The Black Pill: Historically and in Modern Times

Is this incel brainwashing?

(Featured above: the Black Pill)

If you’ve been active in certain circles on TikTok, you might’ve seen edits, starting with someone who is not “conventionally attractive” talking or doing something before either a black bar saying “mogged” goes over their eyes, or the blackpill slowly fades in before an edit of a conventionally attractive, usually Caucasian males appears. These edits have been getting increasingly popular on TikTok and, in this case, seem to only be spreading hate (which did lead to the term “blackpill” being banned by TikTok’s search features). I was interested in this subject and decided to research further.

What actually is the black pill, and has it always been this hateful? I will share my research in this article.

History of the Black Pill

The black pill actually started with the “red pill”. Taking the red pill (taken from The Matrix) means to open your mind to the “truth” that men are subservient to woman and their feminist desires, but they can “fight back” against women by self-improvement, becoming a pickup artist, or becoming an “alpha male”. This originated in male supremacist online forums by incels (involuntarily celibate people). The black pill, emerging at the beginning of 2016, was a more nihilistic version of the red pill. It emphasized that society was unfair in how it puts women above men, like in the red pill, but it argued that there is no way to fight back against this. It argues that looks are genetically determined, and since women choose sexual partners based on looks (according to the blackpill), “ugly” people are born to be incels.

(Featured above: angry 4chan user preaching blackpill ideals; slightly censored)

They attempt to prove this by misreading scientific data and running experiments to try and prove women only care about looks. Blackpilled incels must accept their fate or try and change society, usually through mass violence, which is encouraged by other incels to get revenge on people who haven’t accepted their ideals. Some want to change their own fate through improvements and by rejecting the black pill, but it’s often seen as “cope” because they are not changing society as a whole, which is the “root of the problem,” apparently. People who accept the blackpill are often encouraged to commit suicide. “rope”, “LDAR” (lay down and rot), and “suifuel” (suicide fuel) are all terms used by incels expressing their desire to end their lives. Historically, this has been the definition of blackpill. However, recently, TikTok has been showcasing a shifted version of blackpilled that's more akin to redpill. But before that, I want to talk about how blackpill and redpill are racist.

The Racist Views of Blackpill

Many, if not most, of the blackpilled incels are white. They use websites such as incels.co, SoyBooru, 4chan, and many others. In these websites, many of these people take out their hatred of society on minority groups because they are easier to attack. This causes many other young, impressionable teens to be radicalized to fit in. On many of these sites, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, and other terrible views are accepted and even supported. In many of these communities, they use the acronym “JBW” (Just Be White) to express their thoughts on how white people have more sexually attractive features. However, they turn racism on women who are dating by cherry-picking data from dating sites that show a preference for white men over others. They created the “Scientific Blackpill” that says that Black or Latino men are emasculated while Asian men are viewed as feminine in Western society. The Santa Barbara perpetrator, Elliot Rodger, who attacked and killed many different people in 2014 before committing suicide, was half Chinese, which incels used to justify his attacks by saying he was lashing out against society for emasculating Asian men. Later encouragement of attacks by incels was called for by saying ER or “be a hERo” for Elliot Rodger.

(Featured above: actual image from the soyjak wiki definition of incels regarding solutions to blackpill. They describe developing a “pERsonality” as one, but they actually mean committing mass violence, as they use ER)

White supremacists justify their own dislike of other races by telling them to ER in order to be useful in the world. Now, while historically incels and blackpill have been racist, is it still true with the rise of TikTok blackpill?

TikTok Blackpill

Recently, blackpill has risen to popularity on TikTok. As I said earlier, they create edits of conventionally attractive people after unconventionally attractive people. However, TikTok has a different definition of blackpill. TikTokers believe that blackpill means looks matter more than anything, so if you work on your body, you can eventually become good-looking enough to date. This is more akin to redpill than blackpill, but TikTokers relate blackpill more to looksmaxxing, which is working on your looks, rather than becoming upset at society.

(Featured above: TikTok user .ovtq shows his “ascension” from 2024 to 2025 under the hashtag “bp”)

Looksmaxxing has many different tiers of “attractiveness,” so to speak, with sub-5 being the lowest and true Adam/Chad being the highest. It encourages people to “ascend” to a greater tier by working on their hair, eyes, chin, jawline, and overall physical appearance. While TikTok blackpill may encourage people to work on themselves to become better, it can also introduce people to the real blackpill ideology, in which many become suicidal and nihilistic. It also makes people focus too much on looks when looking for love and causes them to develop a looks-centric, egotistical personality, which will lose them relationships, even if they look like a model. TikTok’s blackpill has introduced too many people to blackpill, with many popular videos having millions of views. This results in more feelings of inadequacy within our modern society, which is not needed. Overall, the blackpill is a nihilistic view of the world created by incels who want to strike back at a world that hurt them. In reality, someone’s looks don’t matter as much as their personality. Someone who is beautiful but has a bad personality is only desired by people with bad personalities as well, resulting in toxic relationships. However, someone who isn’t as attractive but is caring and respectful is more likely to find a loving relationship where both parties are supported. It is not bad to work on one’s

physical appearance either, but it’s important not to make it your personality and life in the end, because you’ll be consumed by that world and become detached from the real world. Don’t fall to blackpill and looksmaxxing. But do look at videos some of them are very interesting.

SOURCES:

1. Misogynist Incels and Male Supremacism: Red Pill to Black Pill

2. Blackpill - Incel Wiki

3. Incel - Soyjak Wiki (NOT CREDIBLE but an interesting insight into incel psychology. Look at your own risk – highly offensive content on there)

4. TikTok.com (for images and research)