Blog 2: Toxic Masculinity in Online Communities

In recent years, people have started to gravitate towards online communities with the help of online accessibility, many of these communities can be seen as helpful, joyful and caring. Yet some can also be quite the opposite. As technology begins to progress, more and more people haved turned to online communities as technology has become more accessible and widespread by the day. Many of these communities possess negative ideologies, commonly seen as dangerous to certain people, and as children tend to be the most impressionable, it is very easy for them to indoctrinate them. One common ideology expressed in many of these communities is that of masculinity. More specifically toxic masculinity. Everyday young men fall into the trap of online communities propagating toxic masculinities. The documentaries Charlottesville: Race and Terror by Vice News and Inside Incel: Alek Minassian and Online Misogyny by The Fifth Estate both house many ideas and characteristics mentioned by Micheal Kimmel in his essay, Masculinity as Homophobia. Will James’ speech Online Influencers, Toxic Masculinity, and the Classroom is the connecting bridge between Micheal Kimmel’s viewpoints and the documentaries to the young children easily being influenced. Two important traits mentioned by Micheal Kimmel are putting others down, and wishing to be seen as more powerful.

Firstly, since the dawn of time, people have always yearned to be better than one another, whether it was kings wishing to be better than their neighbouring kingdoms or just a kid in the playgrounds. As Michael Kimmel’s explains this in his essay: 

“Why, then, do American men feel so powerless? Part of the answer is because we’ve constructed the rules of manhood so that only the tiniest fraction of men come to believe that they are the biggest of wheels, the sturdiest of oaks, the most virulent repudiators of femininity, the most daring and aggressive. We’ve managed to disempower the overwhelming majority of American men by other means such as discriminating on the basis of race, class, ethnicity, age, or sexual preference.” (Kimmel 150)

Many different interpretations can be derived from this quote, the most important one being that it is a cycle. People who believe to be better than others will disempower those around them with discrimination in order to feel better; this then causes those who have been disempowered to do the same, continuing the cycle. Kimmel wants his readers to understand that men who exert toxic masculinity will always yearn for more power, forever putting people down in order to make themselves feel more powerful. This is apparent in both documentaries. Take Robert Ray for example, a journalist for the Daily Stormer, in the Charlottesville: Race and Terror documentary by Vice News. While Chirstopher Cantwell, one of the Unite the Right rally leaders was being interviewed, Robert Ray, the white-supremacist exclaimed, “And this is because this city is run by Jewish communists and cirminal [n-words]”(Vice News, 00:06:54) to add context when Christopher was complaining about the injustices in their protesting. The vulgar use of the n-word as well as the saying that the city was run by Jewish communists easily displays what Michael Kimmel’s mentioned, that being toxic masculinity. Robert Ray was disempowering people with different viewpoints by calling them derogatory slurs, and discriminating against them on the basis of race. As the alr-right at the Unite the Right rally felt underpowered and overwhelmed, causing an early departure, and they wished to feel more powerful, turning to discrimination and slurs. Furthermore, the main concept of discrimination is also commonly found in the incel community. In the Inside Incel: Alek Minassian and Online Misogyny documentary by The Fifth Esate there are many instances where a man calls women derogatory terms. This act of vulgary is directly connected with what Michael Kimmel said. The incel community is commonly populated with men who have suffered with their ability to get a woman to like them back. This in turn causes them to feel less powerful than women, so they start putting other women down with derogatory terms. The documentary is filled with many instances of incels putting down other women, one example of this is a small clip. The middle-aged man says, “I wish you all were dead. You’re all just pieces of shit to me” (The Fifth Estate, 00:01:18). Much like Michael Kimmel wrote, men will put others down with derogatory terms and insults in order to feel better about themselves. But sometimes these insults can turn to acts of violence. In the talk Online Influencers, Toxic Masculinity, and the Classroom by Will James, the concept of children being easily influenced is brought up many times. Children and teenagers are often those who use the internet the most, in turn making it more probable for them to run into these online groups, whether it’s the alt-right or incel communities. These communities propagate toxic masculinity, which can easily be influenced onto young adults. These kids will pick up on the trait of being derogatory in order to feel better which is a danger for their self-esteem and may in turn restrict their path in life.

Secondly, much like the idea of wanting to feel better than someone else, people have always wished not to be seen as powerless. Michael Kimmel mentions many times that men in general hate to be seen as powerless, and they will always look for ways to prove this idea wrong. Mentioned by Kimmel here:

“The dimension of power is now reinserted into men’s experience not only as the product of individual experience but also as the product of relations with other men. In this sense, men’s experience of powerlessness is real–the men actually feel it and certainly act on it–but it is not true, that is, it does not accurately describe their condition. In contrast to women’s lives, men’s lives are structured around relationships of power and men’s differential access to power, as well as the differential access to that power of men as a group.” (Kimmel 150)

In many cases, the male population will feel powerless, this in turn will cause them to try their best to be seen as more powerful. Some go to the gym, others start gathering items which will make themselves be seen as a bigger threat and some gatter in large groups in order to create power in numbers. Take Christopher Cantwell for example, while being interviewed by Vice News and asked the question whether white people were capable of violence, he responded: “I didn’t say capable, of course we [white people] are capable. I’m carrying a pistol, I go to the gym all the time. I’m trying to make myself more capable of violence (00:03:43). This display of trying to be seen as more powerful is a trait explained by Michael Kimmel. Cantweel is trying his hardest in order to be seen as more powerful. This endless search for power and always thinking you aren’t enough is a negative attribute which young men can easily catch on too. This is again displayed really well by Cantwell when he shows off his entire arsenal of firearms to the Vice News reporter (Vice News, 00:19:22). Cantwell displays 6 weapons, 5 of them being firearms, an unessesarily high amount of weapons considering he is one person. He is someone who has the trait Kimmel has mentioned as he is always trying to be seen as more powerful, which in turn is making him get more and more firearms. Following the same trait, Elliot Rodger, mentioned in Inside Incel: Alek Minassian and Online Misogyny by The Fifth Estate, suffers from it too. Rodger had trouble with women, so much in fact he decided that he needed to kill them in order to feel better. In a video released before his killing spree, he says, “I will slaughter every single, spoiled, stuck up, blonde slut. You will finally see that I am in truth, the superior one. The true alpha male” (The Fifth Estate, 00:04:16). This quote displays the trait mentioned in the previous paragraph, that of using derogatory terms in order to elevate one’s feeling of power, yet it also includes that of showing direct power by murder. Elliot Rodgers says that by killing women, only then will they see that he is the superior one. The trait of displaying power by showing their direct access to it, by weapons, and by killing with those weapons is extremely negative. Altough these are on the extreme part of the spectrum, this can and did still happen. We mentioned before that Will James said that young adults can easily be manipulated and can find these negative online communities without trying. These communities are a danger to young men and can harm them in the long run.

In summary, everyday young men will find and be dragged into these negative online communities, learning the ideology of toxic masculinity. The traits brought up in Michael Kimmel’s essay, Masculinity as Homophobia, more specifically being that of bringing people down in order to feel better and that of increasing ones access of power in order to be seen as more powerful have been apparent in both documentaries Charlottesville: Race and Terror and Inside Incel: Alek Minassian and Online Misogyny. Both of these negative traits can easily be picked up by the young men of this world as mentioned by Will James in his talk Online Influencers, Toxic Masculinity, and the Classroom, this is a danger to young men and their surroundings for generations to come.

Works cited:
Kimmel, Michael. Masculinity as Homophobia. 1994.

Charlottesville: Race and Terror. YouTube, Vice News, 14 Aug. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P54sP0Nlngg&t=5s. Accessed 28 Mar. 2022. 

Inside Incel, CBC, The Fifth Estate, 27 Jan. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqWjCHPg9gA. Accessed 25 Sept. 2023. 

James, Will, Online Influencers, Toxic Masculinity, and the Classroom, Vanier College, March 5, 2024