Since the Toronto attack has exposed the noxious incel subculture yet again, many commentators have focused on what the word represents to the men who identify with it. Alana, for her part, thinks it’s time for the conversation to move on. In response to the attack and the renewed focus on incels (including media attention to her role in creating the word), she has started a new site, Love Not Anger, subtitled “Beyond Involuntary Celibacy.” She describes it as “a project to research how lonely people might find respectful love, instead of being stuck in anger.” The site’s name comes from a quote from the Canadian politician Jack Layton, who led the New Democratic Party until his death in 2011: “Love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair.”

Not many people get to coin a word, and you might imagine Alana would want to salvage incel, but she says she has no interest in trying to rescue a term now so firmly associated with “a hateful men’s movement.” “The search for love is still there,” she says. “There are lots of people who are lonely, having trouble with dating, and there’s no friendly, neutral word for people who are lonely for love in that way.” Incel might have served that purpose 20 years ago, but it is now beyond reclamation. While she doesn’t yet have a replacement for it, Alana hopes that a new term will emerge from those who collaborate on the Love Not Anger project.