Brett Ellis looks at the misogynistic incel culture

Now I’m not here as a poor man's TV critic, and, besides the captivating story and outlandishly good acting (especially in episode three), which will go down as a new watermark of excellence as the one-shot scene was smashed out of the park by actors Erin Doherty and newbie, Owen Cooper.

In effect the focus shifted toward ‘incels’, Andrew Tate, and the prevalence of emojis which are the language for the youth of today.

I watched an interview Tate did with Piers Morgan, and he comes across as another monotoned, vanilla dullard who it’s hard to take seriously.

Does he spout his misogynist rhetoric because he really believes it, or because he knows he will get likes, shares and ultimately an ever-expanding bank balance off the back of it?

The incel culture in effect deems large sections of males (80% as stated in the show) as ‘scientifically unlovable’.

Brett Ellis was gripped watching Adolescence on Netflix In our day, it seems little was different, and those of us who couldn’t ‘pull’ a woman in what were much simpler times, were fully aware that it was because we weren’t the most handsome boys in the playground.

Nothing really has changed, apart from the creepy ‘fightback’ which, in this sad and sorry tale, involved a 13-year-old lad stabbing a girl to death after she had spurned his advances.

Incel culture gets creepier still with the rhetoric of being able to ‘take’ what is rightfully theirs, which sounds like advocating sexual assault and rape which is, one could argue, what saps like Tate do.

He, like me, is an ‘ugly’, as the majority of us are. Most of us however live with knockbacks in our youth before realising that actually there is credence in being funny, or nice, or kind, and that many women like that type of thing, and hence you may be lucky, as I have been, to meet a life partner who can see behind the less than aesthetic outer veneer.

Incels replace sadness with anger and so the ‘fightback’ commences for these men, most of whom are aged 18-30.

They retreat into dark online forums and discuss killing and sexual violence, then we sit around hand-wringing as to how, yet another young lady has become an occupant of the mortuary slab.

So, how can we fix it?

Difficult, but by education, parental oversight and, most importantly, much as I am against stifling free speech, by banning or seriously restricting the online voices, chat rooms, websites and Andrew Tates of this world.

Only then will there be a level playing field where we can embrace our ugliness and continue as we were, as we wait for Mrs Right to be attracted to something other than our looks.

• Brett Ellis is a teacher.