BBC 1 now - The Secret World of Incels

The PREVENT service does. I know, I have personal (as a clinician) experience of it

The prevent training we had in school covered all kinds of extremist ideology

Interesting. I've had it (several times) in school and, whilst they have included white far right as well as Islamic extremism, there hasn't been any mention of anything else in the training that I've had.

One of the (several) prevent trainings I have done taught us about extremist vegans (with a straight face).

The prevent training we had in school covered all kinds of extremist ideology and then tailored specific advice for school context. (E.g. in our region we are more likely to identify white nationalism than we are islamist extremism)

The PREVENT service does. I know, I have personal (as a clinician) experience of it.

Catfish guy needs locking up somewhere very secure.

A six foot deep hole in the ground is pretty secure.

I don't think it needs to be prevent as such but teaching people how to spot ANY extremist group and what extremist language there is, and the problem with echo chambers in general and how they reinforce ideas without challenge and that's not healthy.

Social media allows the creation of these and makes your mind very narrow.

You have to go out of your way to fight back against that and seek out opposing views. I find this is harder than you think.

It's a useful tool if you can do it.

It's social media awareness and the pitfalls of it, rather than simply fighting extremism.

I personally feel the Prevent agenda should have a far wider reach.

Yes, online grooming across a broad range of areas is a huge issue to my thinking and that would be a constructive move to start addressing it.

I personally feel the Prevent agenda should have a far wider reach
Excellent point.

What I found weird is that isn't it normal for single people to go through periods of being - well, single? And not having sex? Something about the online screen swiping culture has led people to feel entitled or wrong for experiencing normal relationship stuff.

Yes, but if you struggle somewhat with what is socially normal, I think it might be possible to not realise that. Pop culture is resolutely sex positive, and the impression they give is that everyone is having lots of sex. Lack of a sex life isn't something people regularly talk about publicly either, IRL, unless they are very close. I think men might do so even less than women.
It makes me think a bit about the discussion about marriage being non-feminist. One thing about having sex tied to marriage as the ideal, it does imply that being unmarried could include an expectation of not having sex and that would be normal. I think a lot of young men think as teens that when they are older, they will just get to have a lot of fun sex.

It strikes me as yet another area where vulnerable people are being groomed online

Oh absolutely.

I personally feel the Prevent agenda should have a far wider reach.

It must be nice having someone to blame for all your shortcomings and struggles
Unfortunately it is at the expense of women. The more losers like catfishman are hailed as heroes by other sad inadequacies losers the more they will up their game.
Not only are they freaks,they are bloody dangerous!

It must be nice having someone to blame for all your shortcomings and struggles.

It shows that the potentially violent criminal misogynists are a subset, and are not synonymous with Incels

It strikes me as yet another area where vulnerable people are being groomed online.

It is so easy for genuinely dangerous people to speak loudly over, and for, those seeking answers to their problems and to drag them to a more extreme position than they held for themselves.

I saw it the other week on iPlayer. Cafish guy was an overentitled little twerp who hasn't quite computed that the reason he can't get laid isn't his looks - it's his repulsive personality.

Had a bit of empathy with the other guys on there - the guy who was probably on the spectrum seemed to have skirted round the edges of the whole incel online culture and was starting to compute he was just going through a shitty dating patch (hell they're NORMAL!). The guy with the skin, from what I remember from seeing it had had terrible acne as a teenager which hadn't cleared up going into adulthood - and was dealing with all the emotional baggage that comes with that really - which again, I can kind of get as DH had awful disfiguring acne that only really has resolved as he's hit his 30s and he still has a lot of scars from it - and the impact it obviously had on his self esteem and confidence is really marked... if he'd have been born a little bit later on and was hitting teens and twenties now, as an introvert who spends a lot of time online - he's the sort of character who again would be potentially liable to be sucked down the incel plughole (thankfully he wasn't born into the cohort that seem to be prime pickings for it and had to just work through that horrid teens/early 20s dating singleton hell period to end up married with kids and holding down a very good job).

In(voluntary) (Cel)ibate

I suspect some will use it as a handbook...

I tried to watch but I found it really creepy and disturbing.
Also what's an Incel? I don't think its a term I want to google but really don't have the foggiest what it means

I started watching it but had turned it off.

I did something I never do when watching a programme and that was commenting on the show while watching ( people talking while I'm trying to watch something irritates me) I was already wound up and angry as I had been listening to a podcast about Jamie Reynolds and how he hanged Georgia Williams so to hear Catfishman sent me over the edge! Where the hell does their entitlement come from?

DP had to listen to me saying stuff like ' why has the wanker got to cover his face if he is confident in what he is doing?' 'Why is the little prick so inadequate?' ' the fucker has just gone up to a random woman and called her fat! She slimmer than him, the cock!'
Watching it wasn't doing my blood pressure any good at that time of night!

If you think the documentary was worrying, for god's sake don't look at any of the incel forums on the internet.

It shows that the potentially violent criminal misogynists are a subset, and are not synonymous with Incels (not a terribly good analogy, but it's much the same as not all those who support animal welfare will send bombs to scientists)

Indeed I suspect that violent potentially criminal misogynists colonise a number of other groupings, and they are themselves the problem, not the group they have attached themselves to this time.

The desire to be in a relationship is both normal and strong. Those who are frustrated can offer each other considerable mutual support - and indeed it can be argued that forums which help people explore feelings and find support are good thing, and foster healthy approaches to interpersonal relationships.

The problem is with the misogynists who have entered that space. The brief comments about mental well-being in the tech age, especially those feeling a bit fragile, interested me and I wish they had been explored at greater length.

Walking dog guy said a number of people suggested that he might be on the asd spectrum; certainly what I picked up. He had a good attitude though.

What I found weird is that isn't it normal for single people to go through periods of being - well, single? And not having sex?

Something about the online screen swiping culture has led people to feel entitled or wrong for experiencing normal relationship stuff.

The catfish man was extremely dangerous. I think he had a history of domestic violence. It was shocking to see that sort of extreme misogyny.
The other two came across as rather sad - they both seemed to want relationships but were held back by their social skills and lack of self esteem. Incel forums were doing them no favours.

I don’t know if I can watch!

I've just watched it on the back of this thread.

It's true, Katie Cooper's dad was amazing.

What also struck me is that none of those men hate women as much as they hate themselves.

Catfish guy is potentially dangerous and should be locked up.

The dog walking guy is a bit odd, but he seems benign and is hardly undateable. I find it hard to believe he couldn’t get a girlfriend if he put his mind to it.