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The ‘LeBron James of Incels’ Swears He Has a Girlfriend Now — He Just Can’t Prove It

Miles Klee
·6 min read
incel-hand-holding-RS-1800 - Credit: Getty Images
incel-hand-holding-RS-1800 - Credit: Getty Images

The incel (or “involuntarily celibate”) community has never been a particularly supportive or amicable one. Whatever nasty remark you could level at men who spend their days seething that “stuck-up” women won’t sleep with them, they’ve heard far worse in toxic forums where they constantly put one another down, mocking the supposed flaws that make them such unloved losers, and indulging in collective despair.

Occasionally, though, niche drama will push their nihilistic squabbling into a higher gear. The latest is an uproar over one incel claiming that he’s now in a fulfilling sexual relationship.

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On Tuesday, in a thread on the forum Incels.is that has since been deleted (it remains available through the Internet Archive), a moderator who goes by the username “Komesarj” announced his departure from the group. He explained that he had already taken several months off from the site to focus on self-improvement. “And I have to say, my efforts paid off,” he wrote. “I made it as a 33 year old, [5’6″], ugly, bald, formerly disabled, deathnik. And with a really cute [19-year-old] girl too. We’re dating now.” In his original and followup statements, he attributed the relationship to exercise, diet, and the use of testosterone therapy.

“Thank you all and I wish you health and prosperity,” Komesarj added. “All we can do is make the best of the shitty genes we were given. I’ll stick around for a bit until I’m banned.” Traditionally, the website exiles anyone revealed as sexually active, but not before subjecting them to a round of verbal abuse.

Yet many of the first responses were positive, congratulating Komesarj on “ascending.” Soon enough, however, other incels were pestering him for more details, accusing him of “bragging” or rubbing his success in their faces, calling him a fake incel, and speculating that he’d made the whole story up. “Tales from the psych ward,” one user replied.

Komesarj insisted more than once that he had “no reason to lie,” further claiming that he’d met this new, half-Asian girlfriend on the chat app Discord, and they’d lost their virginity together. (These details provoked more disbelief and fury.) He suggested that certain women are naturally drawn to incels. “Many young girls will see you as being some kind of bad boy,” he wrote. “They hover around members of the community like flies to shit.”

The upheaval followed other supposed “ascensions” of prominent figures in the group, leading some Incels.is members to wonder if the site — created in 2017 after Reddit banned its own incels forum for inciting violence against women — was on its last legs. Debate raged as to whether Komesarj had ever genuinely been one of them. An especially baffled incel hypothesized that he could actually be dating an undercover federal agent. (The link between incel ideology and violent extremism has led to paranoia within the scene about being spied on by law enforcement.)

Meanwhile, the drama spilled over to Twitter, where Komesarj expressed “mixed feelings” about his post-incel identity. Critics labeled him a “traitor” to the movement, with Komesarj denying that incels comprise a “movement” in the first place. One person lamented, probably not in all seriousness, that this was “the equivalent of [LeBron James] retiring.” Komesarj updated his Twitter bio to read “Known as the ‘Lebron James’ of Incels,” and several of theses exchanges went viral, prompting ridicule from those outside the incel world.

Reached by Twitter DM, Komesarj expressed surprise at how much attention his retirement from an incel board had attracted. “I didn’t expect this, it was just supposed to be a small goodbye to like 50 or so friends,” he tells Rolling Stone. “Didn’t think all of Twitter would care that one man had sex, which people seem to do every day.”

As yet, there is no confirmation his alleged girlfriend exists. Komesarj has indicated that @user9263372017 is an account belonging to her, which does not lend much credence to the idea that she is a real person: the profile only appeared a day after Komesarj declared that he was no longer an incel, and its responses to people mocking him are very much in keeping with aggressive incel trolling — raising the distinct possibility that he’s using the account as a sock puppet. The account has replied to Komesarj’s haters with homophobia, casually dropped the n-word, insinuated that a woman who disparaged him is infertile, and linked to YouTube videos with titles such as “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Ruined a Whole Generation of Women.” The account user has affirmed wholly misogynist views and tweeted that “A man should hate all women aside from his gf.”

If this isn’t somebody with a lengthy career posting on boards like Incels.is, they’re certainly doing a good impression of one. That, and the way @user9263372017 is tag-teaming with Komesarj in attempts to dunk on his detractors, has left observers with the impression that Komesarj is simply posting from both profiles. As himself, he has often tweeted the n-word, made transphobic comments, and called women “a series of holes.” And while Komesarj was willing to discuss his viral moment, a request for comment from the individual behind @user9263372017 was met with the reply “Message @komesarj not me.” Hmmm!

Addressing to the more offensive tweets from @user9263372017, Komesarj says, “There’s this weird thing that seems to happen on the internet where people don’t understand what a joke is.” As for the notion that he is operating the account himself, he protests, “There’s nothing I could really say to prove it’s not my burner […] she’s probably who she says she is. But I can’t prove it.” Does the couple have a selfie together? Of course not. “I don’t take any pictures of myself,” Komesarj explains.

Nevertheless, he maintains that he and a younger woman — whose name he did not provide — are enjoying a thoroughly normal romance, despite their age difference and his years-long involvement in a subculture that has produced mass shooters and terrorists. “We watch movies, go for walks, do little vacations, cook,” Komesarj says. “We are watching The Lord of the Rings, which she’s never seen.”

Whether this is all a fantasy Komesarj conjured up to impress and enrage different factions of his fellow incels or a real relationship he’ll be able substantiate at some point, it’s clear he struck a nerve. He’s also emerged victorious in one critical respect: no more hanging out on a hate forum. Who knows? Maybe he’ll drop the edgelord tweets as well.

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