Rethinking Symbolic Violence on Social Media - Incels and Mentalisation

Aug 26, 2026

This article examines symbolic violence on social media and proposes a psychoanalytic conceptualisation of the term. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu and further psychoanalytic theory, it argues that symbolic violence remains under-theorised. Peter Fonagy’s mentalisation framework is used to interpret symbolic violence as externalised, distorted mentalisation. The concept is then applied to misogynist incel discussions, using exemplary quotes to show coherent symbolic worlds shaped by vivid fantasies of men and women.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages15

Reading Time38 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Symbolic meaning and psychoanalytic perspectives

Symbolic violence on social media platforms

Frameworks for conceptualising symbolic violence

Application to misogynist incel communities

Article Rethinking Symbolic Violence on Social Media: Incelsand Mentalisation Jacob Johanssen Accepted: 11 March 2025; Published: 11 April 2025 Abstract The aim of this article is to discuss the notion of symbolic violence and to foreground a psychoanalytic conceptualisation of the term. Having been popularised by Pierre Bourdieu and other thinkers, the term is routinely used to describe forms of violence that stop short of the physical. It remains under-theorised. Following a brief literature review, it is argued that psychoanalysis has much to add when it comes to conceptualising symbolic violence and how it plays out online. Peter Fonagy’s theory of mentalisation is brought in to conceptualise symbolic violence as a particular form of externalised, distorted mentalisation. I ﬁnally apply the term to contemporary discussions and user exchanges on social media that are so often characterised by intense forms of symbolic violence. The misogynist incel community is presented as a case study via exemplary quotes. Incels display forms of symbolic violence that are characterised by vivid fantasies about other men and women which reveal a distorted, yet highly coherent and organised, symbolic world. Keywords symbolic violence, psychoanalysis, mentalisation, online misogyny, incels Introduction “Alone with your thoughts, yet in contact with an almost tangible fantasy of the other, you feel free to play”, the psychoanalytic technology scholar Sherry Turkle (2011, p. 188) writes about the experience of using the internet and particularly social media. The sentence raises some fundamental points about contemporary online experiences which lend themselves to further psychoanalytic discussion: the importance of thinking, individuality, play, and a fantasy of the other that is so vivid it almost becomes tangible. Social media platforms have enabled such forms of playful communication and exploration of identities, but they have also enabled harm and a torrent of online abuse, harassment, bullying, sexism, racism, misogyny and other types of extremism which they struggle to keep at bay. Researchers have termed such behaviour “symbolic violence” or use related terms like “symbolic harm”, “digital violence”, “incivility, or “toxicity”(Recuero, 2024, p. 2) . © The Author(s) 2025 Corresponding Author: [jacob.johanssen@stmarys.ac.uk](jacob.johanssen@stmarys.ac.uk) HARM, Volume 4 (2025), 22–36 DOI: 10.46586/harm.2025.12132 Journal of HARM ISSN: 2940-3073 [ojs.ub.rub.de/index.php/HARM/index](ojs.ub.rub.de/index.php/HARM/index) 23 Johanssen The term symbolic is commonly understood as designating something that is not real; as representing something; standing in for something or someone; or in contrast to the actual or physical. “From a psychoanalytic perspective, the symbol refers to all indirect and ﬁgurative representations of unconscious desire (symptoms, dreams, slips of the tongue, parapraxes, etc.)”(Gibeault, 2005, p. 1706) . In more colloquial understandings, there is always a relationship between the symbol and that what is symbolised or what it refers to. We may be able to easily read an image of a heart as symbolising romantic love, for example. “Symbols reﬂect social arrangements, but they also affect social arrangements”(Nietz, 1993, p. 93) and this is particularly the case on social media. As social media platforms grew over the last two decades, opportunities for symbolic violence increased too and in response user guidelines were tightened and often thousands of outsourced content moderators hired at low cost to moderate and remove content in violation of such policies (Gillespie, 2018) . Many on the Right have bemoaned that such practices threaten free speech and one of the ﬁrst actions by Elon Musk when he bought Twitter in 2022 (now renamed X) was to sack content moderators and staff responsible for regulation and oversight, and undo many policies relating to acceptable content, which resulted in

FAQs

What does the article mean by symbolic violence in the context of social media?

Symbolic violence refers to forms of violence that stop short of physical harm, yet aim to harm individuals or groups through hostile discourse and humiliation.

How does psychoanalysis, especially mentalisation theory, explain symbolic violence?

The article uses Peter Fonagy’s mentalisation theory to conceptualise symbolic violence as externalised, distorted mentalisation.

Why are incel communities used as a case study?

The paper treats misogynist incel discussions as an example, showing how their fantasies create a distorted but coherent symbolic world that reveals organised hostility toward men and women.

Aug 26, 2026

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