What do you think incels historically looked like - The alone, forever

[Slap47]

Eunuchs

More like MGTOW. People chose to became Eunuchs as a way to acquire status.

Monks.

Monks were generally the wastrel kids of families and monkhood was where nobles placed their relatives after they beat them in a power struggle.

 

[He Who Points And Laughs]

The French

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

They might also be gay lowkey.

Or prison gay.

 

[codeblue]

There were no incels until the 20th century unless they were severely psysically or mentally handicapped and even a lot of them still found partners. Hypergamy, overly picky women created incels. Prior to 100 years ago women went with the first man who came along, got married young and that was the end of it.

 

[UnclePhil]

 

[Syaoran Li]

Honestly, we do have some photographic evidence of what a typical incel looked like in the 19th Century...

Spoiler: Pennsylvania Incels, July 1863

The incels of the 1860's were the kind of dudes who would be at the very front of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac.

I'd wager the first ones to drop at Pickett's Charge couldn't get laid in a whorehouse on nickel night.

EDIT-Seriously, autistic Civil War jokes aside, the average incel of the pre-WWII era would've likely been either severely deformed, a destitute beggar, or a teenage conscript who died in wartime.

The rise of modern commercialized industry and modern technology in the post-WWII era ultimately created the phenomenon of the modern incel (and this includes femcels as well) since marriage and nuclear families were no longer a requirement for a "normal" life.

A lot of the sweeping social changes of the latter half of the 20th Century and early 21st Century have been driven by technological advancement and a massive economy that has been totally overhauled multiple times in less than a century.

 

[AnimeGirlConnoisseur]

at any time in history including now, if you have money you can get pussy. there are no incels in first world countries. there are only soyboys that prefer to spend their disposable income on electronics instead of whores then whine because they don't have both, and NEETs/homeless people too lazy to earn money. in third world countries and throughout history there are/were actual incels and they all look the same, like weak men with low testosterone.

I agree with this to some extent. The way I see it is like this: First off there are very few real incels in modern society. Most incels are just volcels who refuse to fuck land whales and dangerhairs, but don't understand this fact, because they believe they are entitled to a real woman. Now where I think that you're wrong is this idea that only weak men were unable to acquire mates in pre-industrial times. What I think happened is that (in the west at least) the standards for what both men and woman desired in a mate rose while the quality of both groups in terms of 'sexual market value (I do hate that term, but I think it works here) fell. In pre-industrial times all that men wanted was a decent-looking woman that could produce children and do housework while all women wanted was a a decent-looking man that was strong enough to protect them and provide for them financially. Now men want an above-average looking woman who can produce children, do housework, and provide some income while women want an above-average looking man who can protect them, and provide for not only all of their needs, but also all of their wants. While all of this has gone on more and more of the male population have estranged themselves from physical labor (thus becoming less physically potent) and have their wages drop while woman have lost touch with traditional femininity. Then you throw in feminism, the incel ideology, the MGTOW ideology, fat acceptance, transgenderism, hook-up culture, the break down of traditional marriage and traditional families and everything falls apart.

 

[cybertoaster]

Probably hermits and wandering beggars.

Incels were far more common in antiquity when polygamy was the rule. There were many spare men who could simply not get any because the population was still mostly 50/50 men and women, but some dudes got 4 or more women.

On the other hand I bet there were zero incels in postwar russia since there was an actual scarcity of men due to the war.

 

[Kosher Dill]

Imperial China actually did have a glut of guanggun, or "bare branches", because Chad (Chang?) took all the women that weren't killed at birth. If you didn't have enough wealth and status to get on the bottom rung of the social ladder, you just wouldn't get a wife. These men would typically become itinerant tradesmen and/or troublemakers. The ones that became successful sometimes were able to enter into polyandrous arrangements or even buy wives, under the legal fiction of signing a "blood brothers" contract with the original husband.

 

[Jacknife]

I doubt that there was something equivalent in before times, I think they are right about women being able to choose more freely shoving them out of the genepool.
Reacting to that with violence, whining and being even bigger losers might not work though.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Imperial China actually did have a glut of guanggun, or "bare branches", because Chad (Chang?) took all the women that weren't killed at birth. If you didn't have enough wealth and status to get on the bottom rung of the social ladder, you just wouldn't get a wife. These men would typically become itinerant tradesmen and/or troublemakers. The ones that became successful sometimes were able to enter into polyandrous arrangements or even buy wives, under the legal fiction of signing a "blood brothers" contract with the original husband.

Is this once reason China had ridiculously large bandit armies?

 

[Kosher Dill]

Is this once reason China had ridiculously large bandit armies?

I don't think it's directly related, that was more due to one dynasty or another collapsing and the land returning to warlordism.
The "bare branch" phenomenon was more an artifact of a wealthy, settled, highly organized society that could freeze low-status men out.