Tim Squirrell - Incels, Redpill, and the Manosphere

Summary

Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation

Episode: Tim Squirrell – Incels, Redpill, and the Manosphere
Release Date: November 5, 2025
Host(s): Lola Blanc and Megan Elizabeth
Guest: Tim Squirrell (Researcher of online misogynistic subcultures)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the evolving world of the "manosphere"—a collection of online communities including incels, redpill, MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way), and figures like Andrew Tate. Hosts Lola and Megan are joined by expert researcher Tim Squirrell to break down the subculture’s taxonomy, terminology, the interplay between self-help and nihilism, the dangers and harm these communities cause both to participants and society, and how to support individuals who may be susceptible or involved.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Guest Introduction: Tim Squirrell’s Background

[09:19-12:08]

• Tim is a researcher with a background in trust and authority in online communities, initially studying Reddit and internet linguistics.
• His interest in manosphere communities began while tracking the migration and evolution of terms like "cuck" and observing the overlap between fetish, men's rights, and alt-right spaces.

Quote:
"I started out life, my professional life ... doing a PhD at the University of Edinburgh and I was looking at how people in online communities come to trust each other and form relationships of authority and expertise." – Tim Squirrell [09:36]

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2. Could Anyone Become an Incel?

[12:08-14:04]

• Tim reflects: While there's a tendency to distance oneself, many young men could find themselves drawn in given different circumstances—rooted in feelings of rejection, unpopularity, or lack of self-worth.
• These emotional seeds can either lead to self-improvement avenues (Redpill) or lead to nihilism (Blackpill/incels).

Quote:
"Those are the feelings that provide the seeds in which misogynistic beliefs can grow... But they can grow in a number of different directions." – Tim Squirrell [13:02]

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3. Manosphere Taxonomy: Subgroups and Their Belief Systems

[16:04-22:45]

• Incels (Blackpill): Nihilistic belief that nothing can improve their social or romantic status; locus of control is external (fate, genetics).
• MGTOW/“Monk Mode”: Withdrawal from women and society's expectations for men; focus on male independence.
• Redpill: Pushes for self-improvement primarily as a method to achieve status with women (fitness, money, dominance).
• Pickup Artists (PUA): Promotes manipulative dating strategies, now somewhat outdated due to shifting cultural attitudes.
• Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs): Attend to issues like custody and alimony but often rooted in resentment or anti-feminist rhetoric.
• Andrew Tate & Modern Influencers: Commercialize manosphere content, blending misogyny with hustle culture and get-rich-quick schemes.

Memorable Exchange:
"What kind of man would let this happen to his family?"
[Lola: "My date I went on two days ago used these terms, including literally saying, he is in monk mode right now..." – 17:55]

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4. From Community to Commerce: How Misogyny Became Monetized

[22:44-28:02]

• Misogyny has been professionalized; influencers like Andrew Tate convert disaffected men into paying subscribers for online programs and communities promising wealth and status.
• Strategies include controversial content for visibility and ‘hustle’ schemes (dropshipping, cryptocurrencies, OnlyFans management) as male equivalents to MLMs.

Quote:
“No longer can you just enjoy a bit of misogyny with your pals in a Reddit forum in a sort of amateur way. It's all professionalized these days.” – Tim Squirrell [22:45]

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5. Evolving Beliefs: From Looksmaxing to Intersectionality

[29:28-35:21]

• Tim details “looksmaxing”—obsession with unchangeable physical traits as barriers to happiness/relationships (height, jaw structure, etc.).
• Communities shift blame from personal shortcomings to immutable characteristics, excusing self-improvement.
• Cross-pollination of ideas with analysis of race, neurodivergence, and social status leads to concepts like "jihadmaxing" and "geomaxing" (moving to countries where men feel they'll have more power or status).
• Parallels with radical feminism in viewing everything through structural disadvantages, but culminating in deepened misogyny.

Quote:
"They kind of get to intersectionality ... but then they go all the way back around and go, ah, no, the problem is that women are fundamentally genetically programmed to fuck with you." – Tim Squirrell [35:08]

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6. Dangers & Real-World Harm of the Manosphere

[38:45-41:25]

• Direct links to suicide forums: Operators of major incel sites also run pro-suicide forums, credibly linked to dozens of deaths.
• Forums reinforce feelings of hopelessness, keep members stuck, encourage misogyny, and can glorify or excuse violence against women.
• Membership can result in worsening mental health, increased risk-taking, and self-harm.

Quote:
"The worst thing that can happen is that you get sucked into this and it encourages you to not just absorb horrifying misogyny, but also to potentially end your own life." – Tim Squirrell [39:05]

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7. How the Algorithm Recruits Young Men

[46:00-49:16]

• Platforms like TikTok and YouTube increasingly serve up manosphere, pseudo-self-help, or extremist content to young men through recommendations and engagement algorithms—even if they’re not explicitly searching for it.
• First exposure is often through “funny” or motivational videos, which open the door to more extreme content.

Quote:
"These days, if you are a boy on YouTube, then you're gonna see some Andrew Tate, or maybe not Andrew Tate, but you'll see some David Goggins or you'll see some Jordan Peterson." – Tim Squirrell [46:11]

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8. Harm to the Men Themselves

[43:07-45:27]

• Short-term effects: Momentary motivation, drive for fitness, financial success.
• Long-term effects: Drip-feed of misogynistic messaging, normalization of risky behaviors, vulnerability to grifts, and increased isolation.
• Steroid abuse and dubious financial schemes (crypto/MLMs) are common.

Quote:
"Crypto is MLMs for boys, basically." – Tim Squirrell [45:01]

---

9. Exit Strategies: Helping Someone Stuck in the Manosphere

[51:39-54:41]

• Debating or “logic-ing” someone out almost never works due to social and emotional (not rational) roots of belief.
• Best practice is compassionate engagement—maintain some relationship, provide emotional support, and offer alternative communities (the “pull factor”).
• Avoid alienating or labeling language: while boundaries are needed, being welcoming/regarding their humanity is key to de-radicalization.

Quote:
"You have to be able to say the thing that you're saying right now is wrong ... Rather than trying to say something about why the statistic they've given you ... is false, you have to appeal to the humanity of women and of everyone around them.” – Tim Squirrell [52:14]

Pull vs Push Factors:

• Push Factors: Negative triggers pushing someone out (crises, group infighting, disillusionment)
• Pull Factors: Positive social opportunities, friendship, hobbies, new communities drawing them out

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10. The Role of Language, Boundaries, and Compassion

[55:54-59:09]

• Terms like “incel” can be value-laden or even a slur; important to use language thoughtfully to avoid shutting down dialogue.
• People “grow out” of incel communities, but often retain unhealthy beliefs—posing ongoing risk in relationships.

Quote:
"If you're trying to pull them out ... it's probably not going to help your cause to make them think you're a dick to them." – Tim Squirrell [58:01]

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11. Final Messages: Community, Compassion, and Who’s Responsible

[69:46-73:05]

• Community: The antidote to isolation is genuine inclusion—small gestures matter.
• Men’s Responsibility: Men have to step up; misogyny and the manosphere are not women’s problem to solve alone.
• Outlook: Ultimately, many who flirt with or pass through incel communities do “exit,” but the poison can linger in their worldviews.

Quote:
"If there is someone in your life who is going through some rough shit and you find they are moving in a hateful direction ... keeping a small window open may mean the difference between that person having nowhere to go and having somewhere potentially to go at the point where everything blows up." – Tim Squirrell [69:51]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Those are the feelings that provide the seeds in which misogynistic beliefs can grow ...” – Tim Squirrell [13:02]
• "You found the worst self help place on earth." – Tim Squirrell [40:46]
• "Crypto is MLMs for boys, basically." – Tim Squirrell [45:01]
• "Pull factors are ... things that say, look, there's something else you could do ... you have to be there when they have their own crisis." – Tim Squirrell [54:41]
• "Men will have to step up ... it shouldn't all be on women to solve misogyny, obviously." – Tim Squirrell [72:21]

Fun moment:
Lola and Megan discuss Lola's recent date who used manosphere terms like "monk mode" (17:55–18:40), touching on how deeply manosphere language has entered even mainstream dating and male identity discussions.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [09:19] — Tim Squirrell’s academic background and path to manosphere research
• [12:08] — The universal susceptibility to incel beliefs
• [16:18] — Taxonomy of manosphere groups
• [22:44] — How misogyny is commodified, especially through figures like Andrew Tate
• [29:28] — Evolution of incel ideology and intersection with social issues
• [39:05] — Mental health dangers, suicide forums, and the ultimate risks
• [46:00] — Algorithms and social media as recruitment and radicalization tools
• [51:39] — Why debate doesn’t work; compassionate intervention strategies
• [55:54] — The power and danger of labels, the role of language
• [69:46] — Final thoughts: windows of empathy, and who’s responsible for change

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Tone & Style

The episode is both darkly funny and deeply empathetic. Lola, Megan, and Tim balance critical analysis, first-hand reflection, and humor to keep the discussion both approachable and serious. They avoid sensationalism, instead digging deep into psychological and social roots, with recurring emphasis on compassion and genuine connection as the antidote to manipulation and hate.

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Summary for New Listeners

This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking to understand the appeal and spread of the manosphere, the pathways and psychological roots of online misogyny, and how to support people vulnerable to radicalization—using heart, humor, and evidence-based perspective.

Transcript

[Lola Blanc]

This is exactly right.

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[Tim Squirrel]

Would let this happen to his family?

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Inspired by shocking actual events, I'm working.

[Lola Blanc]

On a story about the Murdochs. Their abuses of power are playing out in real time.

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Starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark.

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It's only cheating if you get caught.

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[Tim Squirrel]

Trust me. Do you trust me? Would I ever lead you astray?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Trust me.

[Tim Squirrel]

This is the truth. The only truth.

[Lola Blanc]

If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't. Welcome to Trust Me, the podcast about cults, extreme belief and manipulation from two squirrels who've actually experienced it. I'm Lola Blanc.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And I'm Megan Elizabeth and today our.

[Lola Blanc]

Guest is is researcher Tim Squirrel. We're going to talk to him about incels and man stuff. He is going to tell us about the taxonomy of the manosphere, the differences between incels and red pill, and lots more terms. I didn't know how some of these subcultures promote improving yourself and others promote rotting and giving up. But all promote misogyny and harmful, often dangerous ideas.

[Megan Elizabeth]

We'll discuss why these cultures are also bad for the people in them, often leading to risky behavior and get rich quick quick schemes. And what to do if someone you know is stuck in the manosphere? Oh, bad place to be stuck.

[Lola Blanc]

Bad place to be stuck. Tim is so funny. I feel like we were.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Tim is so.

[Lola Blanc]

We loved him. Yeah, no, this is a very fun funny Episode. Despite that, some of the stuff we're talking about obviously can lead to. To some dark places.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And I think it has to be noted, I mean, it must be said that on the way to this interview, I hit a squirrel. I'm really fucked up over it.

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Okay.

[Lola Blanc]

I know for his name to be Tim Squirrel.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I thought it was weird.

[Lola Blanc]

No, it was weird. Okay, before we go into the manosphere with Tim. Ooh, Megan, what's your cultiest thing this week?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Okay, well, Kim Kardashian is speaking out about having Stockholm syndrome with Kanye west, which is a term that we hear a lot in the cult world. It's when you get kind of attached to your abuser, right. Or your system of abuse. So a lot of people in cults kind of start to love their cult or their cult leader or their abusive partner or whatever. So there's been a lot of discourse about Stockholm syndrome. And a lot of the comments are like, that's not real.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, please.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, Paul.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh please. And was this in the Call Her Daddy episode? Yes, I have not listened to it yet. I heard that it was very interesting. Cause, yeah, you look at her being with someone like Kanye and at least for me, I was like, but they're four children. They had four children. And of course your brain wants to go to. Why, why would you stay for that? But that's what happens. Your brain like fuses to a person and it becomes very, very difficult to leave. Yeah, Yeah, I can't wait to listen to that.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah. You know, she's a complex presence that I have.

[Lola Blanc]

I have feelings about.

[Megan Elizabeth]

But yeah, no one deserves that. So, yeah, just. Just bring in bringing another cult term into the zeitgeist. So thought I'd bring it up here.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, I love it. Thanks.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You're welcome. What about you? What's the cultiest thing of your week?

[Lola Blanc]

There is a new story about a group, a religious group, of course, in Southern California actually called His Way Spirit Led Assemblies. And this sounds like there is a lot that's about to be uncovered. So basically it's run by a couple. The man is the priest and the woman is the prophetess, Daryl Martin and Kat Martin. So there was a child that died 15 years ago, 4 year old, whose custody had been handed over to this couple. And nothing came of it at the time. Cause there just wasn't enough evidence that they had actually done anything. But a man went missing in Claremont in 2019 who was also associated with this group. And another man went missing in 2023 who was also associated with this group. So what is interesting about it is that one of them, the one who went missing in 2023, had just left the church and then he went missing. And so now there are three. There's like, there's a mysterious death and two mysterious disappearances associated with this group, which people have said is definitely a high control group. These are allegations that are being made. We don't know that much about what's been going on in there, but these are very, like, concrete allegations that have been made. So it will be very interesting to see what happens with this case and what exactly happened to those missing men.

[Megan Elizabeth]

That's sad.

[Lola Blanc]

I know.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I know. Oh, my God.

[Lola Blanc]

And right here in Southern California, another California cult.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, my goodness.

[Lola Blanc]

The couple has been arrested and apparently a ton of weapons have been recovered there. Illegal weapons like converted fully automatic rifles, ghost guns without serial numbers, sawed off rifles. This was like a big, big gun group. And they are looking for any members or former members to come talk to them.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Do you know what the overarching belief of this group was?

[Lola Blanc]

I think it seems like it's just a religious group where they're.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Where Daryl is king.

[Lola Blanc]

Well, yeah. And Shelley is prophetess.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Cool. And the op, the opposite of cool. Not cool.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, not cool. So anyway, we'll keep y' all updated. If we learn more about that, we.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Should go investigate it.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, we're professionals. I did want to do that.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I know. We will. We will. We will.

[Lola Blanc]

But for now, I meant for when I was for a living. I wanted to do that for a living when I was younger. We will not.

[Megan Elizabeth]

No, we will.

[Tim Squirrel]

We will.

[Megan Elizabeth]

We're gonna break a case.

[Tim Squirrel]

Okay.

[Megan Elizabeth]

But for now, let's talk to Tim Squirrel.

[Lola Blanc]

Let's do it.

[Tim Squirrel]

What kind of man would let this happen to his family?

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Inspired by shocking actual events, I'm working.

[Lola Blanc]

On a story about the Murdochs. Their abuses of power are playing out in real time.

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Starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark.

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It's only cheating if you get caught.

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[Lola Blanc]

Welcome Tim Squirrel to Trust me. Thank you for joining us.

[Tim Squirrel]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Lola Blanc]

You are here with us today because I found some of your work. When Googling incels, as I tend to do sometimes, you know, it's something we all have to do. Can you talk to us a little bit about your academic background and your area of work?

[Tim Squirrel]

So look, there comes a time in everyone's life where you have to Google incels. Unfortunately, I think that time came for me slightly earlier than a lot of people and that's probably why I'm here. So I started out life, my professional life, I guess as an academic. I was doing a PhD at the University of Edinburgh and I was looking at how people in online communities come to trust each other and form relationships of authority and expertise. And when I started that in about 2015, no one gave a shit because they thought that the Internet didn't really matter. It was like an esoteric kind of thing that this guy was doing as a kind of self indulgent research project. And then people really rapidly realized that actually it did matter quite a lot. I was looking at Reddit and I got quite interested in how language spreads. And the way that I became interested in incels particularly was I was looking at the spread of the word cuck across Reddit and I obviously realised that it had really well initially started in the fetish community, but then rapidly spread across the kind of men's rights space. So a lot of them talking about the idea of cucking or cuckoldry being in some way linked to feelings of inferiority. There's a lot of race stuff in there. But then I was thinking, well, what about other language that we see in These spaces and the language that was increasingly common amongst the kind of extreme right I was noticing was coming mostly from the incel community, or at least it was a disproportionate representation. And so I started looking at the incel guys, and at that point they were all on Reddit. This was before the kind of Night of Long Knives, when Reddit sort of kicked all of them off. And after that, I sort of got quite absorbed in them for a little while. It was a really good way of not doing my PhD and doing something else. And so that's how I became kind of fascinated with incels and how they have a particular form of group identity. And I think there's a lot to unpack there. I'm assuming you guys are going to want to talk about them in terms of kind of cultic or cultish sort of framing. And I haven't seen that done too much. But the more I thought about it while I was listening to a couple of you guys older episodes, the more it made a little bit of sense to me.

[Lola Blanc]

Do you think there's a world in which you could have ended up as an incel?

[Tim Squirrel]

I think. Do I think there's a world in which I could have ended up as an incel? I think is a question that a lot of people who have worked in this field have asked themselves. And I think the answer for almost everyone is both yes and no. I think that it's kind of trite to do the. If only life hadn't gone the way it went for me, then maybe I would have been there. You know, there but for the grace of God go I. But I do think that looking back on my, like, teenage years, there are certainly periods of time where I was more embittered or more feeling as though, you know, I was never going to be attractive, never going to be popular, never going to be wanted. Um, and those are the feelings that provide the seeds in which misogynistic beliefs can grow.

[Lola Blanc]

Right?

[Tim Squirrel]

But they can grow in a number of different directions, right? So for some people, you end up in the red pill space where they go, okay, I feel like no one wants me. The way that I'm going to deal with this is I'm going to go to the gym, get really ripped, and I'm going to earn a shitload of money. And that's the thing that's going to allow me to become popular for women. But then the incel path is different to that. It's a backlash to that. So that's the black pill. The Idea that not only am I not popular now, but I'm never going to be wanted, no one's ever going to want me, no woman will ever want to fuck me. And consequently I'm just going to embrace this kind of nihilistic set of beliefs. And where you go, which direction you go is dependent on a whole bunch of different factors. In the same way that people with different kinds of vulnerabilities can get drawn into different kinds of cults or different kinds of movements. You know, for some people it's going to be really new age or spiritual. For some people it's going to be much more in the fascist direction.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I mean, self help is already. So it's rich for culty behaviors to emerge. And in some weird way it's like this incel movement is an inverse self help group where people are relating to it as if it is self self help for sure.

[Tim Squirrel]

In fact, if you look at certain parts of the incel community increasingly there over the last five years or so, they have become very self helpy. So looks maxing has become really mainstream, right? Like the idea that it's everything from really basic stuff, sort of the standard like go to the gym, lose some weight, change your diet, get a haircut, have a shower through to I'm going to break my fucking legs in order to get them lengthened and like undergo horrifying surgery that wouldn't be out of place in a horror movie. And so that is self help, but it's also absurd. So yeah, there's that part of it. But I also think that what you're saying about it being the inverse of self help is very interesting because there are certain ways in which the in self space specifically is a reaction to a self help movement. It's the idea that nothing can get better. You might as well, in their words, lay down and rot. And that's the really common term. Going back again, this is like 2017, 2018, they used to call it the lay down and rot lifestyle. Or they'd say hope or rope or hope rope or cope. Like the idea that you would either kill yourself or you would cope. And cope has a specific actually kind of technical meaning, which is that it's the idea that you're going to embrace beliefs that will never actually make your life better, but which you'll kind of consistently believe will. And so they would see any kind of self help stuff as a cope.

[Lola Blanc]

That is so fascinating. So I like, I just have this general idea of manosphere. I know a bit about pickup artist stuff, but that's more like pretty. This era of Internet. More like early 2000s.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah, yeah. You're sort of like mid 2000s. Neil Strauss, the Game.

[Lola Blanc]

Yes. I like, wrote an art. I've like, gone on pickup artists weekends and written about it. And so. But in terms of right now, like, okay, so you say there's incels, which are this more nihilistic sort of attitude, and then there's red pill. Like, what else is there? Where does Andrew Tate fall in all of this?

[Tim Squirrel]

Oh, God. Okay.

[Lola Blanc]

And wait, sorry, just to real quick, for any listeners who don't know, incel means involuntary celibate. It means somebody who women do not want to have sex with and they're mad about it. And there are people who just don't know that term. So go on.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah, sorry. I've started from a level of, like a baseline assumption about exposure to the term incel at this point. Yeah, and we'll see. So the classical. And I say classical as though it's like Hellenistic, but I mean, classical isn't about five, ten years ago. Taxonomy of the manosphere is incels in one corner, black pill. The idea is that the locus of control, whether you're able to change your own existence, your own life, is external. That is, you cannot change it. It is kind of inherent in the world. You've got men going their own way or mgtow in another corner. And they are the ones who sort of say, we need to stop talking to women entirely, completely disengage from women and go sometimes monk mode. So, you know, basically you're going to try and disentangle your life from matriarchy.

[Lola Blanc]

This is so weird. My date I went on two days ago used these terms, including literally saying, he is in monk mode right now. Sorry, go on.

[Tim Squirrel]

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, fuck.

[Lola Blanc]

Sorry. Continue. I just. I was like, wait, what?

[Tim Squirrel]

Will there be a second date?

[Lola Blanc]

Well, he literally was like, I'm not dating right now. I shouldn't have even gotten on this date with you.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, well, it sounds like he's a mgtow. Is that what it is?

[Lola Blanc]

He did say he's, like, very fascinated by incel communities. And he. He didn't reference MGTOW as something he's doing. I don't. Am I saying it wrong? I don't know what the fuck it is, but he was sort of explaining.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It to me, going towards men going their own way.

[Lola Blanc]

But then the fact that he literally described himself as in monk mode is shocking.

[Tim Squirrel]

Ooh.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I mean, I feel like it's dripped into almost every Man's unconscious.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah, yeah, that is precisely what I was gonna say is that one, not everyone who gets a bit obsessed with incel communities is terrible.

[Lola Blanc]

For sure. I'm obsessed with incel communities.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, but you're also terrible.

[Lola Blanc]

Well, that's true.

[Tim Squirrel]

Self interested reason for saying that. But also like this stuff has become deeply mainstream.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Tim Squirrel]

The idea of Chads and Stacy's of looks maxing, the idea of talking about virgins in like this really specific way. The idea of being black pilled. Right. Is one that a lot more people, maybe not, you know, your uncle, but a lot of folks just in who are vaguely online but aren't really immersed in the manosphere would now know about. And the idea of being pilled is so, so mainstream now. And obviously that comes from the red pill. But it's possible that your date is a mgtow. It's possible he's just a guy who's picked up some weird vocabulary.

[Lola Blanc]

I think it's more likely that. But.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Well, yeah, I mean it just the, the way the algorithm works is so bizarre. And we'll get into it, I'm sure in a bit, but like I had a relationship with somebody who was like, I love that you go to the gym and I love that's one of your coping mechanisms. Yay, go you. And I was like, thank you. And then he got red pilled by some sort of like algorithm where he'd be like, I know you're going to the gym to cheat on me.

[Lola Blanc]

What?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh man, literally. What?

[Lola Blanc]

And I love to hook up with people while I'm sweating in the gym.

[Megan Elizabeth]

But it was. And then like I told one of my guy friends and he was like, yeah, I see that content all the time. And I was like, oh my God, make it, make it stop. Anyway, yeah, that's a red pill example, correct? Or is that a black pill?

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's much more red pill. And that's much more. So just to I guess round off our taxonomy. So you've got your incels, you've got your mgtows, you got your pickup artists who Lola, you've talked about and then you've got your classic red pill, like men's rights activists. So think of in the uk, we had this group called Fathers for Justice. And in the mid 2000s and they became quite well known for being very divorced and also for doing things like dressing up as Spider man and climbing up buildings in order to protest for kind of father's rights. The idea is that custody courts are particularly unfair to Men, you know, you're real classic I'm a man, I'm oppressed sort of stuff. You know, I hate alimony, my ex wife's a bitch, like that kind of thing.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And did you refer to them as very divorced?

[Tim Squirrel]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Extremely divorced. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Okay.

[Lola Blanc]

Wow, that is so interesting. And I mean, like, I'm sure there's, like, there are valid points to be made there about custody battles like that.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And that's the problem.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

That all of these things have a.

[Lola Blanc]

Little kernels of truth there.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah, yeah. As with all conspiracy theories, with all cults, with all extreme beliefs, there's some small seed of truth around which everything rots. Right today. And this is where we're in a slightly different space. A lot of this stuff A has gone mainstream. I mean, there was a lot of discourse after the second Trump election around the idea that manosphere influencers were in some way responsible for the election result. I'm not going to comment on that specific claim, but it's mainstream. And also there is a lot more kind of agglomeration of manosphere misogyny with grind set hustle culture spaces. Right. So it used to be that you could just go to a subreddit and talk about how much you hated women and no one was trying to make money out of it. You know, we've lost sight of the true meaning of misogyny. It's been corrupted by commercialism.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It's been commercialized.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah, right, Exactly. Exactly. No longer can you just enjoy a bit of misogyny with your pals in a Reddit forum in a sort of amateur way. It's all professionalized these days. Joking aside, though, if you look at someone like Andrew Tate, that's precisely the personification of this. Right. Because it's not just about inculcating beliefs that women are inferior, that they are intrinsically gonna cheat on you because they're going to the gym and they're gonna end up with Chad or Tyrone or whoever. It's also about getting money out of you.

[Lola Blanc]

Yes.

[Tim Squirrel]

And not only is it about getting money out of you, but it's about making you believe that you're going to make money in the process.

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Megan Elizabeth]

So it's a pyramid scheme.

[Lola Blanc]

I was gonna say it's like MLMs for men.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

Mary Kay for men. Yeah.

[Tim Squirrel]

ML Men's. Sorry, I was making a stupid joke. MLMens.

[Megan Elizabeth]

ML Men's.

[Tim Squirrel]

I know what MLM is. Don't worry.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I was like Multi Level Marketing.

[Tim Squirrel]

Tim, honey, it's an mlm. Look, you might not be familiar because we're from America and we have these things here. We call them MLMs. They're not pyramid schemes. Legally, they're not. What kind of man would let this happen to his family?

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[Lola Blanc]

People like Andrew Tate are swooping in to these communities who have an unmet want or need and basically saying, I have the answer for you, and if you give me this money and join my fucking thing.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah, that's a great summary.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, but how do they make money off of it? How do they. Like, then they're saying, then you'll start your own little Andrew Tate group and you'll be the leader.

[Tim Squirrel]

It depends on. Okay, so it used to be if you were Neil Strauss, you'd write the game, you'd cash in on that, and if you were a pickup artist, you would sell your ebooks online and then you'd sell a course and people would come to your course and you'd shout with them in person and you tell them they weren't real men, but if they just followed the things that you were telling them, then they could become real men. Now it's more sophisticated, but it's also just as simple as. Right, so Andrew Tate was making money by getting people to subscribe to his Hustlers University bullshit, which then became known as the real world. And the idea was that if you caught enough controversy and you made your name big enough, that loads of people would come and loads of them would hate you and didn't matter because some of them would subscribe to your scheme to get to your inner circle, where you would teach them the principles, which is basically, it's selling them an ebook with extra steps, except that now there's a subscription. And there's the idea that you're part of an intentional community. It's very similar to the shift from diet or, like, beauty communities, where they started as like, I'm going to sell you this ebook that's going to teach you how to, like, I don't know, it was the early 2010s, so it was probably like, completely lose your ass or like, you know, like become a sub zero. But now it's all like, this isn't just a diet, this is a lifestyle and this is a community. And you're joining a tribe. Like, that's where we are now, with misogynists joining an intentional community built of only the finest misogyny.

[Lola Blanc]

So are you saying that what they're offering is like, sorry, clarify something for me. That being controversial will bring people to you as well. Like, they're marketing that you too can be controversial and make money being controversial.

[Tim Squirrel]

So the marketing for what you should do is slightly different. So some of it, yes, is the idea that if you get really, really good at this, then, like, maybe you could be the next Andrew Tate and you could caught controversy, you could have a podcast, you could create a community. But actually, a lot of it sort of says that the best way to make money is through what amounts to get rich quick schemes. So the really popular ones are drop shipping, foreign currency exchange, day trading, cryptocurrency, onlyfans management, which is a whole can of worms, basically, all of these methods by which you can make loads and loads of money. And you don't need to go to school, you should drop out of school, you should just become an entrepreneur and you just hustle really hard. So this is where I say it comes into collision with hustle culture and the sort of Sigma Grindset bullshit is that the idea is that you don't need any of these fancy ass degrees. You need a profession, you, career. Your career is basically finding the next grift and exploiting the hell out of it. And that will allow you to make six figures, move to Dubai and drive a Bugatti. And that's the, that's the vibe.

[Lola Blanc]

Are incels like, what's the thinking in that community in terms of becoming rich and making money? If it's more of that nihilistic like, don't improve yourself thing, the incels have.

[Tim Squirrel]

Changed over the last five to 10 years. There was a kind of period where it was all about lookism. So the idea was that your destiny in life was determined by your facial genetics and your height and things about your looks that can't really be changed very easily. And my view on this was always that if you located the things that were problematic and preventing you from achieving your goals in the things that were the hardest to change, then that prevented you from having to do anything about it. Right. So it's not just that like you are a bit overweight, perhaps and that people might find you more attractive if you are to lose some weight. Not trying to judge that as a true or false statement, but that might be some advice that someone would give. They say that is the very first thing you should do. And only after that can you really call yourself an incel because you've done all the things that are meant to make you attractive and you're still not there. So you're like, your wrists are too thin, your canthal tilt is wrong, your jaw is slightly too recessed.

[Lola Blanc]

I have rejected so many men for their wrist size number one priority.

[Tim Squirrel]

That's exactly what I've come to expect from Stacy's. Like you.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh my God, am I Stacey?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Thank you.

[Tim Squirrel]

Oh, yeah, 100%. You'd be a Stacy on the inside boards. I'm sure they would agree.

[Lola Blanc]

And for audience members.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yes.

[Lola Blanc]

Can you actually tell us what a Stacey versus a Chad.

[Tim Squirrel]

Oh, fuck. Okay, so Chad is the guy who's got everything going for him. He's 6 foot 3, he's jacked, he's ripped, he's high status, and he's got a really big jaw. And essentially this means that all women forever will want to have sex with Chad and will want to settle down with Chad. Chad will never want to settle down with any of them because he can do better always. And the idea that incels have is that they call it the pareto principle, that 80% of women want 20% of the men and that Those men are Chad. To confirm. I looked for myself a while back on the incel boards. They think I'm a Chad lite. So I've got some work to do.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, my God. No, you're Chad.

[Lola Blanc]

What? Yeah. What's remaining? Yeah.

[Tim Squirrel]

Thank you. Yeah, I. Look, I don't. I don't know, maybe they were negging me. Who knows? Anyway, so the lookism thing was. Was big for a while, and then you had a bunch of them basically say, no, no, it's not just looks. It's about whether you're autistic or not or whether you have developmental or, like, neurodivergent issues that mean that you can't attract women. And the reason for this in part is because their patron saint, Elliot, Roger, who killed a number of people and himself in 2014, basically his whole thing was, yes, a little bit about how he looked, but also about how he. Girls just laughed at him. How he was, you know, the supreme gentleman, but they didn't want him anyway. And incels broadly tend to agree that his main issue was not to do with his looks, but was to do with his abilities socially. So there's a big clash.

[Lola Blanc]

Interesting.

[Tim Squirrel]

Between the lookists and people who think that autism in particular, but your kind of social skills in general are more important. So what's interesting there is what comes out of that is much more of a kind of agreement with some of the earlier red pill guys that actually what matters isn't just your looks or whether you're neurotypical, but also things like status, wealth, et cetera. And the idea is that if you make enough money, if you become high enough status, you can overcome all these things, right. Like how do you account for the existence of Danny DeVito or someone? And the idea is that if you are sufficiently high status, then you can overcome this stuff. Of course, they then go into a lot of. They extrapolate this to the most hideous things you can imagine. So they talk about jihad maxing, which is the idea that you should move to a conservative Muslim country, convert to Islam and have multiple wives. You should try to go to a place which is misogynistic. They talk about geomaxing or globe maxing, which is the idea that you should move to a country where white people are seen as more attractive or where your money will go further. And then you should use that as a way to exploit women into having a relationship with you. So. So they start to understand power dynamics, which I think is fascinating about incels because they kind of the. There is a bizarro reverse feminism about them. Where in the red pill community, you've got a kind of liberal feminism in reverse. Right? The idea is that if you personally strive hard enough, you work hard enough on yourself, on your body, on your wealth, then you can succeed, you can overcome everything. And the incels have a radical feminist reverse reaction to that, which is like, no, it's all about structural conditions. It's all about not just like, are you ripped and high status and high net worth? But also, are you white? Are you in a country which prizes whiteness? Do you have autism or are you autistic? Those are the sorts of things they start to talk about and they kind of get to intersectionality.

[Lola Blanc]

That's fascinating.

[Tim Squirrel]

But then they go all the way back around and go, ah, no, the problem is that women are fundamentally genetically programmed to fuck with you. Wow. I don't think I actually answered your question there, but I find it interesting, so I've said it.

[Lola Blanc]

No, it's super interesting. I feel like I have 1000 more questions, but I'm gonna try to get to.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I mean, I just have one observation. It just feels like this is depression and it's taken this ugly form because these men aren't allowed to be like, I'm super depressed. I don't know.

[Tim Squirrel]

I think that is part of it. I also think that there are horribly high expectations for what you as a teenage boy should be able to do and for what you should be. And I think that it's very easy to become disillusioned as a result of that. I think that's becoming worse and worse, particularly as people spend time on social media where there are these projections of perfection which you're expected to be able to attain. But I think that a lot of them do recognize that they are depressed. So I don't want to put too much weight on internal surveys of INCEL boards, but let's go there. Most of them do think of themselves as having a mental health condition. A lot of them think of themselves as having a neurodivergence of some kind. So they consider themselves depressed. And unfortunately, a lot of them do consider suicide. And what I think is interesting is that they are very manipulable as a group and very vulnerable. So if you'll permit me, an indulgent flashback to 2018, when I first started looking at INCEL boards after they've been kicked off of Reddit, what is now still the biggest INCEL forum began, and it's gone through a load of different iterations. It's still run by the same people, though. And on that there were far fewer rules than there were on Reddit. And it was essentially a kind of mix of Reddit culture with 4chan culture in that it was really fast. Loads of shitposting. No one took anything seriously. People said the edgiest possible stuff they could. And they had a real problem with paedophiles coming there and recruiting incels. There was this one particular guy who used it as a recruiting ground for his now defunct forum. The guy's now dead. Actually. It's a really weird story called Incelocalypse. And on Incelocalypse, he was posting behind a login wall, posting indecent images of children and child sexual abuse material. And I remember someone saying at the time, this is the only place. The incel forum is the only place where coming in and saying, hey, you're super depressed and no one will love you. Have you thought about abusing children isn't a complete non. Starter. Wow. Because the idea is that these people are completely desperate and there is a lot of flirtation in those spaces with things which are completely societally taboo because they feel isolated, they feel alienated from society, and they feel sometimes as though their only option would be to do something horrible. And also there is that kind of. I'm playing up for the cameras. I'm doing something edgy. I'm saying something edgy.

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Tim Squirrel]

So it's not just earnest embracing of really awful stuff, it's also kind of doing it for the bit.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah. That brings me to the next thing I wanted to ask, which is like, you know, say someone. I feel like I've heard someone before be like, but Andrew Tate has some good videos. Like, what would you. To a newbie who's, like, not familiar with the manosphere, what would you say are the dangers or harms of these communities in addition to what you just described?

[Tim Squirrel]

So it's really hard not to start at the real extreme here, because I want to note off the bat that the guys who run the biggest incel forum on the web also run another forum, which I'm not going to name, which encourages suicide and provides people with information about how to kill themselves.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, my God.

[Tim Squirrel]

And there's been numerous investigations into this forum, and a few years ago, it was credibly linked with about 50 deaths.

[Megan Elizabeth]

50.

[Narrator (Corruption Uncovered Ad)]

Wow.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah. It's still going. It's still around. The British government's tried to do something about it. They failed. It's very, very hard to take down a website. It turns out, even if you use legislation. And so that's still going, it's still run by the same guys. And they are awful. Now their argument is that we're not pro suicide, we're pro choice, which is a horrifying adoption of the language of liberation.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Right.

[Tim Squirrel]

But yeah. So the worst thing that can happen is that you get sucked into this and it encourages you to not just absorb horrifying misogyny, but also to potentially end your own life. But the misogyny is pretty bad. So the harms are also that this doesn't help you in any way. That this is a bucket of crabs that you will never escape from. Because if you spend a lot of time in an incel forum, it's not somewhere where people want you to get better, it's somewhere where people want to drag you down as far as possible to feel the same pain that they feel.

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Tim Squirrel]

You found the worst self help place on earth. Right. So that's one of the issues. But also it will inculcate in you the worst possible beliefs you could have about yourself and about other people. It will push you to say that women who are murdered deserved it because of the way that they had treated men by being sexually liberal. It will make you believe that girls who are murdered or raped deserved it. Because even if they hadn't done anything bad, eventually they would have done. That's where you get to.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I was just gonna say. And then that further isolates them because everyone else is like, I fucking hate you. I don't care what you do. Like it isolates you.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah, completely. There is. It's really, really hard to not end up in a position where everyone just tells you to fuck off. And then that obviously means that you retreat into the forum that accepts you. Right. No one in your life understands you, so why not just stay in the incel space? There's a big interactivity between the incel spaces and the people who critique them where there used to be. I can't remember if there still is, but there's a big subreddit called incel tiers where they would make fun of incels. You know, they post the worst stuff. The incels have been saying they take the piss out of them. And there was a degree to which that was useful as a way of shaking away people who might be tempted by incel stuff. Because it can say, look, if you get into this, people are going to mock you, man. That's not great. But also it does isolate them further. And also the incels started to just respond to the talking points. Right. So they would say, look, I've had three showers today and still no one wants to fuck me. Right. So they realize what is being said to them and they're able to construct narratives that evade those talking points and they build on top of that. Right. You can't just use the same narratives over and over again and expect people not to adapt and change and work around them.

[Lola Blanc]

Is there research on the mental health impact of just hating people or like staying in that sort of negative space? Like, does that have an emotional nagging yourself or. Or just hating, hating women?

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah, I don't know if there's particular research on that. I do know. So I've done a bit of work with the folks at Movember. I don't know if you know them. They're the guys who run the charity, which is November, you grow in the status. And they obviously very interested in young men's health and they put out a report where they've done a lot of research into the effects on young men of engaging with what they call male lifestyle influencers. The manosphere to you and me. And some of it was short term, kind of positive. They saw themselves as, you know, increasingly motivated to do things like fitness and the gym and to kind of really go out and get it. And that's how we get into Andrew Tate is A, you find him funny and B, you find him motivating. But obviously it starts to drip feed you really horrible beliefs about women and also horrible beliefs about yourself, and that can result in you engaging in risky behaviors. So if your belief is that you have to get rich really quick and you have to get jacked really quick, then that's going to cause you, or at least encourage you to do some things that are not helpful. Right. We know that the rate of steroid abuse amongst teenage boys has skyrocketed. We know that there's increasing tendencies for younger boys and men to try to get into cryptocurrency and get into really dodgy kind of get rich quick schemes. Right. I know we talked about MLMs earlier, but this is kind of the equivalent of that to some degree is, you know, you're selling a crypto token.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Tim Squirrel]

And you're selling it to your followers and your followers will buy it and you pump it and then you dump it and then they lose all their money. Right. So crypto is MLMs for boys, basically.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah.

[Tim Squirrel]

And that is the sort of thing that you can end up in because you started to find an interest in these guys because they were funny or they spoke to some of your insecurities, right?

[Megan Elizabeth]

And then, of course, and as in most cults, you know, the things you're starting to do are just making it more circular and worse. Like you start taking steroids and now your anger is 50 times worse than when you started and you have a lot more energy.

[Tim Squirrel]

The steroids thing's so funny as well, because it's a really common theme in like gym spaces online for guys to talk about how they started taking steroids or getting really jacked because they wanted to appeal to women. And now the only people who find them attractive are other men because so funny. It's all the other guys who also want to be jacked who are like, wow, bro, what's your arm routine?

[Lola Blanc]

Literally, okay, yeah, had an ex boyfriend, very jacked. The people who commented on it the most by far, were other dudes.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Always, always, always.

[Lola Blanc]

The dudes loved it. If I, okay, let's say I'm a guy on the Internet, I am 19. How might I first be exposed to some of this content these days?

[Tim Squirrel]

It's the algorithm. So it used to be you had to kind of go out looking for it back in the good old days of the Internet when, as you say, you did some pickup artisty type stuff when you were in the mid-2000s, you know, you'd have to find the place. You had to know what you were looking for, at least stumble on it. Someone in a forum had to recommend it. These days, if you are a boy on YouTube, then you're gonna see some Andrew Tate, or maybe not Andrew Tate, but you'll see some David Goggins or you'll see some Jordan Peterson. And if you spend enough time hovering over that or watching that, or you comment on that or you like it, you're going to see someone else. And that is the first way in which you'll get into this stuff. And what will probably happen first is it will be in the context of something funny, right? It'll be, it'll be comedic. And you'll start by seeing it as this is all about jokes and having a laugh. And then you start to look into the other things that they're saying and maybe you find something interesting in there. And maybe what you find interesting in what they have to say is about how women are sluts and will necessarily cheat on you. And. But the problem is that it's so normalized. It's not just the manosphere anymore. There's, you've got your trad wives, you've got your femosphere, you've Got all sorts of stuff which is kind of normalizing this from both sides as well, where you've got women who are coming onto TikTok and saying, what I really want is a husband who's going to dominate me and be head of the household and earn the all the money so that I don't have to do anything.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Well, I mean, yeah, yeah, I, I was just telling Lila I saw an article of, of a woman who signed on as a 13 year old girl to TikTok just to see what happened and immediately was just like, how to get an eating disorder, how to da da da da da. Like, and it's, it's crazy that it just feeds it to you.

[Tim Squirrel]

It is fucking endemic.

[Lola Blanc]

Is that true for teenage, for young boys as well?

[Megan Elizabeth]

I mean, like, yeah, it's like, get a gun.

[Lola Blanc]

Like, what are the first things? I mean, like, yeah, no, what's being served up to you if you're a teenage boy, like on TikTok?

[Tim Squirrel]

Well, as you say, if you're a teenage girl, you go on TikTok or we go on Instagram, then you're going to see eating disorder stuff. You're going to see pro ana content that has been the case for a very long time. It is just sometimes increasingly subtle and sometimes increasingly in your face. Right. There's just more of it, there's just more of everything now than there was 10, 15 years ago. If you are a teenage boy, then you're going to see stuff that is about sports and about. I'm trying to think what teenage boys like again. I was one, for Christ's sake.

[Megan Elizabeth]

In America it's guns. The article, she did it with boys too. And it was like immediately like gun shit.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah, exactly. Like you're gonna see the things that the algorithm thinks you want because they have profiled your demographic and if you are in the demographic that likes sports and guns, they're gonna serve you sports and guns. And maybe you might like a touch of misogyny on the side as well. And that's how you start to get this stuff. It's insidious, I know.

[Lola Blanc]

So sorry.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Mine just serves me ASMR and cats and it's like, we know who you are.

[Lola Blanc]

Mine just serves me the worst political news that you could possibly imagine. That's all I see. That's literally my entire feed. So what do we do?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Can you fix it?

[Tim Squirrel]

There is a reason I don't work on this quite so much anymore. Because I find it so depressing. Partly because being exposed to extreme content every day for Work is a way to break your brain in fairly short order, but also because so much of it is not just driven by individual choices, it's structural. Right? It's about how our politics works. It's about how our culture works. And what gives rise to the manosphere is the same stuff that gives rise to all other parts of the system. But let's focus on something that we can maybe change, which is about technology, because this has been turbocharged by the algorithm. And by the algorithm. I know it's not just one thing that it's a huge number of things that are interacting with one another to create the thing that you see when you open TechTalk. But. But the systems that they have built for Facebook, for TikTok, for Instagram, for wherever, are designed to be as addictive as possible because the business model is the longer you spend on there, the more money they make from ads. And how do you make people spend longer on there? You make them more engaged. And what does engagement look like? Well, it doesn't care whether you like something or hate it. All that matters is that you spend the time. So that means that it's designed to just make you spend as long as possible on there. And that means that the most controversial things are things that go closest to the line without going over the line. Those are things that get pushed to you. So the things that we can do are trying to push back against the idea that this is a business model that should be promoted. So there is increasingly pressure elsewhere in the world to do stuff about this. Problem is that often it is not perfect politically either. But I think that trying to move towards a system which doesn't default to recommending you the most addictive shit possible is certainly one way of helping with that.

[Lola Blanc]

And on an individual level, we found a video of yours that we liked from a while ago where you talked about why debating doesn't work and changing minds doesn't work the way that we think.

[Tim Squirrel]

Oh, God, Wow. That's an old one.

[Lola Blanc]

You should do more YouTube anyway. If you encounter a young man or an old man or anyone who seems.

[Tim Squirrel]

To be.

[Lola Blanc]

Going down this path or dabbling, or they're starting to get exposed to this kind of stuff, maybe they're starting to isolate how would you respond as an individual to that person?

[Tim Squirrel]

It's really hard. When I say debating doesn't work, I'm trying to think back. I must have made this about 10 years ago. When I say debating doesn't work, what I am talking about is that you can't just Change someone's mind with enough facts and evidence and logic in order to get them out of whatever belief they currently hold. It just doesn't work that way because the way that we form our beliefs is social and emotional. It's not based on logic, no matter how much the kind of debate bros might wish you to think that. And so usually, as you guys know very well what a cult is doing, what an extreme belief is doing is preying on a particular vulnerability that you have and filling a need in your life. And so in order to try to take someone out of the manosphere or an incel space or, I don't know, a neo Nazi group, unfortunately, you, if you're already in their life, need to stay to some degree present in their life. You can't completely cut yourself off necessarily. And you have to be kind of an anchor to some degree. You have to be able to say the thing that you're saying right now is wrong. And here is why I believe it to be wrong. And often you have to appeal to the humanity of the people that they're undermining in order to make that argument. Rather than trying to say something about why the statistic they've given you about women making up rape allegations is false, you have to appeal to the humanity of women and of everyone around them. But you also have to not say, I am cutting you off. I'm pushing you out of my life. Now, this is not to say that all people have a duty to do that for everyone all the time. But the way that you get someone out of these spaces is to try to make it so that they have other options. So the way you get out of extreme groups is sometimes there's push factors. Right? The situation gets so bad within them that you're looking for an alternative. But also there have to be pull factors, which are the things that say, look, there is a life that looks better than this. There is an alternative. It's possible for you to have community, to have hobbies and a job and friendship and love outside of the thing in which you found yourself.

[Lola Blanc]

Did you say pull factors?

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah. So push factors and pull factors.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, I love that. Okay, I've never heard that before.

[Tim Squirrel]

So push factors are the things that are pushing you away that are saying, like, what you are in now is untenable. You cannot stay in this thing or you're going to die. And the pull factors are the things that say, look, there's something else you could do something else with your life, and these are all the alternatives for you. So you can't necessarily create the push factors. If you are like a professional investigative journalist whose job is to dig up dirt and like sow division within a far right group, maybe you can create some push factors, but you can create pull factors and you can be there. So my personal background on kind of extreme beliefs is not actually in the incel space, it's actually in the religion space. Half of my family were all Jehovah's Witnesses at various points and there are various arguments about whether that would be considered a cult or not. But what I do know is that you cannot convince someone out of a religious commitment, but that you basically have to wait for them to have their own crisis and then still be there.

[Lola Blanc]

Yes. Oh, we talk about this all the time.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yep.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah. So it's no different, right? It's no different.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Well, one of the things that I love that you said and I believe that same video was just the language that we use can be kind of a turn off for somebody. So the word incel, like, do they immediately recoil from that word if it's from somebody who's trying to like, does.

[Lola Blanc]

It feel like an attack?

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah, it's a really hard one because it is a value laden word. But because it's become so mainstream, it started to mean more than one thing. So an incel can be someone who is a committed member of a forum where people talk about being involuntarily celibate. But they can also be someone who you're just calling that because you used to call them a fedora or a neckbid or a virgin or a fucking loser. Right. And calling someone an incel doesn't necessarily mean that much anymore. And you have to think, does it help to call someone a fedora or a neckbeard or a fucking loser? And the answer is sometimes yes, because you have to show them that the behaviour which they're engaging in is not acceptable sometimes. No, because what you're trying to do is show them that you are still going to be accepted by whatever community or group or society that they are trying to cut themselves off from. So in the same way that you have to find boundaries with anyone, you have to find boundaries with your language in how you talk to people as well. And yeah, in the same way that calling someone a Nazi if they don't self identify as a Nazi probably alienates them a bit because they're like, oh dude, you just call anyone a Nazi these days. Yeah, but also you can call them a Nazi if they self identify as a Nazi, they probably Just go, yeah, yeah, that's correct. I'm a, I'm a white nationalist. So look, alienating language is always going to alienate. It's not always your job to be welcoming and inclusive all the time. Because people who hold hateful beliefs can really cause damage. But if you're trying to pull them out of something, yeah, it's probably not going to help your cause to make them think you're a dick to them.

[Lola Blanc]

Well, and even outside of just like calling someone something that could be considered a slur or an insult, like we develop shorthand language in our cultures, in our subcultures, there are terms that, you know, people on the left would use that people on the right would immediately shut off toward that argument just because of the term, and vice versa. Language becomes so charged so quickly and it can be difficult to have those conversations without like, it's almost like a game of taboo. You have to figure out how to talk about the thing without saying the words.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You just have to self edit and think about every single word. Now that's what I've realized.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah, you have to be really, really careful with the language you use. Do you guys know the term thought terminating cliches?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah, it's kind of that, right? Except it's external. So the moment you hear someone use a particular word, you're able to pigeonhole them in a certain category and say, okay, this person is coming from this perspective and that is a perspective I disagree with or find or have historically had bad experiences with. So I don't need to listen to that person.

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Tim Squirrel]

And that's kind of what's happening here. So if you are talking to an incel and you start talking about how, look, it's all okay, I'm sure women must like, you, really, you just need to like, take a shower once in a while and like, have you thought about being nicer to women? Those are the sorts of things that they are going to find really alienating. Now, obviously they should be nicer to women. So this is about the purpose of your conversation with them. This is about whether you're trying to build rapport as a way of hopefully helping them out at some point. Because I think the truth is most people who find themselves in an incel space will eventually not be in that space anymore. Some of them, sadly, will stay there forever and be increasingly embittered, particularly if their identity fuses with being an incel. If they're the moderator or the administrator of the forum, they're probably not going to leave anytime soon. But Most of them will not be incels forever because while it will be a facet of their identity for a while, eventually they will find someone who might appreciate them or they will grow up, frankly, like a lot of them are just kids and they're just having a bit of a phase and they're acting out a bit and they will grow out of the extreme beliefs and they will start to have some relationships with people that might be because they go off for university, or it might be because they join some kind of social group or it might just be luck. Right. The problem I have is that those people are not completely, I don't want to use the word deprogrammed because that's obviously very freighted, but they haven't given up the beliefs that led them down that way in the first place. So the worry I have always had about incels is not just that they are a horrible group that hates themselves and hates other people, it's that after you get out, you still hold some of the residual beliefs about the world and about women and that will likely influence the way in which you interact with those people. Right. I don't think that you can come out of being an incel and have a healthy, functioning relationship in which you respect your partner. And that's why I think that there is a threat to women and girls that is posed by ex incels, perhaps even more than there is incels, because a lot of incels just stay in their room and post online all the time.

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Tim Squirrel]

And that obviously can have its own harms. Like harassing women online is still harassing women, but they're often just talking to themselves. And the moment you go out into the world and you start having relationships, that's the moment you can actually hurt someone.

[Lola Blanc]

I've not thought about that. Yeah. Going back to the pull factors question, what are some pull factors that would work? Like how, how would you offer that to someone?

[Tim Squirrel]

How do you offer pull factors?

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, hey man, there's a basketball game. Let's go to a movie on Monday with some dudes.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, let's go to a movie.

[Tim Squirrel]

What you would do, Lola, is you'd put on your, your best basketball hat, baseball hat, and like dress up as a, as a little boy, like maybe like a 15 year old boy. And you'd say, hey buddy, hey, there's some dudes going to the basketball game. Do you want to come to the basketball game? That's what you do. That is basically it. Right. So you guys are right. You can try to make them feel included. And you can try to consistently not pressure people, but at least provide them with the possibility of something else. Right. Oh, there's this guy in our group, he's kind of a weirdo. But like, let's still invite him to the movie night. Like, let's keep him in the book club. Like, I don't know why movie night and book club are the things I go to. I'm very much in my mid-30s at the same time. Yeah, that's kind of part of it. And it's just providing them with the knowledge and the idea there is something else than what they have right now.

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Tim Squirrel]

And most of that is about a human need for company and community and love and all the fluffy things.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah.

[Tim Squirrel]

Which you told me nothing in these spaces. Right. The manosphere wants to grind down the idea that any of that means anything. It's all about whether you're making enough paper and you're hitting enough personal records in the gym and whether you're high enough status, you've got enough cars. All those things are completely hollow and empty. They're kind of like the sorts of things that someone might like if they like to live in Dubai.

[Lola Blanc]

You know, it's like a high, a temporary high that doesn't actually provide any meaning.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It's a strange shit.

[Lola Blanc]

I also think that's a product of the culture we live in. Like America at least, is a very individualistic society and very fixated on this idea that if you achieve enough, then you will finally reach happiness. Which of course we know not to be true.

[Tim Squirrel]

The thing that you were saying, Megan, is also true. It is about appealing to a teenage sense of what the world is. The idea that the things that are most important are like material possessions, like fast cars and dominating your friends and opponents. Like Those are very 12 year old approaches to the world. And it is very clear from looking at someone like Andrew Tate actually kind of is appealing to 12 year old boys.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yes.

[Tim Squirrel]

Because most men in their 20s, 30s, 40s look at that guy and think, what a fucking embarrassment. You know, you look at this guy fronting up as though he's, you know, like the king shit of fuck mountain and they find that embarrassing, whereas a 12 year old does not. And that's what's so insidious about this, is he is aiming to draw in kids.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yes.

[Tim Squirrel]

Because they are impressionable and because they will listen to you.

[Lola Blanc]

Yes.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And a few adults get thrown in along the way.

[Lola Blanc]

Well, I was gonna ask. Is that. I mean, I guess maybe just because I'm an adult, the Exposure that I have to people who are fans of people like Andrew Tate are also adults. And you know, the misogynistic comments on my Instagram that I've been posting are grown ass men. You know, I'll go on a random date and I'll. Someone will say something and I'll be like, oh, you're. Oh, you love Jordan Peterson.

[Tim Squirrel]

Oh, that's monk mode.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Monk mode.

[Lola Blanc]

I don't think that man is an insult. But, but I have, I did sleep with someone and in the morning I saw the other side of his door that had a 12 rules for life poster on it, which was quite a shock.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Who writes that?

[Lola Blanc]

Jordan Peterson.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh my God.

[Lola Blanc]

And anyway, like, you know, like I'm. Maybe it's just a matter of exposure because of my, my age.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Maybe you love incels.

[Lola Blanc]

Maybe, but I like. Is there data on the fan bases of these people?

[Tim Squirrel]

Look, it might also be because you live in la, you might have really questionable taste in men.

[Lola Blanc]

Most of the men are great. This is a very, very rare occurrence. It's like once every four years.

[Tim Squirrel]

Sorry, I forgot the question because I was determined to mildly mock you.

[Lola Blanc]

Data on age range.

[Tim Squirrel]

Oh God. Yeah. Okay, so I'm not entirely certain about age. What I will say is that typically more conservative attitudes towards gender are something which are held by older men. Though of course there is increasingly data coming out that shows a worrying divergence in political beliefs between young men and young women. The weird one for that is South Korea, where it's really extreme, but also in the US as well, where young women are increasing left wing, young men are increasingly kind of centre right. And that is creating friction between people of different genders. So how would I put this? It's not so much that it is more likely that you hold misogynistic beliefs if you are a particular age, because statistically I think you're more likely to hold them if you are older. Because older folks tend to hold traditional gender views and those are misogynistic.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, but my grandpa's not getting on Reddit.

[Tim Squirrel]

Right, because. Exactly. So if you are older and hold those beliefs, you're getting expressed in a different way. Right. Thanksgiving dinner. You're not going to be a Jordan Peterson.

[Lola Blanc]

Thanksgiving dinner.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah, precisely. So it could just be that Lola is very unlucky and is meeting a bunch of guys who really like Jordan Peterson.

[Lola Blanc]

No, though to be fair, two guys, that's a lot.

[Tim Squirrel]

Sorry.

[Lola Blanc]

I think it's actually one guy, this recent guy. I'm telling you, he's not he's normal. He's just fascinated by ripped.

[Tim Squirrel]

That guy. We have really got in on him.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I know.

[Lola Blanc]

I feel like he's gonna listen to this box. I think you're fine. I think it's fine.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You are allegedly not an incel.

[Lola Blanc]

But again, like, yeah, like the most hateful comments I receive are not by. They seem to be by men in their 20s, 30s, 40s.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah, that makes complete sense. And I would note that misogyny can be written out in many forms and that everyone has access to Instagram. Right. So finding your stuff and posting hateful shit underneath it doesn't indicate the information environment that person's been putting up in. They could be on Reddit, they could be on 4chan, they could be on Facebook, they could be.

[Lola Blanc]

So many options.

[Tim Squirrel]

Well, the. The only filter is literally have they come to your Instagram feed and that's it. They can be from anywhere.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, totally. Misogyny comes in many forms.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It sure does.

[Tim Squirrel]

Misogyny's endemic.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I'm just wondering if anybody has ever become such a close knit community on these incel forums that they become not incels.

[Lola Blanc]

They're like, actually community is good and we should embrace healthy values.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I kind of want to write a movie about it.

[Tim Squirrel]

I think that's a beautiful idea for a movie script and I don't think it has ever happened. They sort of come together. It's like a kind of like friends to no enemies to friends sort of thing. Or like they come together through the power of love.

[Lola Blanc]

Exactly.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It's a Christmas movie. It's a Christmas movie.

[Lola Blanc]

Don't worry about it.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I loved it. Yeah.

[Tim Squirrel]

Love in the time of insteldom. I like it.

[Lola Blanc]

Do you have any final thoughts or messages that you would like the people to receive?

[Tim Squirrel]

Do I have messages for the people? Hug your friends, love your loved ones? No, but genuinely, I do think part of it is that is I think that this is not me doing a wishy washy, like love across the divide shit. Because frankly, right now the world is awful and there are a whole lot of people who are prove themselves very incapable of redemption. But if there is someone in your life who is going through some rough shit and you find that they are moving in a hateful direction, it can be very, very tempting to completely cut them off. And I would not blame you if you did. But keeping a small window open may mean the difference between that person having nowhere to go and having somewhere potentially to go at the point where everything blows up. I think that's true of all of the cults you guys have talked about. I think that's true of basically any extreme movement or community that it's very easy to completely alienate someone when they've become such an asshole. But I think it's important to recognize that they may need somewhere to go eventually. And if you love them, then maybe think about keeping them at least partly at arm's length in your life.

[Megan Elizabeth]

That's going to be a line on the Christmas movie.

[Lola Blanc]

We hear it over and over again. And I'm happy to hear you reiterate it because it does seem to really remain true throughout every group and every type of weird fucking belief.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, it really does.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah.

[Tim Squirrel]

Well, I'm sorry to be cliche, but I'm happy to be part of a chorus, I guess.

[Lola Blanc]

No, I mean, it's nice to hear it pertaining to this particular subculture as well, because it is such a scary and, you know, seemingly prevalent and growing subculture.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And I guess it's a subculture that we're gonna need men to really step up and do some of the dirty work.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah, this is what kind of sucks is I think a lot of the work on this, at least the early really good work, was done by women. And I think it is fantastic. And I recognize that women have a lot to contribute to this. Sorry, this sounds really weird, like. But have a unique contribution to make. However, what I was going to say is, A, it shouldn't all be on women to solve misogyny, obviously. B, a lot of these guys are not going to listen to women.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Exactly.

[Tim Squirrel]

And I think that there is a degree to which men will have to step up, as you say, to sort this shit out. And I think that it's really. It's gonna have to be an all genders kind of vibe. But yes, men have a responsibility in this direction as well. And some of them are doing really, really good work. And actually the kind of coalition that I have been part of with the Movember guys is a lot of them are guys showing what good male role models can look like and are trying to do the work to provide the community and provide the spaces that allow boys to find healthy, productive outlets for.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Hard feelings, baseball and movies.

[Lola Blanc]

Here's the point at which I propose to you to keep doing your YouTube.

[Tim Squirrel]

Okay, your proposal is noted. I have not done a YouTube in about six years.

[Lola Blanc]

That is correct. I did note that.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah, I will consider it and I appreciate the vote of confidence.

[Lola Blanc]

Thank you. And where do people find your work or the organization you work for? Whatever you'd like to Share.

[Tim Squirrel]

These days I'm on Blue Sky, I think. I'msquirrel, but without any vowels, I think is where I'm at these days. But I used to be on Twitter. I'm not anymore. If you look me up on Google, you will probably find some way of contacting me in the way that Lola did. Actually, I didn't know my email was that easy to find.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, my God. I remember that.

[Lola Blanc]

If you look hard enough. Amazing.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Thank you so much, Tem. This was a really cool conversation.

[Tim Squirrel]

Thank you so much for having me. This has been really, really fun.

[Lola Blanc]

Thank you to Tim Squirrel for coming on Megan. Of course. I have to ask you if you think that you would join the manosphere.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, I think if I was a man who was down on my luck and super lonely, I would be very susceptible to a group like that.

[Lola Blanc]

The reason I asked him if he would ever join was because I've talked to a good amount of guys who've been like, yeah, if I had, like, stayed on the YouTube path that I was on when I was younger, I totally could have ended up on that road. Like, the resentment was there, the loneliness was there, the isolation, you know? So I think it can happen to anyone who's. Yeah, yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I think it would be a really nice little coat hanger to hang my resentments and problems on and just be like, it's them.

[Tim Squirrel]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

And as an update, I did speak with my date about him using the term, and we joked about it, and I told him. We talked about it on this podcast, and I thought it was funny. He is not an incel.

[Abercrombie Narrator]

Cool.

[Lola Blanc]

I know. Everyone was. Was burning to know.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Edge of my seat. No, that's good to know. That's good to know. The guy with the poster on the back of the door still might be, though.

[Lola Blanc]

He's actually a nice guy. He's just a. He's just a little misled. He's a very nice man.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, my gosh.

[Lola Blanc]

He's my friend.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Incel apologist over here. I'm just kidding. Okay, so, yeah, I would be an incel. Probably. I don't know. Maybe. I mean, I'd probably grow out of it, but yeah, I mean.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, me at 16. If I found luckily like that for girls. Total incel.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

The guy at the record store down the street did not want to date me, and I was pissed about it.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Totally.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

All right, well, thanks for listening. Y' all come back next week. And as always, remember to follow your gut. Watch out for red flags and never, ever Trust Me. Bye.

[Lola Blanc]

This has been an exact hosted by.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Me, Lola Blanc and me, Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer is Ji Ha Lee.

[Lola Blanc]

This episode was mixed by John Bradley.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker is Patrick Cotner.

[Lola Blanc]

Our theme song was composed by Holly Amber Church.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Trust Me is executive produced by Karen Kilgareth, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.

[Lola Blanc]

You can find us on Instagram usmepodcast or on TikTok at Trust Me Cult.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Podcast Got your own story about cults, extreme belief or manipulation? Shoot us an [e-mail] Listen to Trust.

[Lola Blanc]

Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Abercrombie Narrator]

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[Lola Blanc]

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