A few summers ago, the Internet erupted around a single question: Would you rather be alone in a room with a man, or a bear? For many women, the decision was simple, but not in the way most (men) would assume: “I choose the bear.” For evidence of the breakdown between genders, look no further.
This summer, Curry Barker’s breakout, the inescapable blockbuster Obsession, centers on an aptly named and insidious protagonist, Bear (Barker claims no relation to the trend). The character gets more than he bargained for when he uses a magic store gimmick to wish his crush, Nikki, loved him more than anything in the world. Nikki develops a demented infatuation with him that turns deadly. One of the film’s most frightening moments arrives not soaked in blood, but when Nikki—the real one—pleas for release from her mental prison, only for Bear to turn his back on her.
Moviegoers and critics agree: Bear is this year’s addition to the growing “incel” media canon—that is, men who are involuntarily celibate, or, colloquially, resentfully and sometimes violently begrudging of women’s alleged slights against them. The all-too-true terror is male entitlement, especially to women perceived to have rejected them, and the apparent social detachment of the modern man.
Media plumbing these themes runs deep, with roots in classics such as Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho and Sam Mendes’s American Beauty, but its contemporary contributors are narrowing their cultural critique to the incel movement, a castoff social media phenomenon that, all too quickly, became mainstream. For those still perplexed at how we arrived here, we’ve compiled a curriculum that should help provide clarity.
Wholesome Incel Origins: Lars and the Real Girl (2007)
Craig Gillespie’s film is a historical artifact of what the involuntarily celibate looked like before Reddit chat rooms radicalized them. Ryan Gosling sheds his Hollywood heartthrob status as Lars, a shy, avoidant 30-something living in his brother’s garage-turned-guest house. An anxious wreck when interacting with women, he surprises his brother (Paul Schneider) when he brings home a girlfriend, Bianca. But Bianca is not exactly girlfriend material, as she happens to be a life-like sex doll Lars purchased off the Internet, who he believes is alive. Instead of painting Lars as sinister, misogynistic objectophilic, Gillespie’s optimistic film explores grief, community, and how acceptance can bring even the most out-there outsiders back into the fold.
The Delusion-ship: Twin Fantasy, Car Seat Headrest (2018)
Aside from the netizen reputation of Car Seat Headrest as a band casually enjoyed by incels, the lyrics of the Twin Fantasy album are enough to cement its place on this list. Originally written and released on Bandcamp in 2011, lead singer Will Toledo re-recorded the obsessive, compulsive concept album in 2018 to wide critical acclaim. On the album’s opening song, “My Boy (Twin Fantasy),” Toledo presents a “fictionalized” version of his teenage self grappling with a manic infatuation with another man. The track list maps his desire for closeness between the two, a longing that can only resemble a twin-like bond. Through self-doubt and mockery, the album spirals alongside its unreliable narrator, ending with the realization that the pair’s relationship might have been nothing more than a figment of Toledo’s imagination.
A Yesteryear Fantasy: Don’t Worry Darling (2022)
Harry Styles, darling, we are worrying. While some consider Olivia Wilde’s 2022 film underwhelming and underdeveloped (I think “flop” is the common term), she sure knew how to channel the incel community’s deepest fantasies. Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack (Styles) lead an idyllic life in a 1950s California suburb. Alice’s marriage is interrupted when she begins to suffer hallucinations of a dysfunctional modern life with Jack. (Be warned: a spoiler is coming next.) After bouts of electric shock therapy that fail to reprogram her, she discovers her delusions are reality, and that Jack is holding her hostage in a traditionalist simulation following their very one-sided break up. A critique on chatroom culture, intimate partner violence, and the trad wife trend, Don’t Worry Darling is a frightening look at marriage that could turn anyone commitment-phobic.
Woe Is the Incel: Rejection, Tony Tulathimutte (2024)
A novel-in-stories, Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection follows a cast of characters all facing intense and imagined—you guessed it—rejection. Deemed the “first incel novel,” the book features seven stories, including Tulathimutte’s renowned yet highly controversial “The Feminist,” about a virginal male feminist who goes on a misogynistic rampage after near-constant rejection. The chronically online, oblivious characters equally resent and bask in their loneliness as an excuse for poor behavior, setting in motion repeated isolationist spirals. But with Tulathimutte’s humor and sincerity, one can’t help feeling a twinge of empathy toward his miserable rejects and perma-virgins, despite their circumstances being largely their fault.
Honey, the Kids Are Not Alright: Adolescence (2025)
The Emmy-winning limited series by Stephen Graham is one of the first to tackle how manosphere communities indoctrinate young men before they are even old enough to face the rejections of their incel elders. This crime drama follows Jamie (Owen Cooper), a 13-year-old school boy accused of killing his female classmate, who exposes the types of sexually explicit and anti-woman rhetoric force-fed to young boys through social media algorithms. Adolescence somberly illustrates how the Andrew Tates and Jordan Petersons of the world engage young men in cyclical misogyny and self-hatred, and the real-world deadly consequences these figures incite.
When the Chatroom Goes to the Gym: Atavists, Lydia Millet (2025)
Until the day Clavicular discovered beauty standards, incels were mainly pictured as sweaty hunchbacks behind a chatroom screen. But Lydia Millet’s novel-in-stories, Atavists, widens the spectrum. Millet’s short stories feature a variety of incel subgenres, including a gentle married man so addicted to geriatric porn he watches it on his in-laws’ computer and a body-builder with hyper-masculine grandeur living the incel dream. As this book shows, incels can come in all shapes and sizes (and muscle density).
Here Come the Silicon Valley Bros: Companion (2025)
Strike one? “Beep Boop” being Josh’s (Jack Quaid) pet name for his girlfriend, Iris (Sophie Thatcher). Strike Two? The fact that Iris is a hyper-realistic A.I. sex robot Josh bought off the Internet and controls with his phone. Strike Three? Josh uses Iris to commit a murder he is too scared to do himself. Drew Hancock’s Companion is a nihilistic, bloody rendition of the robot girlfriend trope seen in films like Her and Blade Runner: 2049 that explores female autonomy and gendered artificial intelligence in the midst of a hyper-surveilled and controlled culture.
Women Aren’t Without Sympathy: “Mega Circuit,” Japanese Breakfast (2025)
Clad in black and camo and barreling around a barren forest on an ATV, Japanese Breakfast filmed the music video for the second single off her For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) album on what seems to be a shaky, handheld camcorder, reminiscent of an eerie home video moments before disaster. The smooth, slightly western track examines how contemporary toxic masculinity impacts both men and women, with lyrics like “Plotting blood with your incel eunuchs/ I could be the home you need.” On the impactful lack of positive role models for men, Michelle Zauner sings: “Deep in soft hearts of young boys so pissed off and jaded/ Carrying dull prayers of old men curing holier truths.”
A Revamped Classic: The Stalker, Paula Bomer (2025)
What would American Psycho look like if Patrick Bateman was actually semi-homeless, had less than $300 to his name, and was addicted to crack cocaine? He would probably look a lot like Doughty, the stupidly unaware antihero of Paula Bomer’s The Stalker. Set in early-’90s New York, the satirical novel centers around a misogynistic, delusional, remorseless man who scrounges his way through life by manipulating the women around him. Bomer’s limited third-person narration creates a darkly comedic portrait of an aloof, strangely confident incel from his own vantage point.
The Manosphere Materializes: Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere (2026)
For those looking for a real-life peek behind the red (pilled) curtain, Louis Theroux, the documentarian king of extremist communities, has you covered. In his most recent Netflix documentary, Theroux convenes with figureheads of the online manosphere engine, including influencer Harrison Sullivan (who goes by the more recognizable screen name of HSTikkyTokky), podcaster Myron Gaines, and more. He presses the men on their ideology (to varying degrees of backlash) and follows them as they shoot their daily content. The documentary exposes the fortune to be made from pedaling hate (and self-improvement products) to an incel community whose deities may not even believe the rhetoric they’re selling.
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