In psychiatry, there is no clear-cut definition for madness (psychosis); believing in the existence of an invisible being or hearing voices, for instance, is not psychosis, since many religious people do or claim to.
The criteria used to diagnose psychosis are (1) idiosyncrasy (being the only one to believe in something or to use certain words) (2) dysfunction (the beliefs cause strong distress or dysfunction).
The very spontaneous appearance of an internet incel community discussing lookism and sharing the same mindset, a community spanning five continents and with thousands of active members, indicates that it is not completely out of touch with reality, because idiosyncrasy is not present. We are way past the folie à deux here. How come thousands of young teenagers and men, from Sydney to Paris, who never talked to each other before, woke up one day with the same beliefs?
As to dysfunction, though anti-incels often claim that the blackpill makes people depressed, I have yet to see concrete evidence of this. For a majority of members here, the blackpill was the complete opposite; we were already extremely depressed before finding it, and it alleviated our depression by confirming that we were not crazy or alone in believing that looks are important in social settings and in relationships (basically confirming all of our experiences at school, in summer camp, etc).
Instead of arguing that we are delusional or crazy, which is patently, obviously false, anti-incels would be taken more seriously if they argued that we are blowing lookism out of proportion, just as, for instance, neo-nazis blow Jewish power out of proportion. But by denying that lookism exists, they are just radicalizing us further.
The criteria used to diagnose psychosis are (1) idiosyncrasy (being the only one to believe in something or to use certain words) (2) dysfunction (the beliefs cause strong distress or dysfunction).
The very spontaneous appearance of an internet incel community discussing lookism and sharing the same mindset, a community spanning five continents and with thousands of active members, indicates that it is not completely out of touch with reality, because idiosyncrasy is not present. We are way past the folie à deux here. How come thousands of young teenagers and men, from Sydney to Paris, who never talked to each other before, woke up one day with the same beliefs?
As to dysfunction, though anti-incels often claim that the blackpill makes people depressed, I have yet to see concrete evidence of this. For a majority of members here, the blackpill was the complete opposite; we were already extremely depressed before finding it, and it alleviated our depression by confirming that we were not crazy or alone in believing that looks are important in social settings and in relationships (basically confirming all of our experiences at school, in summer camp, etc).
Instead of arguing that we are delusional or crazy, which is patently, obviously false, anti-incels would be taken more seriously if they argued that we are blowing lookism out of proportion, just as, for instance, neo-nazis blow Jewish power out of proportion. But by denying that lookism exists, they are just radicalizing us further.
