Common themes in suicidal expressions of incel forum users: A qualitative analysis

Forums for involuntary celibates (incels) are online spaces where males who struggle with a lack of sexual relations engage in misogynistic and fatalistic discussions, including suicidality. Current knowledge of what is associated with their suicidal feelings is limited. We sought to identify the psychological stressors underlying incels’ expressions of suicidality by analyzing posts made in the forum r/SuicideWatch. We extracted the entire posting history of 116,266 users who had contributed to incel forums on the social media platform Reddit. We then filtered posts (N = 13,187) made in r/SuicideWatch and used thematic analysis to identify common themes. We identified six themes associated with suicidality: social isolation and loneliness, frustration with involuntary celibacy, appearance concerns, mental health issues, family problems, and feeling worthless. We discuss reinforcement mechanisms through which suicidal expressions online may be maintained in this community. Our analyses of the suicidality of incel forum users were limited to posts of users who contributed to r/SuicideWatch. These users may have been qualitatively different from suicidal incels who did not contribute to this forum. Several reasons are suggested for suicidality in incels, including factors associated with their incel identity. Suicide prevention in this community would benefit from multifaceted prevention and intervention strategies.