I recently noticed a post from a blahaj user whose profile was styled after Celeste from Madeleine. She does trans stuff and posts quite a bit, including to a sub¹ called “femcelmemes”.
I’ve seem the word more than a few times in the past year, and I thought it meant “female incel”.²
However, the sub in question just seems to post girly stuff and be accepting to all feminine energents “where anybody can post memes that fit the vibe.” So what the hell is this vibe? I don’t see any incel-adjacent stuff except maybe some facetious self-deprecation, but do you have to get incel vibes to do that?
¹ Until we can truly standardize what we call them: magazines, communities (Lemmy, please pick a better name. This is too vague.), forums, hashtags, etc…, I’m calling them something we can all understand. ² Thinking about the etymology of “incel”, “femcel” should actually be “female celibate”, but who in the sam hill cares.
“The vibe” is more or less wallowing in the feeling of not being able to get a partner, from a feminine perspective and usually in a cutesy “haha I can’t socialize and my life is a mess” way. This stands in contrast with many/most male incel communities, which tend to promote resentment and blaming a celibate status on everything but oneself (or pathologically blaming it on an immutable characteristic like one’s height or canthal tilt). There is a degree of toxic internalization that can occur either way, but I like to think the humorous nature intended by the posts is a way to vent out the feelings and riff on them with others.
The transfem nature which carries over from the Blahaj instance dovetails with the community’s theme, since it is rather difficult for most trans women or similar folks to get into relationships, on account of various circumstances relating to transitioning as an AMAB individual. There are the matters of physical appearance which is a facet of the genetic lottery, plus the social aspects of dating while trans. The dating pool for most trans people is, uh, quite a bit smaller, and shrinks further still when looking for medium/long term partners mainly due to stigma associated with dating trans people (especially to cis men being in a relationship with trans women, and especially if one is visibly trans to the general population, think the whole “is it gay” discourse).
So basically, femcelmemes is about acknowledging these challenges and playfully lamenting the celibate condition they bolster, while also allowing (trans)fems to embrace the girly aesthetic and mode of interaction while doing so. It’s a gender-affirming way to cope with the situation, so provides some utility despite the generally self-deprecating nature of the posts made there. One also doesn’t even have to be celibate (or even trans) to understand and find amusement in this struggle; you can just kind of vibe with the idea of defiantly girlbossing your way through a depressing time of life.
I hope that helps explain somewhat. I’m maybe not the best spokesperson but I’ve been following the community for a while at this point. If you have any follow up questions I’d be happy to try and provide my best understanding of things.
Thank you! This was indeed pretty explanatory.
There’s this Vice video that claims that most male communities also just facetiously self-deprecate and “don’t really mean it”, but the humor is way worse and shares none of the fem aesthetic.