Our group will be working on a linguistic analysis of the Manosphere.
The Manosphere has been characterized as a collection of web-based communities “roughly aligned by their common interest in masculinity and its alleged crisis".(Lilly, 2016)
The growth of the Manosphere has often been associated with the advent of the participative web, especially the creation of anonymous chatting platforms such as reddit or 4chan. (Ging, 2017)
To facilitate analysis of the Manosphere, relevant literature often identifies distinct sub-groups, most notably Incels, Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOWs), Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) and Pick Up Artists (PUAs). (Ribeiro et al., 2021)(Lilly, 2016)
This mapping varies, and review of the literature indicates the possibility of more nuance and fluidity between these categories.
Our research project will be focused on the following central question “How does the use of language differ across the four sub-communities of the ‘Manosphere’, and to what extent can it confirm a substantive differentiation of these communities?”.
We expect to see a degree of thematic continuity across the 4 sub-communities of the Manosphere, defined by a mourning of the patriarchy, a decay of traditional values, and the reaction to a supposed ‘crisis of masculinity’.
However, we also predict that in accordance with socio-linguistic theory – stating that language constitutes and is constituted by reality – the varied uses of language across the 4 communities will produce different perceptions of women and the role of men in relation to the latter and to society.(Axelsson & Lindgren, 2021)
Regarding our methodology, we are evaluating the feasibility of scraping data from one chatting platform for each community.
This would allow us to conduct some statistical linguistic analysis, thus reducing possible bias associated with qualitative analysis, allowing a more systematic analysis of language use and facilitating the creation visual data presentations.
To achieve this, we have identified four discursive spaces to analyze: the r/MensRights subreddit, the independent Incels.is forum, an independent Pick-up Artist forum and an independent ‘Men Goin Their Own Way’ forum.
However, if this methodology does not prove to be possible within our timeframe, we will observe each chatting platform within a given timeframe, watching for recurring words, lexical fields, jargon and persistent themes.
We recognize the limitations of focusing on text analysis as meaning is also developed through other tools available to online users - such as the use of memes (Dafaure, 2022) - but recognize that this would be beyond our capabilities and the scope of this project.
The analysis of language will therefore serve as a tool to evaluate sub-community attitudes, cohesion and assess possible ideological convergence in the Manosphere.
Thus, essential to carrying out this inquiry is understanding the role of language in Manosphere-affiliated groups.
The article “From Chads to Blackpills, a Discursive Analysis of the Incel’s Gendered Spectrum of Political Agency”, by Kurt Fowler investigates and analyses the specific language used by incel communities.
Fowler, in a similar vein as our project, uses linguistic and discourse analysis to tap into ideological attitudes and their impact on group differentiation.
This is achieved through the analysis of qualitative data gathered from 98 incel discussion threads from 3 the three most popular incel forums at the time of publication.
Fowler’s objective is to analyse how the incel community develops a specific frame of analysis through repurposed mainstream language and community-specific terminology, constructing a complex linguistic and ideological system, that nonetheless remains attached to the central metaphor of “sex as political agency”.
Interestingly, in contrast to other literature usually locating inceldom as a sub-category of a broader 'Manosphere', this paper identifies inceldom as its ideological basis.
This may be because in his account, the origins of the Manosphere are found in the creation of a message board in 1993, catering to “late bloomers and people who had trouble dating” that is interpreted as the basis of inceldom, where other others see the Manosphere as the online incarnation of the ‘Men’s Rights movement'(Ging, 2017).
For Fowler, other communities – Men Going Their Own Way, Pick Up Artists etc. – are all declinations of incel communities.
In his view, they represent different relationships to political agency – MGTOW as possessing high agency, in contrast to ‘Blackpills’ that perceive themselves as having no political agency.
Fowler’s identification of an overarching structure – inceldom – and subordinate ideologies subscribing to different interpretations of a common interpretative framework reflects our expectations of a degree of thematic continuity across the Manosphere, that is however expressed through different interpretations and relationships to these themes.
HIGH AGENCY
"Chads are mythical creatures" that "express the maximum level of political agency, within what [incels] perceive to be an unjust society"
"they do not need to sacrifice anything to obtain [high social status]"
"successful with women" but "have overcome the struggles of inceldom to get what they want: sex with women"
"sees the deception perpetrated by our overarching postmodern culture and is awake to the “lie” women and minorities have been held in an oppressive system"
"those that deny or ignore the truth espoused by the redpill": either do not recognize their oppression, or believe they can escape it by isolating from women.
"the redpill without hope of social or personal change", resorting to "copes"
NO AGENCY
fig 1: selected quotes from the paper demonstrating Fowler's construction of the spectrum of political agency constructed by Incel language, ideology and the image of the "redpill".
Fowler develops the idea of an “interpretative repertoire”, borrowed from the work of Potter and Wetherell to describe this frame of analysis and describe the development of incel speech, central themes and metaphors.
The paper finds that the use of specialized vocabulary is significant in “explicitly or implicitly reinforcing the group’s central ideology” and plays an important role in conveying group membership, creating internal differentiation between members, and differentiating incel ‘members’ from other communities.
These findings substantiate the focus of our project on language as an important vector of ideology, as a factor of community cohesion, and a tool of differentiation from other communities – whether they be a part of the Manosphere or the mainstream.
Some scholars have even qualified incel language as an emerging ‘cryptolect’ or ‘sociolect’ and created incel glossaries to define jargon, reinforcing the relevance of a socio-linguistic approach that highlights the role of language in constructing social groups and their outlooks. (Gothard, et al., 2021)(Menzie, 2022)
Indeed, scholars have identified the interaction with, and adoption of incel- and Manosphere-related vocabulary as substantially related to the adoption of these groups’ ideologies, reenforcing the importance of language in these online spaces.
Furthermore, the adoption of community-specific language and mainstream language repurposing seems to be an important step in integrating into the community. (Habib, Srinivasan, & Nithyanand, 2022)
The conflictual characterizations of the Manosphere – demonstrated in Fowler’s article and other scholarship that diverges or opposes his analysis – affirm our research question’s focus on questioning the strict division of the Manosphere into differentiated communities.
The 4 communities identified for our investigation remain credible as they reflect self-identification with these labels, through the creation of specialised chatting rooms, websites and online content by users.
However, a review of relevant literature reveals academic debate around the level of overlap, cross-over, and shared user base between different Manosphere communities. (Ribeiro et al., 2021)
