convince people to stay engaged.

Keywords

incelsmanospherecorpus linguisticsCorpus-Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS)community buildingrecruitment
Type
Chapter
Information
Manipulation, Influence and Deception
The Changing Landscape of Persuasive Language
 , pp. 177 - 195
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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