By David Futrelle
Australians learned a bit more today about the motivations of Michael James Holt, a wannabe mass killer who appeared in a New South Wales court for a sentencing hearing after pleading guilty to an assortment of weapons charges. Holt, a Hitler-loving white supremacist obsessed with guns, admitted to planning a mass shooting at an Australian mall.
One of the sources of Holt’s murderous rage? According to a text message from Holt that was read aloud in court today, he was angry that he couldn’t get a date.
“Gonna have to just start killing people if I don’t get laid soon,” Holt wrote. And he apparently meant that quite literally. In another message, he declared that “my hate increases every day, my anger exponentially so.”
It would be nice if we could dismiss Holt as little more than a weird aberration — an neo-Nazified Australian wannabe version of Elliot Rodger, the self-pitying misogynist who murdered six people in Isla Vista California in 2014 as an act of symbolic “retribution” against the women of the world for not spontaneously offering him sex.
But unfortunately, as long-time readers of this blog know well, there’s an entire movement of men out there who think like Holt and Rodger — men who lash out at the world because they feel that women are unfairly denying them sex. In online forums like the Incels subreddit, these self-professed “involuntary celibates” nurture their resentment against women and stoke one another’s rage.
More than a few incels have embraced “Saint” Elliot Rodger as an incel martyr — thought some don’t think he killed enough people to be a true hero — and it’s probably only a matter of time until they embrace Holt as one of them as well. Indeed, a handful of Reddit incels already have.
For more on Incels, check out my numerous posts on the subject in the We Hunted the Mammoth archives. I’ve also written more than a few posts on Elliot Rodger and incels’ posthumous embrace of “Saint Elliot.”
H/T — Raw Story
Incels are dangerous. They are breeding hate and misogyny. There are no doubts about that.
As far as what we have to do to combat them…We have to focus on uniting even in our differences to get the fascists out of power, to stop the hate from being normalized. America has a misogynist/accused rapist for a President. Therefore, tiny disagreements in politics have to be put aside for the good of our global good.
I enjoyed the white guilt discussion because it shows how we can be brainwashed by what is normalized. I think in the US we tried to ignore racial division instead of talking about it. That left gaps for white nationalists to normalize their hate and brainwash people in need of identity.
I also think we can have love for our country even if that country isn’t perfect.
@Preux
^Yes, this, all of this! It’s OK to disagree. Also, it’s important to note that not every PoC is gonna agree either. Like, within groups even and especially between groups. Which is why it’s really a waste of time to try and prove yourself to brown folks (or women or queer folks or any other group you have privilege over) and breakdown when you fail. You’re holding yourself up to a standard that doesn’t meaningfully exist in the first place. Waste of everyone’s time, yours and theirs. Don’t seek our approval, seek to do the best you can. And to keep reevaluating what ‘the best you can’ even means thru talking and listening. That’s all, it’s a way lower bar than people make it out to be…
Besides, as we know by now, privileged people who seem too down with the cause, too good to be true, usually are. The approval seekers usually ain’t shit. White people/dudes/straight folk/etc who never say anything racist/sexist/phobic/etc are hella suspect. There’s educating yourself, but, like you said, some people studied way too hard for this quiz ?
@Christ Hall.
That’s what I wondered. There are licensed brothels EVERYWHERE here.
I know so many sex workers, you have the NSW sex workers union etc. The one thing that struck me about Oz is just how much more in your face the sex industry is (and I have mixed feelings about that.)
It literally is easy as hell for him to have sex.
He probably means sex with zero effort on his part within his preferred context and with his exact partner of choosing.
That’s not going to happen and that makes him bitter. Most of us learn to deal with that as part of adulthood. Heck even before.
This segment of WWTH’s response needs to be underscored for exactly what it is the “incel” desires. The validation of what is considered “manly” to themselves but mostly what they think their peers consider “manly.” I know because I struggled with this, thinking I was the only guy in first year who hadn’t gotten laid and how I was somehow a lesser person because of it. With counselling and medication for depression, I worked through it and let go of that toxic mindset. These guys don’t only cling to it, but they focus their contempt on the women around them. That’s what’s so insidious about toxic masculinity and why I push back on it wherever I can.
And im sure if a woman fucked one of them she would be thanked for ending their suffering…What? No? They would call her a slut and try to get her socially exiled?? Yea that sounds rewarding.
“And im sure if a woman fucked one of them she would be thanked for ending their suffering…What? No? They would call her a slut and try to get her socially exiled?? Yea that sounds rewarding.”
Why? No one is entitled to have sex?
^ What Steph said. Why doesn’t he just pay for it?!?! What a knob jockey.
I am also mad at this man for having the same name as our 1960s prime minister who went swimming one day at the beach, and never came back. Best way to leave the big job, off making friends with sharks.
In other news.
Incels: “How Can We Blame This On Women?”