BlackPilled: Masculinity, Media and Incels – Méadhbh Park

Written by Elisa Garbil – 16.05.2025

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A great explanation of what incels actually feel and think, which is often forgotten. It is important to understand people in order to help them, and Meadhbh has done that perfectly in her book BlackPilled. In addition, Meadhbh love for movies is incorporated into this book, which is a great depiction of characters and examples she gives when explaining the incel viewpoints. If you’d like to learn more about what incels think, why they have their grievances, and where their opinions come from it is a great book for you! Understanding the incel subculture isn’t just a sociological exercise, it’s a matter of international risk and security. Online radicalisation, gender-based hate, and digital echo chambers are increasingly linked to violent extremism, lone-wolf attacks, and domestic terrorism across Western democracies. As governments and intelligence agencies grapple with whether to classify incel-driven violence as a terror threat, it becomes clear this is not a fringe issue but a growing transnational security concern. BlackPilled provides essential insight into the mindset behind one of today’s most dangerous and globally dispersed online movements.

Incels gather their sources, narratives, and ideas from messages that are already around them, messages we have all heard and seen on the media and other places in society.

Meadhbh Park – BlackPilled

As Meadhbh mentions, our viewpoints on the world are shaped by the media we consume, the people around us, and the reactions of the people around us to certain topics and ideologies. Most of us, including baby boomers, grew up with some form of media. Nowadays social media cannot be imagined out of our lives, which is why it is so important to discuss the misogyny and impossible stereotypes that are often depicted. Our viewpoints are mostly made by media these days.

Social media is an international risk, especially with the strength of algorithms and the rampant misinformation that has been normalised. We cannot ignore the way we are all glued to our phones, our laptops, our TV’s, and the consequences these bring on our mental health. Not only our mental health but also the beliefs we take over, and the difficulty to see fake from real. Incels are a niche part of society which have gained lots of media attention with series like Adolescence. However, we need to understand where their viewpoints come from in order to understand the ideology. One easy way to do this is to look at the difference between the male gaze and the female gaze.

Extremist beliefs can act as a cover for a deeper sense of isolation, anxiety, and frustration.

Meadhbh Park – BlackPilled

Maybe you have noticed the loss of third spaces (third spaces are places where people can hang out without having to pay for something, think of parks, libraries, sitting areas, etc). In accommodation with the strength of algorithms we have become more individual, we often don’t know who our neighbours are (and some of us might not care either, who goes round with homemade biscuits to introduce themselves these days, just me?), and we spend more time behind our screens instead of with our friends and acquaintances. Where in the past people would meet-up after church and meet-up with their community, we don’t have that these days. It is indeed harder maybe to meet new people and find people who enjoy the same things you do. In that regard the internet can be great because it allows to find communities that you feel you belong to, but it doesn’t change the need for real life interaction. There is a loneliness epidemic, both for men and women, where it is hard to meet friends. Some of us get into hobbies like reading or scrapbooking, other get on the internet and find people who agree with them, incel groups being a niche area on the internet. This erosion of community and rise in digital isolation is not just a social trend, but one that is fueling radicalisation and posing real international security threats. Online echo chambers, like incel forums, thrive in this vacuum of connection and accountability, making them fertile ground for international risks like extremist ideologies and gender-based violence. As intelligence agencies and risk professionals increasingly flag online misogyny as a precursor to domestic terrorism, understanding how isolation and algorithmic reinforcement drive radical beliefs is critical to mitigating long-term societal and security risks.

Risk with the loneliness epidemic are huge, it leads people to dark corners in their own minds and on the internet. There is still a stigma on getting mental health help as well, which is unhelpful when people could really benefit from it. In addition, the incapacity to do nice things because of the the cost of living is not helping with this epidemic either. Where people would be able to meet-up in payed spaces, like cafes, restaurants, mini-golf, etc, this has now become unattainable, leading to difficulty in meeting new people and spending more time scrolling. In short, a viscous circle.

While all attacks are misogynistic, not all misogynistic attacks are carried out by incels.

Meadhbh Park – BlackPilled

Meadhbh does include solutions for helping incels get out of their spaces, so do read her book to find these out!

Quotes That Might Make you Read the Book:

Most of the people who commit violence come from our ecosystem and while they have autonomy and make devastating decisions, [incels] are seldom unique in their beliefs and reasoning.

Meadhbh Park – BlackPilled

All their narratives, beliefs and ideas, though obviously extreme, are repeated from older stereotypes that are recognisable to us all.

Meadhbh Park – BlackPilled

Many incels quote social media as being the single biggest driver of loneliness – and inceldom too.

Meadhbh Park – BlackPilled

We should highlight the power of media on reality and position the blackpill as in line with that influence.

Meadhbh Park – BlackPilled

Incels are the only group that fit under the umbrella of extremism that are more likely to hurt themselves than others and so when asked who the number on e target of incel violence is, the answer is always incels themselves.

Meadhbh Park – BlackPilled

The core idea of the blackpill is that it’s an awakening to the truth about life, relationships, and women which have been masked or kept secret from people.

Meadhbh Park – BlackPilled

Gamergate propelled misogyny into the mainstream to such an extent that it not only became acceptable to be explicitly misogynistic inline but it was also on trend.

Meadhbh Park – BlackPilled

A lot of far-right groups like the Ladies of Lenity take their cues almost directly from old fascistic ideas and practice a type of misogyny that is more akin to a ‘Tomorrow Belongs to Us’ version. (i.e. Nazism).

Meadhbh Park – BlackPilled