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FEMCEL FOLIO

HOW CAN A PRINT BOOKLET REPRESENT FEMININE RAGE?

Femcel Folio is a print collection of various writings on the concept of the “femcel” (female involuntary celibate) in internet culture.

While the term “incel” or “involuntary celebrities” is usually associated with radicalized young men, the term was first coined in 1997 by a woman in her semi-anonymous blog “Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project”. In her website, Alana sought to create a sympathetic space for people like herself, who struggled to form romantic relationships. However, by the end of the 2010s, the term had been co-opted into a heterosexual male community of resentment, known for its associations to acts of public gun violence.

Despite this, some female digital communities have reclaimed the concept of the “femcel” or female incel. Different than incel communities, femcel culture is more focused on an expression of dissatisfaction with heterosexual relationships, both in a perceived inability to meet expectations for women and despair of being objectified, but not loved. In a sense, it’s an overly online form of chaotic feminism, using ironic memes and content as an expression of female rage.

Femcel Folio contains writings from multiple sources on the subject, including Post45, Elle magazine, What the F Magazine, Time magazine, Polyester zine, and other independent blogs, discussing the topic from different perspectives.

Visually, the magazine uses traditionally “feminine” aesthetics given a slightly grittier edge. It uses the typeface Mrs. Eaves. Named after Sarah Eaves, this typeface honors John Baskerville’s wife: an often forgotten woman in the history of typography. Reinforcing the themes of dissatisfaction and anger, the imagery elevates memes as genuine artifacts of human expression, as well as including cultural touchstones like Possession (1981), Perfect Blue (1997), Gone Girl (2014), Fleabag (2016), Hereditary (2018), Pearl (2022), and others.