Mapping Incel as an SISS Project Conference Poster (Faculty180)
Overview
cited authors
- Nemeth, David J; Panozzo, Kimberly; Rahman, Ishfaq
description
- Mapping Incel as an SISS Project Kimberley Panozzo, Ishfaq Rahman, David J. Nemeth Abstract revised 9 18 19 SISS (Spatially Integrated Social Sciences) research is a voluntary interdisciplinary team effort that can focus its diverse, expert and skilled academic attention and technological shrewdness on rapidly emerging disturbing social media trends now riding on disturbing popular culture waves, and vice versa, potentially resulting in catastrophic events. Currently the American public may perceive domestic terrorism as unpredictable, with random origins, as an incomprehensible safety crisis, and as reasonable cause for panic. However, there is order in chaos. SISS seeks discover it and inform policy makers quickly of the best-possible responses. Our poster display makes public the initial findings of an ongoing SISS academic project. The project tentatively visualizes and maps out for discussion purposes a provocative “chaotic geopsychology” that critically links 1) a rash of recent domestic, highly publicized terrorist events, to 2) a nebulous social media narrative network related to a secretive Incel (Involuntary Celibate) socio-political movement. Our project reveals key results of our eclectic mashup of mixed methods. Big data mining of fugitive online social media sites during a specific time-frame has given shape and form to the powerful popular culture memes and Wordles on display. These manifest as repetitive and disturbing Incel storytelling (including personal manifestos, rants and screeds). The graphic “word clouds” are heuristic models. Images related to them can potentially inform systematic social science analyses of reported Incel-related domestic terrorism. Existing social science literature includes relevant terms and concepts perhaps relatable to the emerging Incel crisis in new ways, including “misogyny,” “behavioral sink,” “pathological togetherness,” Torricelli’s Trumpet,” and “chaos theory.” As a thought-experiment, consider our poster in the context of the early October, 2019, release of “Joker” – a probable blockbuster movie about a an lonely, angry sociopath with an Incel narrative appeal. Might this movie feasibly ignite a “Joker Apocalypse.” If necessary, can and will public safety officials respond to this plausible crisis in a timely and effective manner? If not, could this crisis have been prevented?
authors
publication date
- 2019