Jack Peterson is an American activist and former spokesperson for the
Incel community.
Biography
Peterson's legal name is Kalerthon Demetro, but he prefers the pseudonym Jack Peterson. He was born in Chicago in 1998.
Despite claiming to be incel, Peterson has stated that he has had a girlfriend in the past, yet claims it was not a productive relationship since he felt he was constantly scolded and berated, and was physically attacked by her.
Peterson first stumbled upon the manosphere at the age of 11 on 4chan. A psychiatrist has diagnosed him as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, but this has been disputed by other doctors. He is a high school dropout.
Career
Peterson is a former staff member and chat room administrator of Incels.me, which is the largest incel website on the internet, a site he describes as more honest than other incel forums.
He previously ran the "Incelcast", wherein he interviewed incels and discussed how they came to their position. His podcast also discussed the hikikomori phenomenon in Japan and the likelihood of the same thing happening in the Western world.
As part of their efforts to de-radicalize young male incels, he and others on his podcast offered several suggestions, including banning references to Elliot Rodger, permitting female incels to participate on predominantly male incel forums, banning misogynistic or hateful language by black pillers whom he views as a vocal minority, addressing the discriminatory nature of lookism and legalizing prostitution and assisted suicide.
He has been the subject of television and phone interviews with the media to discuss incel topics. Peterson was the only incel to be featured on Canadian national television in the aftermath of the Toronto terrorist van attack.
He believes that involuntary celibacy is a social phenomenon rather than a movement and has described online communities as support groups for discussing depression and loneliness. Peterson describes incels as commonly being males in their late teens who are shy.
He has condemned the Toronto van attack and claimed that Alek Minassian is not representative of the incel community. Peterson has compared the demonization of inceldom to the generalizations and subsequent xenophobic and Islamophobic sentiments faced by Muslims in the aftermath of Islamist violence.
His demeanor has been described as pacifist.
In May 2018, Peterson announced on his YouTube channel that he left the Incel community voluntarily by requesting a permanent ban on the forum "Incels.me".