"Jag är en så kallad incel" : En netnografisk studie om män som lever i ofrivilligt celibat och deras hat

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study is to examine incels expressions of hate on a Swedish online forum. The term incel means involuntary celibacy and has come to attract mainly heterosexual men who have difficulty succeeding in romantic and sexual relationships. Furthermore, the incel community is characterized by misogyny and incitements to violence. The phenomenon, established on the internet, has in recent years grown and attracted more and more people. Previous studies show that Sweden might obtain the most incels in the world relative to the population. To acquire knowledge about the phenomenon, we intended to investigate how Swedish incels express hate, what the hate is directed to and to what purpose. The study was conducted using a netnographic method where posts on the Swedish forum Flashback were collected. The data was analyzed and sorted using a qualitative analysis of data which resulted in four categories of hatred; misogyny, hatred against the Swedish welfare society, xenophobia and self-hatred. Erving Goffman's theory of stigma and Raewyn Connell's theory of masculinity were used as a theoretical framework, and based on these theories, the main results show that incels hatred is based on the lack of sexual relationships which lead to crisis tendencies and perceived stigma. Hatred can be understood as frustration, the feeling of exclusion and a feeling of inadequacy as well as the experience of a threatened masculinity. The hatred amongst Swedish incels also function as a binding force in the incel community.