UPDATE: The shooter has been identified as 26-year-old Chris Harper-Mercer. Rumors spread earlier in the day that the shooter was a a regular 4channer and active Youtuber known as “the eggman.” Obviously they were wrong.
This is beyond fucked up. In this archived thread from 4chan’s /r9k/ board, the apparent shooter at Umpqua Community College told fellow channers yesterday of his plans to shoot up a school today. He didn’t specify which school, mentioning only that it was in the “northwest.” /r9k/ is a board heavily populated by so-called “incels,” and the media is reporting that the apparent shooter regularly posted bitter complaints about his lack of success with women,
UPDATE 2: There is a lot of confusing and contradictory information out there, and the IDing of the killer has actually raised more questions than it’s resolved. An apparent Myspace page for Harper-Mercer suggests that he was obsessed both with guns and with the IRA.
There have also been reports that he was targeting Christians. According to the New York Post, a “woman who claimed to have a grandmother inside a writing class in Snyder Hall, where a portion the massacre unfolded” reported that
“The shooter was lining people up and asking if they were Christian,” she wrote. “If they said yes, then they were shot in the head. If they said no, or didn’t answer, they were shot in the legs.
So was he — as an apparent supporter of the IRA — targeting Protestants? The Daiy Beast, for its part, says the shooter “hated religion.” Chuck C. Johnson of GotNews says he’s “confirmed” that the shooter was a Muslim.
Is the Myspace page really his? Is the report from the alleged granddaughter bullshit? Was the 4chan posting yesterday actually from him, or a comment from a troll that just happened to have been posted the day before a school shooting in the northwest?
I don’t know. But I still recommend that you read the rest of this post, if only to see the comments from the other 4channers.
Screenshots below:
Here’s his first comment warning fellow channers not to go to school today if they live in the northwest.
He then said he’d post again shortly before he started to shoot. (I don’t know if he did.)
Because 4chan is a fucking cesspool, other channers offered him advice:
Another anon suggested that indiscriminate killing wasn’t the solution, seeming to imply that more targeted killing was?
Others put forth their ideas of what sorts of people might be considered appropriate targets:
More encouragement. Note the reference to Elliot Rodger, the Santa Barbara “incel” killer.
A few others urged the OP to NOT carry out his plans.
After reports of the shooting hit the news, anons reacted with amazement:
Amazement and enthusiasm:
In case you’re wondering, “kek” is the equivalent of “lol.”
More excitement:
There’s much more of this in the thread.
Naturally, someone claims that the shooting could have been averted if only the shooter could have found a girlfriend.
Yes that’s right: he thinks the shooter was himself a victim, presumably of the entire female gender.
There’s a lot more in the thread but honestly I can’t stomach it right now.
Note: This post has been updated numerous times.
When will FBI begin to treat the manosphere as the terrorist producing c….p as it (obiously) is? I bet that it will only last a few hours before the rest will come out with their excuses:”If it wasn’t for feminism…”. “The shooter is the first wictim…” and similar BS
Slightly more restrictive than that. I believe that “concealed carry” guns literally have to be concealed, in a pocket or something. When you say “drawing” a weapon, I assume you mean holding it in your hand, which is generally called “brandishing” in the law.
Wearing a gun on your hip or something is called “open carry,” even if you never put your hand on it and it sounds like school policy prohibits that.
@oddmusic:
A thousand times YES.
Honestly, has there ever been a feminist shooter who has gone on a shooting spree, specifically targeting men? Ever? That says something about which is the most dangerous movement: feminism, or the collective manosphere bullshit.
My heart goes out to the victims in this tragedy. The shooter ISN’T one of them. I hope the authorities can track down the posters who egged this guy on, as they might very well be guilty of a crime… although as far as I know, that is very doubtful.
Absolutely. Fucking. Disgusting.
I have no words, really. Just too disgusted to write anything coherent now.
I will put a bit of faith in the fact that Josh Goldberg was actually arrested for his bullshit. Maybe something will happen to these 4chan assholes. Maybe not though-I don’t see how the FBI could get them, and local police probably can’t.
Is it bad that I’m disappointed, Alan?
Like, I hate confirmation of anyone’s deaths, but I’m also disappointed because now this jerk can never flat out tell people why, or directly admit that he was the anonymous poster, even if it seems freaking obvious he was.
Even with how freaking obvious, people are still going to claim it wasn’t him. Because people suck like that.
People are still going to try and spin that the manosphere and the toxic culture had nothing to do with it. They’d still probably do that if he was alive, to be honest, but at least we’d have his word to point to?
Also, that just means one more person is dead and that freaking sucks. I kind of hate that bastard, but damn it.
Hugs for anyone on the thread who needs them.
My thoughts are with the families, friends, classmates, and coworkers of those murdered and injured.
Remember what we’re always told? These are just internet trolls. They’re not serious threats. They would never actually hurt anybody.
And now that this happened, I’m sure there will be some other fucking excuse. Fuck it all.
Number of female vs male victims please. Was the shooting aimed at women specifically?Thank you.
Just tragic. I used to hang around r9k and I once tried to talk a person out of commuting suicide there and I was shocked by the amount of people on the thread who were openly encouraging the guy to kill himself. That was one of the last nails in what caused me to leave 4chan.
I think if it’s legal to concealed carry in public areas then a community college or state university can only make people register with campus police.
Sigh. What can be said, aside from the same things which get said every freaking time?
Even if it isn’t the same guy, it’s absolutely disgusting.
contrapangloss: The usual suspects were going to claim this was a false flag regardless. Their delusion bubble can definitely resist an actual confession.
While we’re discussing this, it’s worth noting that /r9k/ is considered a laughingstock by the rest of the site; hell, even /pol/ will sometimes think something’s too misogynist and tell the poster to go back to /r9k/.
It’s also worth noting that /r9k/, from my perverse browsing, had a marked tendency to both pine for female affection (“>tfw no gf”) and despise women with a fury even the aforementioned /pol/ thinks is pathetic.
Yeah… I’m just gonna say it – it’s very, very similar to the general mentality that animated much of GamerGate. I’m not saying that this guy was part of GG, and I’m certainly not saying that the actions of GG are in any way equivalent to mass murder, but the whole nihilistic gamification aspect feels very familiar (and yes, GG basically started on 4chan). I think that as much as places like 4chan cultivate a sense of post-everything free-floating anarchic absurdity, they also help guide people toward truly toxic ideologies. Like, I think it’s maybe not that much of a cognitive leap to go from “Ha ha, Hitler didn’t do anything wrong, right guys?” to “Hmm, you know, maybe Hitler really didn’t do anything wrong…” or to go from “Ha ha, wouldn’t it be awesome to gun down some Chads and normies?” to actually fucking doing it.
http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/612/807/46d.gif
Thread, world, same thing… someone please stop the planet, I would like to get off.
@ contrapanglos
No, I completely understand. I think there are a few reasons for feeling that way.
There’s the fact the families will never have a chance to hear from him as to why he felt their loved ones should die.
He doesn’t now have to face up to his actions or be held accountable.
He has effectively got what he wanted. So he ‘wins’.
He’ll never face punishment.
Etc etc.
@dhag85 re: internet trolls
See, that always bugged me because in stories trolls always come out from their little bridges or caves and do massive damage to the world around them so if they really wanted to name them something “harmless and annoying” they missed the bill.
I am a vivid 4chan user. Usually the community is very supportive and can even be consoling. So I don’t understand the fascist reaction of wanting to close the whole board, only because of some (allegedly) bad apples who thought the post was a joke and could have never anticipated the outcome.
I am quite sad for the victims though. RIP in peace.
Eron Gjoni originally posted the links to his blog post on /r9k/. It’s something to consider if the Nazis on /pol/ think /r9k/ is too extreme.
Thank you, bc you said what I wanted to say and could not find words to say. @justlikeheaven, I am glad there are people like you there (there must be more people like you there, please say there are) and I hope they wake up and leave too.
Fucking hell.
Well.. it’s begun. Cernovich’s twitter:
Shut up, Hank. This is not the time for #NotAll4channers. Just shut up.
Seems like 4chan have managed to spread false information concerning the shooter’s identity.