Self-hatred, Depression, and the Cycle of Division - How it Leads to Violence
So I wrote a twitter thread on the subject after seeing ContraPoints latest video on incels, which you can find here. I recommend watching it, it's really good.
I wrote about my own personal feelings on hyper-negativity and how it affects those that are mentally vulnerable, such as myself when I was younger.
The new ContraPoints video on incels is really good, especially the small divergence into the trans self-hate circles on 4ch and other places. I used to be locked within those places for so long and always felt like shit about it. Life has been so much better since I just stopped looking at negative garbage. I totally get the mindset, and I empathize with people that find themselves trapped in that negative spiral of self-hate and hating their other self-hating associates, it's like a toxic virus that consumes every part of you and when you're in that environment as a teenager, you grow up around those people, you develop the nostalgia for that style of behavior that makes you always think back "man that was so fun" because you just ignore how awful you were overall, and just focus on le funny maymays and shit that you shitpost about and stuff like that. I totally get how people find themselves trapped there, and often they just don't realize it. I wish it were easier to help them realize that being a self-hating edgelord 100% of the time is unhealthy, but I dunno how.
It's scary how self-hate can turn into outward violence in the case of incels. This is why I'm so vocally against the things I am against, because the culture we're all living in is trying to infect every one of us with similar kinds of viruses that lead to violence and hate. It's so important that we break the cycles of hate and division and look positively at each other and build a better future. The bad actors that take advantage of mentally vulnerable people and turn them into hateful followers are such a problem, too.
At my worst, as a super depressed and poor teen with so many self-image issues I can totally see myself being brainwashed and turned into a violent person if I had stumbled upon the wrong people or person online. It's so scary how easy it is. I don't believe every incel or 4chan-tran (pardon my rhyme I couldn't help myself) is a terrible person, but they need our help more than anything. Nowadays there are just so many evil fucks trying to brainwash them all over the place that sometimes it seems futile, though.
Anxiety plays a big part in all of it, too. When you're sad and lonely and hate yourself, it's hard to reach out to people that look happy because you feel "I'm not like them, I'm not like them, I can't be like them" all the time running through your head, and then on the other side you see people vindicating your thoughts of self-hate, and twisting them into some crazy cult-like rhetoric that's designed to empower your worst thoughts and feelings rather than empower your best thoughts and feelings, because you just don't feel like you have any. It's easy to just stay in the bubble and be with your "friends" that all hate each other but hate the "other people" more because hate feels natural and normal, at least to a lot of people that I know and myself when I was younger.
Gosh, I wish I were normal sometimes...,
I don't really know how to solve any of these issues, it requires so much more than just personal effort. However, I can say that tolerating hatred and allowing it to run rampant, along with violence and division, can't be how we act as a society. Letting people get away with such awful, hateful rhetoric and then just go "welp, free speech!" is such a bad, bad, bad idea. These toxic ideologies not only kill actual people, but plant seeds within our heads that kill us later than sooner, as well as just drag our lives down from our peak potential. I want to be happy all the time, not just some of the time. I don't want to think about this nonsense, but if I just ignore it, it only gets worse. We can stop the cycle for future generations, and that's what I want to work toward.
Great post, glad you broke that cycle!
Self hatred is the absolute worst. We all have our problems but hating ourselves won't get us any further. I was a very angry and unhappy person once. Now I can finally accept my flaws and things are so much better
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Hey @cyberdemon531, watched the vid you linked to, which was great - clear and sharp in observation and wit :) ......
I imagine that he roots of this propensity to self-hate must go back to the formative years and emotional development in the primary environment, age 0-7ish. If there is abuse/violence/trauma, the message internalised by the child will likely be that they are worthless, no good blah blah. This message is believed to be true, and then - as the host points out in the video- one disregards positive feedback, as there is little or no self-esteem and eventually finds comfort in the familiarity of the negative (catastrophising).
The host also posed the question at one time 'Why do people self harm?'. For me, the answer seems to be that this serves as a distraction. When the emotional/mental pain is so much, then making cuts in one's skin (for example) causes physical pain which can be focused on. This is a lesser magnitude of pain than what is going on inside at the emotional/psychological level, and therefore a distraction.
I came here via your swatted vid btw. Very fucked up, but I got the impression you were able to maintain presence throughout and remain externally (at least) calm - lots of respect and admiration from me! I hope your mum has not been overly traumatised by her rough treatment.
The stuff I see on 4chan about mgtow and incels is extremely toxic. One of the main reasons these ideologies have become so toxic is because they were censored and pushed off into echo chambers.
The only way to pop the bubble is to prevent echo chambers and force people to have to speak in more public places where we are all forced to constantly debate and argue with each other. Sadly things have gone so off the rails that its often pretty painful to see how 4chan has become such an echo chamber for this kind of "red pilling"...
The reality is that the red pilling is not so much about truth sometimes, it ends up being a cycle of self destruction. Ultimately men and women do need to get along if we are to procreate!
Pushing things away into the fringe has both positives and negatives, though. It can embolden a lot of the super kool-aid drunk individuals, but it also fractions off a lot of people who aren't really into the whole thing entirely. I know from personal experience that I and many others have been removed from places for being belligerent and have changed behavior because of it.
4chan used to be about making fun of cringey losers, but it's evolved into BEING the cringey losers we made fun of. It's totally weird. Anyone who has used 4chan, like, before 2014 would hate like 99% of the current userbase. It's nuts.
The problem is the balancing act between bad actors and victims of their rhetoric.
Having left during the 4th exodus of 2014, I can confirm. Old 4chan was great. Now? Not so much.
Haven't been there since like 2011, I think I'll check out the new 4chan
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It's nice for a good laugh sometimes tbh
/biz/ is good for crypto.. But even then you will see a lot of the incel stuff just pour in and its just people hanging on by a thread at that point. Not only did crypto crash on them they swallowed like 20 black pills and pretty much are unironically about to end it all...
/biz/ is alright from the few times I've looked, but it's way too flooded by cringe memes for me to stick around long lol, the wojacks get annoying after a while haha
The wojacks are pure gold :X
Its literally the reason to go there when shit collapses. LOL
I have never seen one positive ever to come from it. Its always lead to absolute bullshit. Even something as inane as goth culture would fall victim to some absolute insanity after awhile of being in a "sub culture" from which it either becomes tribalistic and self destructive in some way.
These people should just censor their own feeds rather than assume everyone should be censored to fit their own personal world views.
Echo chambers are the absolute most toxic thing possible in humanity.
Nobody is ever a victim of rhetoric. Protecting weak minds through censorship is a meme. The only way forward is gladiator style debates where everyone speaks, nobody self censors and everything gets tossed back and forth like a rag doll.
muahahahahaha!! Welcome to realizing that everything is such pure bullshit on either side that even nihilism isn't an escape because those people are idiots too! I want to open up to feed of heads rolling every day.
Its healthier.
It's healthier for people like us, I'd say. Not everyone can handle the constant waves of back and forth, though. Not that I think "censorship" is the correct solution, but there needs to be some form of safety for people at some level to prevent a lot of really bad stuff.
The reaction of revulsion to the constant bickering is healthy though. When it clicks in someones mind that the fighting is dumb and they already have all of the arguments memorized and its just annoying at that point then they become more centrist and just want both sides to shut the fuck up.
The really bad stuff, unless its gifs of people getting cut in half and stuff like that is not really that bad.
Whats really bad stuff though? Racial realism? classism? Collectivism? being pro capitalism / pro communism? Saying bad words? Post modernism? Religion? The "othering" meme? Boys and girls hate each other!
After awhile I think we can all just get used to it. The extremities get called out enough times it just becomes like a language. If this then leads to that = which leads to argument 1-3 which gets repeated infinitely. I prefer things a lot more this way over seeing people "gasp" at piewdiepie using the N word in an online video game where its practically used so much I think its almost endearing at this point.... I seriously believe there is a subset of kids out there right now that don't even know what the word even means.
incel stuff summarized by one of my favorite quotes: "Everything is about sex, except sex: sex is about power.", by (supposedly) Robert Michels