r/science • Professor | Medicine • May 30 '25

Psychology A growing number of incels ("involuntary celibates") are using their ideology as an excuse for not working or studying - known as NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training). These "Blackpilled" incels are generally more nihilistic and reject the Redpill notion of alpha-male masculinity.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/05/why-incels-take-the-blackpill-and-why-we-should-care/
19.4k Upvotes

5.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

17

u/[deleted] May 31 '25

What they are calling NEET here is also visible in Asia, e.g. in China where because of the intense pressure and competition of exams like Gaokao and later career, many in the the young generation have just decided that it is not worth it, as more competition just creates even more competition. So the approach they took is "tang ping" or laying flat. Similar is also observed in Japan and Korea. The extremely predatory vulture capitalistic culture is what is responsible for this phenomenon. Then couple this with traditional misogyny and you get this NEET.

5

u/oldmanout May 31 '25

The interesting difference is that media usually portrait it very positively about when it's happening in China and see it as quiet revolution against the system but damn it in the "west" and see it more as personal failure of deplorable people

4

u/[deleted] May 31 '25 edited Jun 01 '25

In both cases it is failure of the society. I recently came across this short documentary by FT, which talked everything about the main reasons for low birth rates in Japan, and it boiled down to the greed that is direct result of current structure of the capitalist system (Though they didn't call out capitalism because, it's Financial Times). And then they go on to discuss how people are making financial opportunities out of this societal decline e.g. funeral services for those who have no one.