Vigilante disparaging humour at r/IncelTears: Humour as critique of incel ideology

This paper gives a comprehensive account of a humorous practice on the IncelTears subreddit, whose aim is to poke fun at, and give a social commentary on, the notorious online community of incels (hateful involuntary celibate men). Based on a representative corpus, the predominant categories of user-generated multimodal items are teased out relative to their form and stance. The central characteristics and socio-pragmatic aims of these humorous practices are discussed, together with the ideological meanings they communicate. Apart from disparaging and critiquing what they consider to be indicative of the pernicious incel ideology, the subreddit community members derive pleasure from the humorous items and forge solidarity links. Overall, this study offers valid conclusions about the (dis)affiliative and informative functions of creative humour on social media represented by the subreddit which humorously addresses a socially relevant, serious problem.