Intro - Reminiscing
He joined this forum on July 8, 2018; I joined exactly a day after.
I never knew his real name or what he looked like. All I ever knew about him came from the posts that he made about himself. For example, I knew that he was exactly 6' tall, loved the Terminator franchise and had a stack of water bottles in his room that he piled up like a pyramid for daily motivation. I know that he was bullied immensely in school (like I was), and that he fell in love with a female classmate who went on to make him a laughing stock at his high school upon discovering his feelings (again, much like I did). He often spoke about his acne, which plagued his face after puberty; he described the latter "hitting him like a wave." He blamed his [self-reported] ugly looks on his mother, who had married his tall, handsome father; the latter of whom would be hit on every time the two would go grocery shopping. His remedy for his horrid acne scars was taking 200mg of zinc, but excessive workouts would cause his symptoms to worsen.
The incels forum, much like the real world, looked different back when I first joined. During my short time there, I was working at a dead-end job while studying to become a software engineer on the side. My dream was to move to Norway and pursue a career in Information Technology, while translating a local philosopher's doctorate into English as a side project. However, COVID put a stop to both of those plans, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I enjoyed reading the posts of various members, all of whom are no longer on the site. I'm thinking of guys like Mayor of Kekville (Chaos Reigns!!), NEET and Tidy, Deadman 123 and LiterallyASoyBoy. I loved talking to Cold Pillow, who gave me a meal and workout plan which I held on to for years after, but had to abandon as I developed new dietary allergens such as IBS. I still think about all of them and I hope that they are all doing well.
Still, in retrospect, I think it was obvious that my days on this forum were numbered. Not because I feared being banned for my opinions (which was extremely common back then; I was never banned overall, though), but because I simply didn't fit into the culture and general vibe on this site. I had been consuming YouTube videos from the MGTOW community for up to two years before I found this place, courtesy of the "What Attracts Women" series by FaceAndLMS. Just looking at some of my old comments, it's obvious that their way of thinking had heavily influenced my own; I'm almost embarrassed at some of the attitudes that I held back then, despite being the very embodiment of the MGTOW stereotype evoked by their naysayers. I was indeed a virgin living with my family, pretending to go my own way in life despite having never turned my own key. It was the relatability of the incel/black pill content I later found (it was still called red pill on YouTube in those days) that led me here.
It was here that I first met him.
Chapter I: Mickey
I was expecting scientific discussions about looks and human mate selection, but instead I found, well, exactly what we all see here. There were A LOT of angry, lonely, funny and also suicidal young men, each with their own backstories and viewpoints on life. It's impossible to put them all in a single category. Many of them avoided long posts, or simply typed TL;DR, so I don't expect many to have read this one. They weren't always nice; it was pretty difficult to tell when they were being serious or if they were merely joking about a subject. Some users venerated Elliot Rodger as a saint, or casually through around racial slurs. Sometimes finding decent people to talk to was like finding a needle in a haystack. This was also the only forum I've ever found where being in a worse position sexually than one's peers gave you far greater clout, just as much as having a colourful username from constant posting made you more respectable than a "Greycel." Speaking of nicknames, I soon received the epithet Julycel, since I joined in July, and was mocked for not fully understanding all of the colloquialisms that other users took for granted. The context was that I had no idea what a femoid was, and didn't know the meaning of ER (which I genuinely thought was a reference to the 90s show that launched George Clooney's career). It was Mickey who politely corrected me, which is how we met.
His posts were fun to read, even when they were considerably lengthy. Because I limited the people that I interacted with, I got to read a number of his posts, resulting in Mickey feeling more three dimensional than the disembodied posters that would come and grow on the homepage like a revolving door. So many of his lived experiences were an echo of my own, which gave me comfort knowing that I wasn't the only person who went through what I went through. Sadly, it wasn't to last.
In August, one of the Moderators announced that he was looking for volunteers to contribute the new Incels wiki page, which would help to introduce the notion of the black pill and its many perspectives. Those who were interested were given a login in their inbox to start contributing, and I jumped at the chance. Before taking time off the forum, I gave a huge shoutout to everyone I had come to appreciate on this site, which of course included Mickey. But when I came back to check on him, things took a turn for the worst...
Chapter II: We are inherently unlovable because we are ugly.
The title of this chapter was the title of his post, which effectively doubled as his suicide letter. Since joining this forum in July, 2018, I was never comfortable with the light-hearted nature that suicide was treated with on this site. Some users had avatars of people hanging themselves (Mickey was no exception), while others would mock suicidal members by saying that if they didn't livestream the act, then it didn't happen. Others were completely dismissive of such statements, posting replies like "See you tomorrow!" I had heard stories of incels taking their own lives, but they all predated me. Seeing that Mickey had now mentioned such feelings, given that he wasn't as prone to idle, throwaway remarks like many of his contemporaries, I reach out via DM to see what was the matter.
To make a long story (or conversation, to be exact) short, my over-exposure to MGTOW content went into overdrive, showing just how out-of-touch and callous I had become. I told Mickey that even though I couldn't stop him from doing what he said he would do, he needed to understand that being with a woman was not going to make him happy. I ended by saying that I would always think about how he was doing, but that was after I had given him this back-handed, not-so-subtle man-up speech that is so ubiquitous in the manosphere. In response, Mickey rightfully chided me, which led to me ending our correspondence without giving him a reply. In other words, I left a friend hanging when he really needed someone to talk to. Unfortunately for me, I would never speak to Mickey ever again. By December 29, 2018, he signed off from this forum and never returned, having already documented his plan to end his life by overdosing on pills, combined with monoxide poisoning. His tagline read the following:
I'm killing myself on 1/25/2019. Hold me to this. January 25 was his birthday.
Chapter III: Life After Death
To be 100% honest, I have no idea if Mickey is really dead; there's no way if anyone could know these things. Some users speculated on this, but the thread soon descended into accusations of larping, with many claiming he would be back the following day. Well, luckily for them, Mickey never did return the following day; he never returned at all. In one post he made before departing, he did say that he had made some friends in real life, which had the likelihood of changing his mind regarding his seemingly resolute decision. Still, without an obituary or a funeral page, there is no definitive way to tell whether or not he is alive or dead.Chapter III: Life After Death
All I know is, I was devastated.
But why? I didn't know Mickey's name or what he looked like. I don't know how old he is or where in the United States he resided. There simply wasn't enough to go on to conduct a proper search, but search I did... for three long years, I looked for proof that Mickey was still alive. I used every research method, even accessing public databases and funeral registries for anyone with the birthdate of January 25 to try to find proof that Mickey was alive, but I never found anything. Soon I had to admit to myself that this was an obsession, but I would often ignore this realization and continue searching well into the night.
The reason I cared so much was simple: Unlike most people who take their own lives, Mickey openly spoke about this. I felt that I had the chance to talk him off the ledge, but instead of being the friend he needed, I gave him the cold shoulder. Instead of empathy, I showed apathy.
By day, I had fallen into a deep depression, something my colleagues at work soon took notice of. If you ever saw the Keanu Reeves film Permanent Record, then you probably have an idea what this felt like. Eventually, I told a colleague that life is meaningless, which concerned her greatly, and that's when I told her about Mickey. I didn't give a name or mention the incel forum or philsophy; I simply said that my friend in the States had taken my own life. However, this colleague was just as unfeeling as I had been when I spoke to Mickey in our private conversation, telling me to effectively work harder in life to get ahead and to stop expecting life to be easy. With that, she avoided talking to me for an entire year, but made sure to tell everyone at work behind my back that I was threatening to harm myself (including HR, who thankfully never confronted me). The very apathy I showed my friend had now been shown to me, as my colleagues avoided me and spread hurtful rumours. It certainly didn't help that I openly called myself ugly to everyone who would listen, which certainly made people uncomfortable.
There were many things that I did to cope. I played the song "Voices of the Dead," by Kreater over and over again, really resonating with the lyrics. I distracted myself with history documentaries, video games and comic books. I even tried learning Chinese, but these things were only band-aid effects. Nothing I did drowned out the uncomfortable fact that I may have been partially to blame for Mickey's death.
Chapter IV: A Final Farewell
Beginning in 2019, I began writing a five part treatise entitled "Ashes of the Last Cope," inspired by The Magic Animal by Philip Wylie and The Last Messiah by Peter Wessel Zapffe. It tells the story of a young man who takes a train to the downtown core of a large metropolis, only to leap off a skyscraper and fall to his death. The post is filled with imagery and ideas that are pretty congenial to this forum and was meant to serve as a summary of my overall view of life. I remember being a fan of Yukio Mishima at the time, who famously committed suicide after a failed coup in 1970s Japan. I've largely abandoned the piece, but it feels a bit surreal to finally read it again after so many years. I guess it's a reminder of where I was mentally at the time and how far I've come.
However, Mickey's death was pretty much the nail in the coffin. While I still consumed black pill content, I voluntarily left the site, hoping that the distance would eventually help me overcome my depression. I was a bit upset at the overall vibe of the forum back then (clearly, not much has changed), but in hindsight I think I made the right decision. That was about four or five years ago.
We're now in 2025, and I have to say that sine leaving the forum, life certainly improved for the better. I went back to school, found ways to give back to the community through volunteer work and have an enjoyable job with amazing colleagues. I fell in love with some great hobbies and I'm learning French full time. In retrospect, I sometimes ask myself why I ended up changing my mind about the black pill, and I think the answer is that life simply changed, while I in turn simply moved on. Most of the "black pill" YouTuber's I liked stopped making videos or deleted their channels, while most of the friends I had on this forum slowly disappeared and stopped posting. The demand of work, school and my innumerable recreational activities took up more of my time, while newfound interests pushed out most of the old ones. Life got better, and my outlook got better with it. I also overcame a lifelong addiction without rehab; I've been clean for nearly a year now, one of the proudest achievements of my life.
I don't know if Mickey if alive or dead, and I'll probably never know. However, I have decided to stop searching for proof that he's still out there, and stop blaming myself for what happened. If Mickey is still alive, then hopefully he was able to find some happiness and meaning in his life. If he's dead, at least he won't have to suffer or be miserable anymore. That said, while I will still remember him, this is to be my final eulogy as I close this chapter.
Goodbye Mickey, wherever you are. Hopefully you were able to find peace.
