Incel: Leben und Ansichten von Elliot Rodger, Gentleman
"Incel: Leben und Ansichten von Elliot Rodger, Gentleman" (eng.: "Incel: Life and views of Elliot Rodger, a gentleman") is a video essay of the German alt-right YouTuber Der Schattenmacher covering up the case of Elliot Rodger. [1] In his video, he reads out passages of Elliot's manifesto My Twisted World and of his diary, and then proceeds to comment his behavior, lifestyle and beliefs, while mostly criticizing him.
Summary[edit | edit source]
The main problem is that he was obsessed with the opinions and judgements of others, consequently creating an anxiety of failing, which is also the reason for his inhibited character.
Elliot wasted his life by his actions, including saying that had potential since he:
- was born into a relatively wealthy family,
- wasn't deformed,
- wasn't unintelligent,
- wasn't ugly but more average looking.
At the end, he compares Elliot's situation with the drama Cyrano de Bergerac: Although being talented, brave and an incredible poet as a knight (adding that he isn't such "such a weakling" as Elliot was), the protagonist's success with women is doomed due to his abnormal big nose. Cyrano secretly developed romantical feelings for his attractive cousin, Roxane. But she isn't aware of Cyrano's feelings, and instead loves Christian de Neuvillette, who is too tongue-tied to romance her. Cyrano famously writes love letters to Roxane, pretending to be Christian. Due to him earnestly trying to help them get together by using his intellect and hiding Christian's primitiveness, Der Schattenmacher also calls Cyrano an incel cuck. When Roxane comes to meet them at the front line they're currently at, Christian wants Cyrano to tell her that he secretly wrote letters under his name for him, so Christian can instead be loved by her as the fool he really is. While Cyrano wants to clarify, Christian gets shot in the war fight, and since Cyrano doesn't want to destroy the souvenir Roxane harbored for Christian, he kept the secret to himself for 15 years afterwards. After Christian's death, Roxane joined a cloister to mourn for Christian while also seeing Cyrano once a week. After an assassination attempt on Cyrano, he drags himself (wounded) to Roxane who then percipiently grasps the situation in their last encounter. She then affirms her love for Cyrano, but he still knows this won't be a happy ending while proceedingly dying. In contrast to Elliot, there is an inner instance of Cyrano that justifies him and even refuses external happiness if it would destroy his inner self. He may make himself look ridiculous, but never dishonors himself.
"Deterministic Paralysis"[edit | edit source]
According to him, Elliot and many incels are captured in a vicious circle, which he calls the "deterministic paralysis":
Elliot believes he can't do anything about his situation which results in him doing nothing about his situation. The consequence of that is the already-bad status quo deteriorating with the following internal interpretation of being exposed to the worst in life. This continues up until absolutely losing sanity.