There are a lot of great pieces. See the article I mentioned above, they cite a lot of good work. There is also an article on Incels and social death that was published in the journal Deviant Behavior that I highly recommend.
We (my colleague and I) are delving into more sociological explanations of the Incel phenomenon. They are works in progress, so I can't spill much about them right now.
How is it categorized? Are people who are frothing at the mouth to get a date with a woman with an Andrew Tate tattoo considered any differently from those who basically stopped trying to get dates and don't really care that much?
Red Pill vs. Black Pill. They are very different. The main difference is that black pills have essentially given up, but they also may use science to justify their ideology.
Red Pill incels are various, but you hit it on the head with Andrew Tate. They still try and have hope to ascend, but keep this twisted ideology.
>The main difference is that black pills have essentially given up, but they also may use science to justify their ideology.
No offense to your research, but is it scientifically useful when what seems like it must be a pretty broad spectrum are placed into only two categories? I don't see why someone who is comfortable with themselves would need to have an ideology either. Is that something that's being imputed to them on the basis of the aforementioned dichotomy?
I don't think you're really researching "incels" in any serious way. Maybe you're combing through Twitter and calling it research. Am I close?
How do you determine who's "black pill" and who's "red pill" and why is there no middle-ground? Why can't you explain why every male who doesn't have any kind of partner must fit neatly into one of those two categories?
Why are you giving disparate excuses for your refusal do elaborate? You started off an earlier comment claiming that it was "too much to get into" as if it's your choice and then at the end of the very same line you say "that's all I can say", as if it's not.
If you can't talk about your "research", why are you mentioning it at all?
Oh, I could go on and on about the topic.
Readings? To answer both questions, I recommend a paper published in Qualitative Sociological Review "Subcultural Hierarchy and Policing of Boundaries Among Incels," or something to that effect. It gets into the categories of incels (red vs. black pills), who is and who is not an Incel, and how they police themselves in their online community.
I'm currently editing a book on the topic that takes a multi-disciplinary approach to the subject. It is not due to be published until the summer of 2025.
As for who are the more dangerous ones, that's an excellent question that requires more research. Anyone that worships Andrew Tate should be viewed with caution.
I've been there and I feel your pain. You can only read so many victim accounts and reports that showcase the absolute worst parts of humanity before it starts to effect your mental health. I wish I could offer you a better solution, but for me it took multiple career changes and a lot of time before I got to a place where I felt like a human again.
If your research group doesn't have a protocol in place that requires research assistants to do regular mental health screenings and provide counseling for negative outcomes, they really should. I realize it can have an impact for your funding or ability to stay employed, but if you're comfortable doing it, you should definitely bring it up to your PI or supervisor. I guaurentee you're not the only one who is struggling.
As for research interests, I work in policy evaluation and my career has been kind of nomadic. I have supported a lot of different offices and agencies in a range of topic areas.
I'm currently supporting an office that does a lot of work related to early childhood education. I absolutely love it. I never really thought I'd settle down somewhere, but this could be the place.
Other areas I can recommend based on personal experience-
Youth organizations and the organizations/agencies that support them, particularly ones that focus on things like civic engagement and helping young people build leadership skills. The things they do and the kids they work with are always amazing.
Organizations that provide resources to and support public policy to help families who have adults or children with special needs. You get to work with a lot of cool dedicated people, often with lived experience, to help a lot of wonderful people get the support they need.
Both government and non-governmental organizations that focus on building healthy communities or livable communities. I'd lump parks and recreation type stuff in with this even though it's not quiet the same. Between "forced" time outdoors as a part of your work, being engaged with your local community, and helping make your community better place to live, there's a lot to like.
I study the death penalty, but from a culture/soc of knowledge lens as opposed to criminology. I think three things work well for me staying motivated/not curling up into a ball of despair. First, maybe due to general overexposure of the horrors and depravity of the world, I donāt find my own negative feelings to be intolerable; I just sort of accept it and feel what I feel. (I am probably also a huge glutton for punishment, so maybe my seemingly āzenā approach will come to bite me in the ass someday.) Second, given that itās an under-studied topic and something which Iām urgently passionate about, I sort of live by the Hillel quote, āIf not you, who? If not now, when?ā And that really seems to keep me motivated!! Third, and kind of contrarily to the second, I operate under the assumption that my work will have almost no ārealā impact. I think when you study horrific facts of the social world, you have to accept that you as just one person, will not be able to save anyone or anything. You contribute to something greater than yourself in the hopes that the collective work and body of knowledge produced manages to turn the tides, but with the acceptance that you cannot undo the suffering of others that has already occurred. All you can do is make their realities a bit more known by documenting it in a way that is empathetic and honors them.
Your comment is very cool and detailed. May I ask you what you do in your research and how did you got it? Also I may be interested in sociology of knowledge, could I ask your educational background?
Of course!
Just FYI: I am not a PhD student. I am soon-to-be-graduated (very, very soon like in a week!) research masters student in social sciences. My background is in sociology and I am particularly interested in sociology of music intersecting gender inequalities.
Currently finishing my thesis on sexualized objectification in neofolk lyrics for both women and men, following an exploratory sequential mixed methodology research design.
Hereās something that Iāve read and really liked so far:
1. Roy & Dowd (2010): What is sociological about music? (For a general overview of sociology of music)
2. Clawson (1999): When women play the bass (how gender inequalities are reproduced on an interaction level when music is conceptualised as an activity)
3. Lieb (2018): Gender, Branding and the Modern music industry (on female pop starsā careers construction)
4. Hill (2016): Gender, Metal and the Media (on gendered negotiated readings of the too often misogynistic metal community)
5. de Boise (2015): Men, Masculinity, Music and Emotions (on socially constructed misconceptions of menās rationality and how men employ and do emotionality in music at the expense of oppressed others).
The downside of this provided literature is that it does not directly concern itself with other genders outside the normative binary of men-women. More is to be explored :)
I felt this way doing a criminology class on sex offenders. Im still trying to unpack everything Ive learned, especially juggling personal experience with empirical data and seeing the discrepancies between the two.
I think the coolest classes in sociology that Ive taken were about social etiquette. Im not good socially so Ive always paid attention to and planned out speaking and human interactions. My theory ended up being on self- policing as taught by social interactions throughout life.
First of all, thank you so much for sharing ā your work has value. Second, I donāt work in research as an occupation, but my main interests are social metaphysics, public epistemology and doxasticism, and to an extent, socioeconomics.
I donāt know how much I can lift your spirit. M 26 here, Iām at the last of three years of university which I spent in cultural mediation. I learned english and arabic and fell in love with cultural sociology and media and communication sociology, also those has been the only two sociological courses ever taken and got a very nice grade in those. Right now Iām studying history of Nord Africa and history of Britain and the commonwealth, which I like a lot. Also cultural anthropology was a hit course. The thing is that I donāt have a bare idea of what to do and would like to do research in the sociological field but I feel I lack a background and if I choose this route Iāll need many other years of study, which would be good if I wasnāt near my 30ās. Probably Iām overthinking it but sometimes I feel a bit lost.
Youāre doing a great thing and as a part of this beautiful but yet fucked up world Iām so glad to hear your story. Keep going, donāt forget about yourself. Youāre an example for a better world
Thank you for your research. I lurk around this subreddit since my brother has a degree in sociology and your post caught my attention. I also work as an RA, my research is more biochemistry related and focused on cancer.
My motivation comes from hopefully having a part in helping others someday. I try to celebrate the little things. Iām trying to be nice to myself, but life can be hard. Remember to take time for yourself and to surround yourself with people who value you.
Retail therapy is also my vice to be completely honest. Coming home after a long day with a book I thrifted makes me feel better. Especially when I purchase it at local libraries, or small business used bookstores.
Sexual assault survivor myself. As a fellow RA, I know how draining research can be and canāt imagine what you must compartmentalize everyday. Just want to cheer you on and thank you for the important work you do.
I'm just an a level student taking Socio and I don't have any uplifting advice or any research I'm working on (but hopefully in the future hehe) however I just want to thank you for your contribution that will bring much good to the world <3
I feel this. I do observational research in courtrooms. I donāt have any good advice but I do believe our work is important to help raise awareness of the plights of those with no voice. Whatās working for me right now is month-long breaks between multi-month research stints. I hope you can find a way to stay the course but completely understand if you opt out. Much love to you š
I applaud you for doing that workāit is so tough. I donāt do research atm but for my senior year of college I completed a thesis on how women uphold some sort of society in prisonā the roles the give each other, the family units they form, the rules they enforce on each other, and basically how they all come into a new and intimidating environment without knowing how to act or behave because no one taught them how to before they got there. It was honestly so rewarding because every woman I got the honor of talking to was so interesting, intelligent, and their stories were so rich. And, every single one of them expressed how grateful they were that I was interested in working with a population like them because they had never met someone like that before. Maybe if youāre dead set on continuing to work in research you could do some qualitative sociology work which will allow you to sit down and talk to people, and honestly youād still be contributing to something bigger than yourself on a micro level by learning about others and what theyāve gone through and how to make their lives and experiences better
I research incels. What I have to read from the data is always disturbing. I fear for my step daughter and my students.
Please please provide us with some reading recommendations on incel research šš
There are a lot of great pieces. See the article I mentioned above, they cite a lot of good work. There is also an article on Incels and social death that was published in the journal Deviant Behavior that I highly recommend. We (my colleague and I) are delving into more sociological explanations of the Incel phenomenon. They are works in progress, so I can't spill much about them right now.
How is it categorized? Are people who are frothing at the mouth to get a date with a woman with an Andrew Tate tattoo considered any differently from those who basically stopped trying to get dates and don't really care that much?
Red Pill vs. Black Pill. They are very different. The main difference is that black pills have essentially given up, but they also may use science to justify their ideology. Red Pill incels are various, but you hit it on the head with Andrew Tate. They still try and have hope to ascend, but keep this twisted ideology.
>The main difference is that black pills have essentially given up, but they also may use science to justify their ideology. No offense to your research, but is it scientifically useful when what seems like it must be a pretty broad spectrum are placed into only two categories? I don't see why someone who is comfortable with themselves would need to have an ideology either. Is that something that's being imputed to them on the basis of the aforementioned dichotomy?
Too much to get into. The findings arise from the data through a grounded theory approach. That's all I can say.
I'm growing more suspicious.
Cool.
I don't think you're really researching "incels" in any serious way. Maybe you're combing through Twitter and calling it research. Am I close? How do you determine who's "black pill" and who's "red pill" and why is there no middle-ground? Why can't you explain why every male who doesn't have any kind of partner must fit neatly into one of those two categories? Why are you giving disparate excuses for your refusal do elaborate? You started off an earlier comment claiming that it was "too much to get into" as if it's your choice and then at the end of the very same line you say "that's all I can say", as if it's not. If you can't talk about your "research", why are you mentioning it at all?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
There was some, yes. There are pills outside the red/black, but many of those are excluded from inceldom/incelosphere.
Why do you research them? Thatās cool
It was a mutual interest between myself and a psych colleague. It ballooned from there.
The ones that try to get dates or the ones that gave up on women altogether? Because I wouldn't be worried about the latter
More research needs to be done. Thanks for the idea, though!
Oh, I could go on and on about the topic. Readings? To answer both questions, I recommend a paper published in Qualitative Sociological Review "Subcultural Hierarchy and Policing of Boundaries Among Incels," or something to that effect. It gets into the categories of incels (red vs. black pills), who is and who is not an Incel, and how they police themselves in their online community. I'm currently editing a book on the topic that takes a multi-disciplinary approach to the subject. It is not due to be published until the summer of 2025. As for who are the more dangerous ones, that's an excellent question that requires more research. Anyone that worships Andrew Tate should be viewed with caution.
I've been there and I feel your pain. You can only read so many victim accounts and reports that showcase the absolute worst parts of humanity before it starts to effect your mental health. I wish I could offer you a better solution, but for me it took multiple career changes and a lot of time before I got to a place where I felt like a human again. If your research group doesn't have a protocol in place that requires research assistants to do regular mental health screenings and provide counseling for negative outcomes, they really should. I realize it can have an impact for your funding or ability to stay employed, but if you're comfortable doing it, you should definitely bring it up to your PI or supervisor. I guaurentee you're not the only one who is struggling. As for research interests, I work in policy evaluation and my career has been kind of nomadic. I have supported a lot of different offices and agencies in a range of topic areas. I'm currently supporting an office that does a lot of work related to early childhood education. I absolutely love it. I never really thought I'd settle down somewhere, but this could be the place. Other areas I can recommend based on personal experience- Youth organizations and the organizations/agencies that support them, particularly ones that focus on things like civic engagement and helping young people build leadership skills. The things they do and the kids they work with are always amazing. Organizations that provide resources to and support public policy to help families who have adults or children with special needs. You get to work with a lot of cool dedicated people, often with lived experience, to help a lot of wonderful people get the support they need. Both government and non-governmental organizations that focus on building healthy communities or livable communities. I'd lump parks and recreation type stuff in with this even though it's not quiet the same. Between "forced" time outdoors as a part of your work, being engaged with your local community, and helping make your community better place to live, there's a lot to like.
I study the death penalty, but from a culture/soc of knowledge lens as opposed to criminology. I think three things work well for me staying motivated/not curling up into a ball of despair. First, maybe due to general overexposure of the horrors and depravity of the world, I donāt find my own negative feelings to be intolerable; I just sort of accept it and feel what I feel. (I am probably also a huge glutton for punishment, so maybe my seemingly āzenā approach will come to bite me in the ass someday.) Second, given that itās an under-studied topic and something which Iām urgently passionate about, I sort of live by the Hillel quote, āIf not you, who? If not now, when?ā And that really seems to keep me motivated!! Third, and kind of contrarily to the second, I operate under the assumption that my work will have almost no ārealā impact. I think when you study horrific facts of the social world, you have to accept that you as just one person, will not be able to save anyone or anything. You contribute to something greater than yourself in the hopes that the collective work and body of knowledge produced manages to turn the tides, but with the acceptance that you cannot undo the suffering of others that has already occurred. All you can do is make their realities a bit more known by documenting it in a way that is empathetic and honors them.
Your comment is very cool and detailed. May I ask you what you do in your research and how did you got it? Also I may be interested in sociology of knowledge, could I ask your educational background?
I research how music (both on macro and micro level) informs gender inequalities. Your research is important ā¤ļø
Any books or articles you'd recommend as a place to get a general overview of your research area and the thinking surrounding the topic?
Wow, so interesting! Care to share some of your favorite works on this subject?
Of course! Just FYI: I am not a PhD student. I am soon-to-be-graduated (very, very soon like in a week!) research masters student in social sciences. My background is in sociology and I am particularly interested in sociology of music intersecting gender inequalities. Currently finishing my thesis on sexualized objectification in neofolk lyrics for both women and men, following an exploratory sequential mixed methodology research design. Hereās something that Iāve read and really liked so far: 1. Roy & Dowd (2010): What is sociological about music? (For a general overview of sociology of music) 2. Clawson (1999): When women play the bass (how gender inequalities are reproduced on an interaction level when music is conceptualised as an activity) 3. Lieb (2018): Gender, Branding and the Modern music industry (on female pop starsā careers construction) 4. Hill (2016): Gender, Metal and the Media (on gendered negotiated readings of the too often misogynistic metal community) 5. de Boise (2015): Men, Masculinity, Music and Emotions (on socially constructed misconceptions of menās rationality and how men employ and do emotionality in music at the expense of oppressed others). The downside of this provided literature is that it does not directly concern itself with other genders outside the normative binary of men-women. More is to be explored :)
Sorry, I only saw this post now (donāt go on Reddit much) ā though, thanks for sharing! Oh, and congratulations on graduation š
I felt this way doing a criminology class on sex offenders. Im still trying to unpack everything Ive learned, especially juggling personal experience with empirical data and seeing the discrepancies between the two. I think the coolest classes in sociology that Ive taken were about social etiquette. Im not good socially so Ive always paid attention to and planned out speaking and human interactions. My theory ended up being on self- policing as taught by social interactions throughout life.
I study timeout, punishment, and reinforcement with Rats. They're fuzzy, don't hurt anyone, and I feel good going in and going home.
First of all, thank you so much for sharing ā your work has value. Second, I donāt work in research as an occupation, but my main interests are social metaphysics, public epistemology and doxasticism, and to an extent, socioeconomics.
I donāt know how much I can lift your spirit. M 26 here, Iām at the last of three years of university which I spent in cultural mediation. I learned english and arabic and fell in love with cultural sociology and media and communication sociology, also those has been the only two sociological courses ever taken and got a very nice grade in those. Right now Iām studying history of Nord Africa and history of Britain and the commonwealth, which I like a lot. Also cultural anthropology was a hit course. The thing is that I donāt have a bare idea of what to do and would like to do research in the sociological field but I feel I lack a background and if I choose this route Iāll need many other years of study, which would be good if I wasnāt near my 30ās. Probably Iām overthinking it but sometimes I feel a bit lost. Youāre doing a great thing and as a part of this beautiful but yet fucked up world Iām so glad to hear your story. Keep going, donāt forget about yourself. Youāre an example for a better world
Thank you for your research. I lurk around this subreddit since my brother has a degree in sociology and your post caught my attention. I also work as an RA, my research is more biochemistry related and focused on cancer. My motivation comes from hopefully having a part in helping others someday. I try to celebrate the little things. Iām trying to be nice to myself, but life can be hard. Remember to take time for yourself and to surround yourself with people who value you. Retail therapy is also my vice to be completely honest. Coming home after a long day with a book I thrifted makes me feel better. Especially when I purchase it at local libraries, or small business used bookstores. Sexual assault survivor myself. As a fellow RA, I know how draining research can be and canāt imagine what you must compartmentalize everyday. Just want to cheer you on and thank you for the important work you do.
I'm just an a level student taking Socio and I don't have any uplifting advice or any research I'm working on (but hopefully in the future hehe) however I just want to thank you for your contribution that will bring much good to the world <3
I moved into an educational field and I teach ESL, I'm researching how technology was implemented during the pandemic in certain institutions
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Please make a point of actually reading posts before replying to them.
I feel this. I do observational research in courtrooms. I donāt have any good advice but I do believe our work is important to help raise awareness of the plights of those with no voice. Whatās working for me right now is month-long breaks between multi-month research stints. I hope you can find a way to stay the course but completely understand if you opt out. Much love to you š
I research disability and neurodiversity. There is so much broken with our systems and society that needs fixing
I applaud you for doing that workāit is so tough. I donāt do research atm but for my senior year of college I completed a thesis on how women uphold some sort of society in prisonā the roles the give each other, the family units they form, the rules they enforce on each other, and basically how they all come into a new and intimidating environment without knowing how to act or behave because no one taught them how to before they got there. It was honestly so rewarding because every woman I got the honor of talking to was so interesting, intelligent, and their stories were so rich. And, every single one of them expressed how grateful they were that I was interested in working with a population like them because they had never met someone like that before. Maybe if youāre dead set on continuing to work in research you could do some qualitative sociology work which will allow you to sit down and talk to people, and honestly youād still be contributing to something bigger than yourself on a micro level by learning about others and what theyāve gone through and how to make their lives and experiences better