Well, this meme is specifically promoting the notion that how attractive you look directly correlates to your ability to date people. When how you look is not the be all end all of dating.

This general concept of one's "biologically ordained appearance" being incompatible with finding love and relationships is closely tied with incel ideology. The "black pill" is generally used to denote that you're biologically and immutably so unattractive that you will never be able to "compete in the sexual marketplace." Felt gross just typing that. It's also attached to the conspiracy theory of "hypergamy," that you're so unattractive that even women of "comparable conventional attractiveness" won't ever date you.

The message of the meme, that someone is so unattractive they can not date anyone at all, is not explicitly incel ideology, but that notion is closely tied to it. In all likelihood this meme was made by someone in the incel community or who regularly consumes incel content.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

this meme is specifically promoting the notion that how attractive you look directly correlates to your ability to date people

There are behavioral studies showing this to be completely true. As someone who is honest about how I probably wouldn't date an unattractive person, I freely admit this tracks; and, unlike incels, I absolutely don't blame either gender for this fact. It's just how our brains are wired.

[–] Smoogs@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Everyone’s idea of physical attraction will be different. There’s also people who don’t strongly have opinions about physical attraction as they do about personality attraction. And then you have intellectual attraction.

There are people out there single and happy regardless of their attractiveness and not even bothered with it. They aren’t even lonely. There are people where it’s not even their lifestyle. There are plenty of people who may not appear physically attractive to one person but are in happy relationships. So physical attraction is a red herring argument when it comes to describing what makes a person turn into an incel.

It’s about how an incel handles rejection and being alone. There’s much more to do with obsessiveness, loneliness, entitlement, anger transference and toxic thinking than it does with attraction in and of itself. The toxicity becomes more a self fulfilling prophecy.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Sure, people that can completely ignore physical appearance exist; it’s a bit of a straw man to say any claim is about 100.00% of people. The point is that appearance matters to a majority of people - and that it’s often the first attractor that even leads to any further discovery. Romantic comedies tend to put “opposites” into quirky unexpected circumstances that lead to that discovery, but that won’t happen for a lot of people.

But as to your second and third paragraphs, you are completely correct - and it may have been a missed expectation thinking I was arguing against that. People should be happy on their own. It might just be me thinking that the meme is originally pointed towards people expressing that relationships are something everyone should seek, because it has nothing to do with attractiveness - and that is what I consider untrue. But yes, people can still choose to be “ugly” (by mild comparison) and happy. Nothing totally excuses toxic behavior from people’s rejection.

[–] TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee -1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

ohh is there also a study defining exactly how ugly YOU are? or maybe you have some mental health issues and this is just more self deprecating talk?

that's the issue here, mother fuckers keep saying "study study study fact fact fact ugly ugly ugly" but that speaks nothing to their own situation. you can abuse facts and research, and I see it literally every day: depressed people cherry pick negative evidence to support their worldview that they are worthless

[–] GiveMemes@jlai.lu 3 points 9 months ago

There are two good arguments here.

Biologically attractive people will be generally more successful at having casual sexual encounters. Whether or not this tracks to actually finding love or just finding sex is unsure. Furthermore, whether it has to do with "unattractive" people being less confident/more self-conscious is yet to be shown.
If you take care of yourself and actually go out and interact with women (and people in general), forcing yourself into uncomfortable social situations, eventually you'll get better at talking to people and talking to people is like 80% of dating.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Like many, I have not seen any success, or really attention (to share my social skills) in dating apps. That step is wholly decided by physical attractiveness.

I’d be happy to throw away any attempt at using those sites, but unfortunately much of the dating world has moved to them; and the people in relationships I do know generally used them.

What we know of those sites suggests the only men receiving attention on them are in the top 10% in terms of appearance. I’ve also anecdotally heard from women who admit to using the environment more for attention seeking behavior than actual relationships. I certainly wouldn’t call myself “ugly” for being in the bottom 90 percentile. I am okay with my appearance - I just know I’m not a perfect Adonis. I’m even okay with that behavior from the opposite gender - you can’t help what you like. Even if one of my friends was a granite-chinned gigachad, I wouldn’t fault him for just refusing to work through such a toxic environment - even if he has trouble finding such relationships elsewhere.

This is a complex situation not faulted to any one gender. The net effect, though, is that it’s not a good idea for anyone to date unless you’re blinded towards the survivorship bias you see from those that make it through, or are unconventionally attractive.

[–] Smoogs@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Online dating is not really the best snapshot of stability when it comes to people and relationships, or people who should be in relationships.

You run a high chance that there are scammers. That will immediately taint your findings.

[–] snek@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

depressed people cherry pick negative evidence to support their worldview that they are worthless

These people need help. It's not my problem or responsibility. It's THEIR responsibility.

[–] snek@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

The message of the meme, that someone is so unattractive they can not date anyone at all, is not explicitly incel ideology,

Hmmm, to me it read differenlty: that someone who is attractive doesn't understand the problems that come with being unattractive, and also it was funny how naively the guy in the bottom row asks "are you sure?".

I guess, like everything else in life, there's more than one way to read/interpret something.

[–] SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Well, this meme is specifically promoting the notion that how attractive you look directly correlates to your ability to date people. When how you look is not the be all end all of dating.

How is that incel ideology? Incels hate women and think they are entitled to sexual relationships. This has nothing to do with believing dating potential directly correlates to physical attractiveness (which it does, at least for men).

[–] LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 9 months ago

If you wanna go ahead and read the rest of my comment I explain it lol