A Man Who Obsessed Over Me Is Writing About Me in His Semi-Viral Incel Newsletter

This is sick-to-the-stomach awful, but I think your gut instinct is right.

By Jezebel | March 21, 2025 | 5:41pm

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Help! I recently learned a man who was in love with me in college has been writing extensively about me in personal essays and auto-fiction he writes for his semi-viral newsletter that’s catered to and popular among incels. The newsletter is a largely racist, disturbing screed that includes sexual and objectifying thoughts about women. I’m extremely uncomfortable with the stories he writes which, to me, at least, are very obviously about me and my rejecting him years ago. But I worry that confronting him or directing any attention to his writing will only make things worse. This situation feels like the “Cat Person” debacle if it was the creepy guy who wrote the story.

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Woof. “Newsletter that’s catered to and popular among the incels” is a phrase so particularly toxic to 2025. I’m so sorry you had to type that out let alone be indirectly discussed in one.

I think you’re right that someone writing fan fiction based on your rejection of him from a few years ago won’t be normal about you directly asking them to stop. Unfortunately, there is nothing illegal about creative writing (though as someone who minored in it in college, I think it should be in some circumstances!). For your sanity, is there a trusted friend you could kindly ask to keep an eye on what this loser is writing, to make sure he doesn’t name or dox you? That way you don’t have to subject yourself to reading that distressing slop each week. And if it does cross a line where you could build a legal case against him, someone is keeping tabs.

If you do want to confront him, maybe having someone else call him out and explain why what he’s doing is really creepy could work. It would save you from directly dealing with him, and perhaps having a third party say, “Yo, dude, what the fuck?” would appropriately embarrass him.

You should kill him. Ha ha, just kidding! (Sort of.)

What an absolute creep. Unfortunately, this might be something to just keep tabs on and see if his writing actually goes anywhere. If he’s as much of an idiot as he sounds like, hopefully, he’ll just get in his own way, and giving his work attention it doesn’t deserve won’t be necessary.

This is sick-to-the-stomach awful, but I think your gut instinct is right. A confrontation would open a door to him (and potentially his audience) that would be bothersome at best and dangerous at worst, and it’s better not to give his ideas any oxygen.

You could keep an eye on the situation to see if it escalates in a way that requires intervention. But if he’s not identifying you overtly in these essays, my advice would be to block, mute, and do anything you can to make sure his toxic content never makes it anywhere near your feed. It’s upsetting and unsettling knowing he’s out there writing this stuff, but his warped depictions are not a reflection of reality whatsoever—he’s certainly not living in the same one as the rest of us.