Hello all! I was talking with
@Flint about this forum and it led to a conversation about my experiences here. I wanted to share how this has been for me and, while not intending to be giving criticism, this is me reflecting on what I've noticed.
Firstly, I don't know how much people reading this are aware of me, but
@Flint has told me he's mentioned pretty regularly that I'm a mental health therapist. I primarily work with men, a very good portion of them being incel. This has resulted in a lot of my professional work being about helping individuals adapt to cultures with the intention of forming stronger personal relationships. That said, however, in a clinical setting I only know what is shared with me. My time here has given me a unique look without that filter present.
I've never had an account on org or com. This is my first real direct experience with looksmaxing related communities in general, but I'm seeing cultural norms being shifted from there that, for an outsider, are very interesting to me. I'm not used to seeing things like slurs used so casually, then people worrying about the consequences when people challenge them for it. I've seen several posts of strategy and tactics on being desirable but then speaking to each other in a way where that energy is replaced with a helpless self-loathing.
One of the posts called this a "circle jerk forum" and I think there's a lot of accuracy in that statement, but not in the way it was meant. As an outsider, I don't know what this place is for besides being a group chat version of an xbox lobby where sometimes people post a guide of some kind that most of the users aren't going to even read.
I don't know why this is a culture other normies would want to join. And, I think that's been the biggest issue of the bigger sites. The response to this is usually, "Then don't join. You're not wanted here anyway". But I find that so opposite of everything that's been said. As I understand it, the core principles of these forums is to be able to better attract people, but all I see is justification to keep people away.