Elliot Rodger, 22, was one of the first incels to commit mass murder, killing six people in a horrifying attack in California in 2014. He left behind a 137-page manifesto blaming women for not loving him. Shockingly, I’ve seen in these incel forums that Rodger has since become a revered figure to extremists in the online community with some even praising him as ‘Saint ER’.

Today, over 100 people around the world are said to have been murdered or injured from incel-related attacks. Could those lives have been saved? I wanted to get a deeper understanding of this growing community to try to answer that question.

The evolution of incels and the radicalisation of lonely men has also resulted in thousands of blog posts celebrating the demise of women and a world where physical attacks towards females are glorified. Scrolling through these blogs can be scary, with their own colloquialisms and derogatory language. The incel lexicon takes a while to digest. Chads are how incels describe typically attractive males. Then there are Stacys, your typically attractive women, and Beckys who, in their opinion, are less attractive. Incels believe that 20% of men (the Chads) will attract 80% of the women.

“I went inside the world of incels and learned we need to have a bigger conversation about misogyny”