Jack Richard Peterson is an American filmmaker, media personality, and former, self-proclaimed representative of an incel community[1] named incels.me.
Certain media outlets describe Jack as a spokesperson for incels.me during April 2018,[2][3] while The Daily Beast describes him as unpopular within incels.me and also at one point sanctioned by incels.me staff during April 2018.[4] During his involvement with the forum and after his alleged forum departure in May 2018, he became an on-off media personality on the subject of incels from 2018-2021.[5][6][7]
After the 2018 Toronto van attack, Jack disavowed misogynistic incels.me members and spoke out against hate speech in media interviews, eventually claiming to have left all incel communities entirely.[8]
Incel communities activity
incels.me activity
Peterson has claimed in media interviews to have been a minor staff member of incels.me and presented himself as an incels.me spokesperson during April 2018.[3] Journalist Mandy Stadtmiller paints a different picture. During April 2018, while Jack was still a member of the incels.me forum, Mandy writes that Jack was banned by incels.me staff from the incels.me public chat room, before Jack made a 30 minute PowerPoint video to be let back in. According to Mandy, Jack was also insulted as a 'status-seeker' and an 'opportunist' by the incels.me community for attempting to represent their community and trying to paint the incels.me forum in a positive light.[4]
Departure from incels.me
Jack subsequently began portraying incels in general in a more negative light, describing many as 'entitled' and stating he changed his mind about the hate speech on the incels.me forum being 'ironic'.[9] During May 2018, Peterson announced on his YouTube channel that he left incels.me voluntarily by requesting a permanent ban on incels.me.[10][11][12] He appeared on Invisibilia in April 2019 stating he was in the process of changing in whatever way he could to "make my life not horrible".[13]
Peterson made an appearance on ABC News Nightline in August 2019, discussing his departure from the incel community.[14]
Incel podcast
He previously ran the "Incelcast", wherein he interviewed incels and discussed how they came to their position.[15] His podcast also discussed the hikikomori phenomenon in Japan and the likelihood of the same thing happening in the Western world.[4]
Views on incels
He believes that involuntary celibacy is a social phenomenon rather than a movement and has described online communities as support groups for discussing depression and loneliness.[16] Peterson describes incels as commonly being males in their late teens who are shy.[15]
Peterson has compared the demonization of inceldom to the generalizations and subsequent xenophobic and Islamophobic sentiments faced by Muslims in the aftermath of Islamist violence.[4]
Peterson first stumbled upon the manosphere at the age of 11 on 4chan.[4]
Education
According to the Daily Beast, Peterson dropped out of High School. He subsequently attended the Chicago Academy for the Arts and dropped out during the first semester.[4]
Relationships
Despite claiming to be incel, Peterson has stated that he has had a girlfriend in the past, yet claims it was not a productive relationship.[4][13]
Missing persons report
Peterson was reported missing in December 2019, but was quickly located.[17]
