TV Features

Maybe Love Is Blind—But It Doesn't Happen Within 30 Days

Can you truly know you love someone within the span of a few weeks?

Netflix

After my last serious relationship, I decided to "put myself out there" again and downloaded Tinder, Bumble, and OkCupid.

Being an active user on all these platforms solidified to me how different the dating scene is nowadays. Most of it is due to technology and our social media culture, which has definitely made us a bit more narcissistic, fake, and even cold-hearted. Romance in this day and age is pretty much dead—and, without a doubt, so is chivalry. Only two of my most recent 20 dates opened a door for me, so now I go on dates with zero expectations. Most of these guys just want to hook up, thinking a first date and a couple drinks warrants the perfect opportunity to proposition me.

Keep ReadingShow less
CULTURE

Jameela Jamil's Fight Against Misogyny and Loneliness

In the space of two days, Jamil has attacked Piers Morgan's blatant misogyny and launched a campaign for Bumble friendship.

Jameela Jamil Fires Back At Piers Morgan Over Criticism Of Meghan Markle's British Vogue Issue

Jameela Jamil, the firebrand who became famous both for her breakout role on NBC's The Good Place and for her brand of fearless, anti-diet digital activism, did not mince words when clapping back at "irrelevant sh*t stain" (her words, not ours) Piers Morgan.

Jamil was one of the fifteen women featured on British Vogue's issue entitled "Forces for Change," guest-edited by Meghan Markle. She appeared alongside environmental activist Greta Thunberg, trans actress Laverne Cox, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and many more powerful female change-makers.

In response, Morgan published a shockingly embittered and almost unbelievably ignorant op-ed in The Daily Mail, which mostly consisted of poorly worded criticism directed at Markle and all the women of the world. "The women she's selected represent the greatest hits of virtue-signalling - with a nod to everything from 'body positivity', female empowerment, mental health, disability and race to transgender rights, climate change, diversity, and privilege," he wrote. "The last one made me laugh out loud. I'm sure the one thing we all need most in the world right now is a fabulously rich and entitled Princess lecturing us on privilege from her servant-laden royal quarters."

Morgan then turned his wrath from Markle to Jamil, criticizing the duchess's decision to post Jamil's face on the cover of the issue of British Vogue and citing some of Jamil's past mistakes. "The list of women Jamil has abused and shamed for falling short of her lofty moral standard is long," Morgan wrote, citing how Jamil has previously "hoped Cardi B and Iggy Azalea 'sh*t their pants in public,' "accused Miley Cyrus of being 'a vagina without a platform'" and "compared Beyoncé to a 'stripper.'"

Jamil was quick to respond. In her typically intelligent fashion, she didn't try to deny the problems with her past comments. Instead, she owned up to them. "My PINNED tweet is all of the mistakes I made, owning up to being problematic when I was young. I have nothing to hide," she tweeted Monday. "You are old, and still a problematic slut-shaming, fat-shaming, misogynist, irrelevant sh*t stain, smeared across our country."

Jamil's willingness to admit her own mistakes, as well as her fearlessness when confronting bigoted and dangerous ideas, has made her a beloved Internet personality and helped her gain the spot on Markle's cover. In Jamil and Markle's world, feminism is a constantly growing, expanding category, based on forward motion, learning, and change.

As for Morgan, despite his apparent desire to see more socioeconomically diverse female Vogue editors, it seems that, at heart, he's genuinely motivated by a hatred for feminism and all that it stands for, along with nostalgia for a time when being a white man meant he had an all-access pass to any space.

"We're informed the Duchess spent the past seven months creating 'an issue of inclusivity and inspiration, focusing on what connects rather than what divides us," he wrote. "How thoughtful of her! Yet of course her list excludes the planet's entire male population."

Enough said.

The exchange happened the day before Jamil launched her partnership with BumbleBFF's new campaign #AskingForaFriend, which is dedicated to ending the stigma around loneliness and making it easier for people to find friendship.

Ironically, Bumble itself has been accused of promoting a misogynistic company culture, but one would hope that Jamil has done her research—or another Twitter rant is coming quite soon.


CULTURE

Empathy for Incels

Separating the venom from the genuinely pained and human core of inceldom could be the first step in saving society from the vileness of incel ideology and saving some of these lost young men from themselves.

Technically speaking, dating is easier now than it has been at any other point in human history.

Even in the early 2000s, a person's relationship options were largely limited to the people they knew through work, school, or their local community––meeting new people meant going to a bar and hoping to click with whoever happened to be there that night. Today, the options are limitless. Dating apps like Tinder and Bumble expand potential relationships from social circles to entire cities. On the modern dating circuit, everything is public and everyone seems to be hooking up. But in a hyper-connected world, people who can't seem to make connections feel lonelier than ever before.

Incels are people who self-identify as "involuntarily celibate" and participate in an online subculture marked by rampant sexism, hate speech, and conspiratorial thinking mixed with intense self-loathing. It's easy to write them off as just another group of entitled, mostly-male reactionaries who are angry about the modern equality movement and the increased social clout women are gaining. After all, the political landscape is rife with those (see Gamergate). Considering the type of rhetoric commonly found on incel forums––expressions of admiration for the "Supreme Gentleman" Elliot Rodger are not uncommon, for instance––anything short of outright condemnation of the entire incel subculture can be seen as condoning a dangerous hive of radicalization.

And yet, while incel ideology is dogmatic, dangerous, and inherently flawed, recognizing that the experiences they stem from are overwhelmingly human––pain, loneliness, social anxiety, and self-loathing––might bring to light new solutions that could lead incels to genuinely recovering and reacclimating into modern society. So, too, could the acknowledgement that incels aren't just born from dangerous, sexist feelings of entitlement, at least not at first, and while their larger ideology certainly sits upon a heap of misconceptions, there might be a kernel of truth somewhere at the bottom.

The Cut recently published a phenomenal article about incel plastic surgery, a growing trend whereby incels seek cosmetic surgery to fix perceived facial flaws in order to become more "Chad-like." To clarify, incel subculture calls the most attractive men, who "hoard" most of the world's sex with women (or so they believe), Chads. Chads are men with square jaws and prominent brows, but they can also be lithe or vampiric as long as they possess an aesthetic that Stacys and Beckys––attractive blonde women and basically every other kind of woman, respectively––typically find hot.


While some incels who opt-in for this kind of cosmetic surgery experience a noticeable difference in their lives afterwards, specifically in the way they're treated by others, many find that their lives don't change very much at all. The core subject of the article, a man who uses the alias Truth4lie, is stuck in an endless cycle of surgeries, post-op elation, discovering a new flaw, suicidal ideation, and then more surgery. Ultimately, his account suggests extreme body dysmorphia, an isolating mental illness far more likely to cause "involuntary celibacy" than his perceived physical flaws.

In fact, the most standout revelation upon browsing many incel forums is that the users––on the rare occasions they post pictures of themselves for critique––are usually pretty average looking guys. Granted, many of them are not, but they're not hideous or grotesque either. Countless men who are just as "ugly" by conventional measures of attractiveness can be found on dates in every restaurant in every major city. So, then, what's really "wrong" with incels?

The answer most likely varies from person to person, but chances are high that two common scenarios account for most members of the community. The first is mental illness and neurological atypicalities, which manifest in multiple ways that could lead to "inceldom." One, as outlined in The Cut's article, is body dysmorphia. Others might include social anxiety, depression, or autism––anything that causes one to feel isolated or leads to confusion regarding social contacts. The second is the possibility that these individuals are genuinely physically unattractive and don't have the proper tools or social skills to make up for that disadvantage when dating.

The underlying issues for both groups of incels––and there's likely a good deal of overlap between the two––make their initial involvement in incel communities all the more understandable. Connection with others is a core human need, and long-term loneliness can lead to severe mental and physical repercussions, from insomnia to suicide. For people in circumstances like these, incel communities offer support and a soothing––albeit incorrect––scapegoat for their problems.

"The black pill" is the incel community's core ideological offering: the fatalistic, sexist "truth" of biological determinism––that unattractive men are simply doomed to be rejected by the selfish, shallow creatures known as women. Black pill ideology is repugnant and patently disproven by every single average and below average-looking guy in a healthy relationship. But for someone who has convinced himself that his face is the bane of his own existence and for whom every glance in the mirror is a brutal takedown, black pill ideology shoulders the burden of rejection through absolute affirmation. Black pill ideology says, "Yes, you are ugly, and no, your lot can't be changed." For someone struggling and failing to climb out of a dark, deep, lonely pit, that kind of affirmation, however damaging, can seem like a ray of light.

Perhaps, then, the best solution to dealing with inceldom is offering that same sort of empathy and understanding to struggling people before they turn to incel communities in the first place. The most common "normie" advice (which is always derided by incels) is that if someone wants a girlfriend, all they need to do is "hit the gym and take a bath." This suggests that the core problem incels suffer from is poor hygiene and bad lifestyle choices. But while this may be true for some incels, hitting the gym and taking a bath won't solve deep-seated psychological ailments, pervasive neuroses, or self-hatred.

The truth is that dating is significantly harder for people with mental illnesses or social anxiety. And dating is way, way harder for physically unattractive people. That being said, attractiveness is not stagnant or binary, and plenty of traditionally unattractive people find love and hold successful, lasting relationships with people who subjectively find them attractive. The solution is not to demonize incels for their flawed reasoning, but rather to destigmatize therapy for men, along with undoing so many other traditional, rigid standards that dictate what is and isn't "masculine." Ideally, with genuine empathy and support structures in place, incels wouldn't become incels in the first place.

Unfortunately, incel communities aren't just limited to sad affirmations––empathy would be a lot easier in that case. Black pilling naturally leads to anger and resentment, mainly directed towards women. These views compound and fester within echo chambers, oftentimes resulting in genuine hatred and, sometimes, real-world violence. But separating the venom from the genuinely pained and human core of inceldom could be the first step in saving society from the vileness of incel ideology and saving some of these lost young men from themselves.

CULTURE

I'm an Asian Woman on Tinder: An Analysis of My Inbox

Shame is a social construct in the age of the eggplant emoji.

Photo by Joel Mott (Unsplash)

I've been lying about using dating apps since 2012.

Keep ReadingShow less