A mass shooting in Santa Barbara last night left seven dead, including the man suspected of being the killer. Local authorities say that this chilling video, titled Elliot Rodger’s retribution, “appears to be connected” to the shootings. It is a supremely disturbing real-life villain’s monologue in which a young man, evidently the killer, explains on the day before the massacre why he intends to kill: because women have rejected him.
As the person who sent this video to me this morning noted, it sounds almost like a parody of the misogynistic beliefs and rhetoric that I write about on this blog. His language and his melodramatic tone both echo the writings of many of those young men who consider themselves “incels.” His anger is the same anger we see from the rejected men who lash out with insults and threats on OkCupid when their often crude advances are turned down. He reminds me of every so-called “nice guy” who is inwardly seething with resentment born of sexual entitlement denied. He even, at one point, calls himself a “gentleman.” He also calls himself an “alpha.”
It is clear that his resentment at women was stoked by what I call the “new misogyny” and by steeping himself in at least one online community that reaffirmed his exaggerated, unwarranted sense of victimhood. So far we have evidence that he was a commenter at PUAhate, a site ostensibly designed to critique PUAs but which has degenerated into a haven for misogynistic “incels” and angry trolls. I suspect we will find that he was also a reader of, or a commenter at, some of the other sites I critique on this blog.
For those of you who cannot make it through the video — I found it very hard to watch — here is a transcript of what he said.
Hi, Elliot Rodger here.
Well… this is my last video. It all has to come to this.
Tomorrow is the day of retribution. The day in which I will have my revenge against humanity. Against all of you.
For the last 8 years of my life, ever since I’ve hit puberty, I’ve been forced to endure an existence of loneliness, rejection, and unfulfilled desires. All because girls have never been attracted to me.
Girls gave their affection, and sex, and love, to other men but never to me.
I’m 22 years old and I’m still a virgin. I’ve never even kissed a girl.
I’ve been through college for two and a half years, more than that actually, and I’m still a virgin.
It has been very torturous.
College is the time when everyone experiences those things such as sex, and fun, and pleasure. But in those years I’ve had to rot in loneliness.
It’s not fair. You girls have never been attracted to me.
I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it.
It’s an injustice, a crime, because I don’t know what you don’t see in me. I’m the perfect guy, and yet you throw yourselves at all these obnoxious men, instead of me, the supreme gentlemen.
I will punish all of you for it. (laughs)
On the day of retribution I am going to enter the hottest sorority house of UCSB… and I will slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up, blonde slut I see inside there.
All those girls that I’ve desired so much, they would’ve all rejected me and looked down upon me as an inferior man if I ever made a sexual advance towards them while they throw themselves at these obnoxious brutes.
I will take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you.
You will finally see that I am in truth the superior one. The true alpha male. (laughs)
Yes, after I’ve annihilated every single girl in the sorority house, I’ll take to the streets of Isla Vista, and slay every single person I see there.
All those popular kids who live such lives of hedonistic pleasure while I’ve had to rot in loneliness for all these years, they’ve all looked down upon me every time I try to go out and join them. They’ve all treated me like a mouse.
Well now, I will be a God compared to you. You will all be animals. You are animals, and I will slaughter you like animals. I will be a God, exacting my retribution, on all those who deserve it.
And you do deserve it, just for the crime of living a better life than me.
All you popular kids. You’ve never accepted me, and now you’ll all pay for it.
And girls, all I’ve ever wanted was to love you, and to be loved by you. I’ve wanted a girlfriend, I’ve wanted sex, I’ve wanted love, affection, adoration, but you think I’m unworthy of it.
That’s a crime that can never be forgiven.
If I can’t have you, girls, I will destroy you. (laughs)
You denied me a happy life, and in turn, I will deny all of you life. (laughs) It’s only fair.
I hate all of you, humanity is a disgusting, wretched, depraved species. If I had it in my power, I would stop at nothing, to reduce every single one of you to mountains of skulls and rivers of blood, and rightfully so.
You deserve to be annihilated. And I’ll give that to you.
You never showed me any mercy, and so I will show you none. (laughs)
You force me to suffer all my life, and now I’ll make you all suffer.
I’ve waited a long time for this.
I’ll give you exactly what you deserve.
I will have more on this as the story develops. My heart goes out to the loved ones of all the victims.
Misogyny kills.
EDITED TO ADD: Elliot Rodger seems to have been a commenter on PUAhate, the anti-PUA message board that is as misogynistic and generally awful as the PUAs it critiques. PUAhate has taken itself offline, so all evidence of this may end up scrubbed. I added a paragraph about this.
I will keep updating as I track down more information on this story. Please post anything you find in the comments as well.
EDIT 2: This will be a NO TROLLS thread. Anything gratuitously argumentative or less than respectful of the victims will be removed.
I think the only reason I managed to get through the whole transcript was because of how, I don’t know unreal this guy sounded. This guy thought process is like if someone fed every vile thing I’ve ever seen hateful thing I’ve ever seen analysed on this blog and every other anti misogyny site or piece of media. I hope we don’t see more of Elliot Rodger’s ilk coming out the wood work anytime soon.
Exactly, Michelle! That is what I was thinking as well. I mean, I have been rejected many times in my life. As a teen I was not popular with the guys at all. And that never made me think about going around and “punishing” men for it! It is indeed an issue of entitlement! I would hope this serious issue would be more discussed rather than taking it as some sort of isolated event (which we know well it is not the case).
I saw an MRA troll on Jezebel claiming this as evidence of how oppressed men are and he expressed hope this would finally draw attention to men’s issues. If anybody had some small glimmer of hope that the MRM would learn from this; they won’t.
I’m so furious right now. George Sodini, Marc Lepine, and now Elliot Rodgers. And yet, feminists who try to talk about the toxic culture of male entitlement get laughed at and harassed by the same assholes who spout off the same beliefs that these murderers did. And I just know that MRAs are hanging out in their little slime pits discussing why this attack is the fault of WOMEN. And that makes me angry all over again.
It’s discomforting to be trying to show people info and not just hiding from this. This genuinely shook my day up, but someone’s gotta point this stuff out, right? maybe? I should probably go back to bed and sleep through hell, but before that:
http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/26d4wy/so_this_guy_shot_and_ran_over_a_bunch_of_people/
Reddit’s default /r/videos subreddit banned any discussion of the video, for reasons not explained. I cannot actually find any explanation for it, and that’s notably disconcerting, for a site known for touting free speech.
I have this horrible feeling Rodgers will be turned into some kind of martyr figure by the Manosphere.
According to the Daily Mail, posters at PUAhate were already calling him a hero.
My first reaction was that hsounded like too many PUAs I’ve read. This is the first I’ve heard of this. How horrible.
@WWTH
No, the men’s right movement won’t learn from this. I do hope that at last one individual man will learn from this. I hope.
But it won’t surprise me if even that doesn’t happen.
And even if it does, we probably won’t hear about it. It’s highly unlikely that any man will post “I used to be a MRA, but after seeing the Santa Barbara massacre, I changed my mind and became a feminist.” It might be the final straw in someone’s Heel-Face turn, but it won’t be the only thing. And the one man who does turn probably won’t be anybody powerful in the movement, either.
And even more unfortunately, the odds are that at least one man will look at this as inspiration. And someone will blog about it.
So, in effect, I agree with you, weirwoodtreehugger. They’re already marshaling to spin this in an anti-woman way.
The Men’s Right Movement is powerful. The Feminist Movement MUST be more powerful, and we have a long, LONG way left to go.
I hope for individuals. I have no hope for the MRMovement.
Note – I had the massacre listed with his name, but I edited it to show the name of the city affected by his actions, rather than give his name any more face-time. Is it OK to just forget his name? Remember Santa Barbara, not remember whatshisname?
Why is my kitty playing outside right now? I need kitty-cuddles.
Not that I am in any way entitled to kitty-cuddles.
@Chie Satonaka
Yep.
@J
It says the comments are disabled “due to personal info/witchhunting.”
What does that even mean? Are they afraid we’re going to doxx a dead guy?
@Zonlier and Chie Satonaka – Hero worship and martyring, already?!
This world today. I can’t even.
I’ll check back later, in case of “how to help” info, but I’ve had it for now. Gonna go hug my pillow.
Flashbacks to the Lundy Bancroft post now.
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/05/06/domestic-violence-expert-lundy-bancroft-mens-rights-philosophies-make-angry-and-controlling-men-even-worse/
So, he’s being called a “Hollywood leftist” and an “immigrant” by rightwing websites. Just google his name and see what comes up; it would be laughable if it weren’t so infuriating.
I was going to try and do an analysis of how the thinking of possessive, entitled violence begins and how it perpetuates.
Instead I’m just going to say, “Fuck. Fuck the hell we inflict on each other. Fuck it right out of the universe.”
There’s a Hassidic poem/saying/proverb/teaching of which I’m reminded. In English, I’ve heard it go something like this: Always assume that the person sitting next to you is the Messiah, waiting to experience simple, human kindness. When you do, you will soon come to weigh your words and watch your hands. And if the messiah then chooses not to appear in your time, it will not matter.
I cross-post this from Pharyngula, but hopefully the redundancy won’t hurt it any for those who read it in both places.
Today I’m not fussed about reading – or writing – too many reminders to treat each other well.
This is so horrible. Apparently Roosh is already crowing over it. Feel quite sick. 10 million kitty-hugs required stat.
Even though misters are already trying to distance themselves, here’s evidence that this dude was an anti-feminist: https://twitter.com/MatthewKeysLive/status/470220031708508161/photo/1
Do not read the comments.
Seriously.
Crap, I know. I looked at the comments on some of the more liberal sites like Daily Kos, hoping they’d be tolerable, and quickly got tired of:
1. He’s just a lone nut with a mental illness, end of story. Because mentally ill people do stuff for random “crazy” reasons and aren’t influenced at all by their environments, like for example hanging around on websites where people tell them that women who won’t give them blowies deserve to die.
2. Sure, MRAs spew a nonstop torrent of threatening hate speech and sometimes actually murder people, but what about this obscure radical feminist message board where I hear someone once wrote “men are bad”? That proves feminism is just as hateful and dangerous!
3. Saying that all but one of the spree killers of the last 30 years has been male, and the massive “alpha male” entitlement displayed by this most recent killer may suggest why men are more likely to think this type of violent lashing-out is justified, is sexist against men. Why do you hate men?
The comments on the mainstream news sites are, of course, dominated by NRA members upset that this could make people think we need gun control laws.
This is one of the most heartbreaking and horrifying things I have ever seen. I cannot begin to imagine the grief and sorrow of the families and friends of those slain. I can only pray for peace and healing for everyone.
The only thing that will be worse than the MRA/PUA comments will be the gunwanker ones.
Here, have some brain bleach, y’all:
http://new.livestream.com/FosterKittenCam/TheHitchhikerFosters/
Excuse me while I go smash some things.
I’m really glad I didn’t watch the video, and thank you both for the transcript and the trigger warning, David. I should have heeded it better, but I didn’t think it would be so bad written down. He sounds *just* like my ex abuser at parts, and that is making me not okay. And those poor people. I just can’t express how much sorrow and pain and even fear I’m feeling right now, for myself and women in general. Screw early; I think I will go drink ;_;
(Hugs for those who want them, of course; and everyone here please stay safe for the weekend)
redditors going insane over this with MRAs attempting to argue that he wasn’t influenced by their movement: here http://www.reddit.com/r/againstmensrights/comments/26drfl/concerning_elliot_rodger_the_isla_vista_mass/ and here http://np.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/26dcel/youtube_beta_mentioned_here_shoots_and_kills_6/chq0hzv
Yes, “unreal” is exactly what I thought too. I watched and listened to the whole video, and the way he spoke and the flat-affect of his laughs, it was like bad acting.
It’s really freaking me out because so many times on manboobz here I have had a good chuckle at how much MRAs sound like comic-book super-villains when they get their rant on. We’ve all seen it with the purple prose and the melodrama, it’s hard to take them seriously no matter how horrific the actual words. And then this guy comes along and sounds *exactly* like that, like a B-grade super-villain, and then kills a bunch of people. Suddenly I’m thinking that all those MRAs I’ve laughed at are just ticking time-bombs waiting to go off, that the manosphere is a breeding ground of violence just like Stormfront etc. (referring to that SPLC article).