By David Futrelle
In the wake of every mass shooting, we hear the inevitable cries from NRA types not to “politicize” the tragedy by pointing out the obvious fact that stricter gun laws would make such tragedies less likely in the future. We watch the trolls and shitlords of the alt-right flood the internet with disinformation and conspiracy theories. These reactions are now as predictable as the reappearance of the sun on the horizon every morning.
The internet’s incels — the bitter fringe-dwellers who consider their “involuntary celibacy” to be a crime against their humanity — have their own predictable responses to such tragedies: they mock the victims as “normies” deserving death — and try as best as they can to adopt the latest mass killer as one of their own.
In the case of last night’s horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas — a massacre that at last count left 59 dead and more than 500 injured — Reddit’s incels did not disappoint on this front. In a number of different threads devoted to the murders, regulars on the Incels subreddit celebrated the death of “normies” and “chads” and even tried to claim that mass killer Stephen Paddock — a man with a girlfriend, and thus decidedly not an incel — was “a depressed and delusional former Chad turned to oldcel.”
For many in the subreddit, the news of the mass shooting was something of an inspiration. In a thread offering faux condolences for the dozens of “normies [who] just got fragged in Las Vegas,” several commenters had similar ideas:
Those calling for basic human decency got an earful from their fellow incels.
![lonelyrommel1998 32 points 3 hours ago RIP . Please my brothers, be civil during this time of tragedy. I know you guys hate anyone that isnt you, but they are human beings nonetheless permalinkembedsavegive gold [–]novalueinvictimhoodhttps://goo.gl/2yvNyj 2 points 44 minutes ago they are human beings So? Being a modern human being is the greatest crime you can commit. permalinkembedsaveparentgive gold [–]wandercampEmbracing the sublime terror of incel existance -3 points an hour ago Fuck off normie I fapped to that video permalinkembedsaveparentgive gold [–]fuck-women-everyday23 KV Approachcel Hopecel Knowledgecel -2 points an hour ago Las Vegas is normie heaven. People go there for drinks, socializing, one night stands, and gambling. Incels will never experience that.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/inm3.png?resize=580%2C636&ssl=1)
In another thread, Reddit’s incels lashed out at the “normies” expressing sympathy for the victims on social media — and at the alleged “degeneracy” of Las Vegas.
![BlackPill4831yo bald manlet escortcel 卐 'Self improvement is masturbation' 10 points 3 hours ago I hate all this 'competitive grief' on social media. They don't give a fuck about the homeless, jobless and sexless. permalinkembedsavegive gold [–]Bojack101 6 points 3 hours ago The degenerate las vegas city deserved it](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/inm6.png?resize=517%2C459&ssl=1)
![BlackPillRevolutionWeAreRevolting | Copernicus | ?NormiesCanAllBurn?| Hate 5 points 3 hours ago All virtue-signalling and posting it all over instawhore or fakebook to show how much they "care" just to fit in the rest of the conformitard sheep who do the same thing permalinkembedsavegive gold [–]touchbutt2Women can't be lonely. women can't be depressed. can't be incel 4 points 4 hours ago Exactly. they can call us evil all they want but at least we are honest. The entire degenrate city of las vegas and everyone in it could die and it wouldn't affect my day in any way](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/inm4.png?resize=517%2C724&ssl=1)
The subreddit’s regulars found it much easier to identify with the shooter.
Still, it’s unlikely that Paddock, a 64-year-old retiree who apparently lived with a girlfriend, will be embraced by incels as another Elliot Rodger, the incel mass murderer celebrated as a “saint” and “supreme gentleman” by this despicable crowd. But that didn’t stop some from trying to posthumously recruit Paddock to inceldom, none more ingeniously than this fellow.
It’s a bit of a reach, given that pretty much the only things we seem to know for sure about Paddock is that he was neither a former Chad nor an incel. I guess the Incels subreddit regulars are a little hard up for, er, “heroes” these days.
@ shadowplay
Yeah, I think when you remove the ‘middle’ stages, like reporting etc and just look at:
‘Rapes occurring vs Conviction’
then it’s probably in the same ballpark.
I suppose one thing here is sentencing seems a bit more realistic than some of the US cases (although there’s always the caveat about which ones make the news and representative samples); but the starting point for a ‘regular’ rape here is now 8 years.
ETA: someone once did a great legal article about factors that had to be present for a conviction in a ‘consent’ case but I’ve never been able to find it online. But it was stuff like ‘social standing disparity’, ‘relative attractiveness’ etc.
@Alan
someone once did a great legal article about factors that had to be present for a conviction in a ‘consent’ case but I’ve never been able to find it online. But it was stuff like ‘social standing disparity’, ‘relative attractiveness’ etc.
If you ever find it, linky please? It sounds both interesting and infuriating.
@Gussie Jives:
And even if their goal is comedy, the fact that they’re amused by what other people find horrific can be a warning sign in itself.
Personally, I would guess that @Skeptic was probably right that there are a lot of people on “incel” sites who are “merely” trolling and posturing rather than sincerely expressing the full truth of their own positions. But the point is that being insincere about vile remarks doesn’t make them okay.
For one thing, studies indicate that exposure to joking versions of bigotry in fact induces people to have greater tolerance for actual bigotry. So trying to troll “incels” even just “as a joke” is objectively making the effects of “incel” worse, for the trolls, the trollees, and everybody who encounters them.
For another, as noted above, if you honestly believe that pretending to endorse horrible opinions is amusing, that’s a big red flag right there.
Not trying to be pedantic, but it was an officer in the Toronto Police Services that was asked about rape prevention at Osgoode Hall and that was his response, not the Chief. Former TPS Chief Bill Blair would never say anything that callous or stupid. He always struck me as a guy who tried to do the right thing, even if he didn’t succeed.
Current Chief Mark Saunders on the other hand… there’s something too “status quo” about him for my tastes… but at least he’s not Julian Fantino.
This. Absolutely this.
I used to work with a guy. There was always something about him I disliked but couldn’t put my finger on, but he was polite and professional (he was a coworker). Then one day he tells me he trolls on the internet as a hobby. He was laughing gleefully as he described how humorous he found it to watch people get upset over “just words on a screen.” He was besides himself in stitches at the thought of it. I asked him if he knew those people were actually upset and that this was actually hurtful to them, and he said that’s what makes it so funny.
Trolling is delighting in the pain of others. Make know mistake about it.
I stand corrected then about slutwalk, itd been a while. I thought it was a higher ranking officer than had said it.
r/incels, distilled into one image:
But why won’t anyone sleep with them?
Manosphere “culture” didnt’ start in the 1940’s. Manosphere culture is just what normal patriarchal culture does when women get uppity. It only starts appearing in the 20th century because that’s when women started making progress. That’s when it changed from “that woman is a harlot who needs to be broken” to “all women are harlots that need to be broken.”
Oh dear.
http://orig03.deviantart.net/6824/f/2012/324/4/f/concerned_fluttershy__stage_2_by_the_batmann-d5lmjsa.jpg
I see that others have rightly put the pile driver to this little gem, but, honey. Don’t do science in public if you aren’t a sciencer. Heck, even if you are one.
What you’ve calculated there isn’t the proportion of rapists in 4chan, what you’ve calculated is the rate of convicted rapists in 4chan. According to some hyperbolic assumptions. With your hyperbolic assumptions, about 35% of 4chan would be rapists. Not rape-sympathizers, rapists. That’s with your hyperbolic assumptions, mind you.
If 4chan were the same as the baseline average – which I have every reason to believe it is not – it sound have somewhere in the ballpark of 200,000 rapists in its community based on the average conviction rate in the United States. Given that its social conventions are well outside of the norms of society, though, and has communities that actively encourage rape/abuse, I would suggest somewhere between that 200,000 and 2 million of its ten million members.
(the above based on 38 convictions per 100,000 persons in 2015 in the USA (wikipedia), and an estimate of 300:6 for commited rapes:convictions (as provided by WWTH above))
Thiiiiiiiissssss
Neurons become sensitized on successive activations. If a neuron fires a lot, it grows more receptors along its dendrites and soma, its synapses become more dense and it more easily produces neurotransmitters needed for communicating. Its activation threshold drops. It fires more often, and requires less incoming stimulation to fire.
This is why nurses tell you to take your painkillers. It’s not just empathy, it’s because if you don’t take them, you’ll sensitize to pain, and will feel more pain from then on.
And this is for more than pain, this happens throughout the brain and body. If you repeat an action, or a thought, or an emotion, your brain becomes sensitized to it and it becomes easier to perform next time. And after that. And after that.
Tell a joke one time, it’s a joke. Tell a joke thirty times, it’s a belief system. Behaviour creates belief. Brony is probably better suited to talking about jokes and humour, but it’s well known that jokes are basically there to indicate social membership and a way to say things that are socially unpopular to say in public.
(Lurker, first time commenter)
I live in Las Vegas, I was born and raised here. The idea that the city or even the Strip in particular is a “normie heaven” is another thing that doesn’t quite fit with reality. I admit their definition of “normie” seems to be “people that aren’t us” but this city is a haven for people that are socially awkward or don’t quite mesh well with society. All of the weird things that happen desensitize locals to pretty much anything short of stripping your clothes off and running around screaming, so awkward and embarrassing behaviors tend to get shrugged off. You can walk around in full cosplay on the Strip and no one thinks much of it. In addition there is a lot more then bars and clubs on the Strip, you could spend all of your time in old fashioned arcades, toy and collector shops, and roller coasters instead. Of course, that would involve a desire to do something.
Peak 182:
No, no, no!
Can we please dispel this absurd notion please? Every single day I see men who would not be considered attractive in couples – often with conventionally attractive women!
My 2 sons are handsome and lovely young men and are virgins – neither have had a girlfriend at all (both hetero).
And why is the focus on men all the time? What about conventionally unattractive women? As many have said here, there is no shortage of women who would consider themselves involuntarily celibate, and contrary to the incel idiots belief not all women can attract someone for sex in a heartbeat. Considering the way most men focus on looks less attractive hetero women are really at a lesser advantage than their male counterparts.
There are many reasons why someone will not get into a sexual relationship, and yes, if YOU focus on looks that will be the reason, the be all and end all. But clearly it cannot be the case for everyone, and I suspect there are other factors at work much more of the time.
A couple of years ago I believed that the PUA attitude was the most disgusting attitude in the Manosphere, but incel really has passed and streaked ahead in the vile misogynist/ misanthropist competition they seem to all be competing in.
I’ve found this statement useful during the Pewdiepie situation, and even more so now concerning shitposting and “irony”:
If you ironically fuck a goat, you’re still a goatfucker.
RE: Trolling in general
I really believe that people have become more callous toward each other since the advent of the internet. I don’t take part in any of the abuse or name-calling, but I think it’s a sad sign of the times, just how vulgar and vile people are capable of behaving, when they believe themselves to be anonymous.
My late father, who died in 2012, sometimes used to amuse himself by playing chess online. He happened to mention to me how foul-mouthed and vulgar his opponents were when they lost to him. He truly found this offensive.
Now, my dad was no saint himself. He was a New Yorker who cussed a blue streak, without much provocation. He also didn’t hold back just because he had two small daughters…me, and my younger sister.
I guess one of the differences between then and now, is that when I was growing up, most people acknowledged that foul language and verbal abuse was inappropriate behavior. Of course, this didn’t stop most people from engaging in it. These days, however, being a potty-mouth almost seems to be celebrated.
Now, it’s possible I’m viewing the past through rose-colored glasses. However, anyone remember a certain televised 2016 political debate, which actually degenerated into a genitals-measuring contest? These ‘winners’ actually staged a debate that certain segments of the audience felt they couldn’t allow their children to watch!
I apologize for the above rant. I guess I’m just becoming an old lady now.
Some people are full of s##t, some people aren’t.
Or, as Kurt Vonnegut Jr. put it in Mother Night back in 1962: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
The main character there is an American who worked as a Nazi propagandist and is writing his memoirs while on trial for war crimes, all written by one of the more actively philosophical American authors of the 20th century. It’s full of interesting quotes that seem just as relevant today.
Just another quick reflection on Constitutional/Fundamental Rights and “Free Speech”.
There’s a very clear legal distinction between having horrible opinions and Incitement. The former is protected speech, the latter is not.
Why? Because the Constitution protects more than just Free Speech, and quite frankly the US constantly falls behind other developed and even developing nations in regards to protections against vulnerable populations (such as women, POC, LGBT, disabled individuals, etc).
The only conclusion I can draw from this level of fanaticism in regard to Free Speech, and it’s constant association to spread misinformation, slurs and even blatant Nazi propaganda about vulnerable populations, is that Free Speech in the US is so revered not because it is a Fundamental Right, necessary to any democracy; but because in the US it has historically been used as a tool to discriminate and perpetuate institutional racism against vulnerable groups.
In other countries Constitution explicitly grant the right to Protection against Discrimination, whether on the basis of ethnicity, race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
Only in the US do I see a zealous and unnecessary level of protection of “Free Speech” which does not adhere with established Constitutional doctrine and law, throughout the World.
Let us continue the “attempted rape” issue again. “attempted rape” means:
– there must be an overt act[iii]; and
– there must be an intention to rape when a defendant commits an overt act[iv].
I agree with you that the incel shitheads are almost perpetually in a state of “intention to commit rape”. That is certainly what their shitposting shows.
However, shitposting on the internet is usually, I think (but see below for an important exception) not an “overt act” in the relevant sense — it is not necessarily an action showing you are planning to actually rape someone.
These guys are certainly serial rapists — in their own mind and in the minds of their incel buddies. I certainly agree this is despicable. But it does not make them *actual* rapists or attempted rapists precisely because they usually committed no “overt act” . That is the distinction between “words and deeds” I was aiming at.
However, I agree one can well imagine cases where the incel posts ARE specific enough to constitute an overt act: “all women deserve to be raped” would not be, but “I am going to rape so-and-so tomorrow, stay away!” may be. “Hah hah, just joking” would indeed NOT be a defense in such a case.
Yep. And we have a fucking exhibit A right here.
Fuck you, Skeptic. You know what you’re doing, and you delight in it.
Fuck you. I’m done. Voting for a banhammer for this tone deaf, chaotic troll.
Hey, remember this quote from the last thread “Skeptic” stank up? Good times; good times.
Should have stuck to the sex-bot thread, sir-or-ma’am.
@Dimmy,
Yes, and now we’re reading a carefully crafted defense of the assholes who reveled in the deaths of all of those people that thread was originally about…
He’s a 4channer. I’d bet a buck on that fact.
Squick all around.
I’m just going to tell skeptic “oh bless your heart cupcake”
Also, @Diegi, that is a pretty good theory as to the why of free speech absolutists in the states. Its probably almost exactly dead center for truth