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.
Love Mother Night, just to clarify a thing.
He takes a job as a Nazi propagandist in order to secretly pass messages to Allied agents. He’s on trial because the American government refused to acknowledge the utterly infamous voice of of the Nazi regime was an American agent. In writing his memoirs he’s struggling with the guilt of his role in the crimes of the Nazis. He dedicates them to himself “Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a man who served evil too openly and good too secretly, the crime of his times.”
Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler TW
Right before his trial is to start he gets a letter from his America superior officer acknowledging he was an American agent, exonerating him. He puts the letter at the end of his finished memoirs and hangs himself.
What fucking “attempted rape” issue is that, bucko? This is the first time that “attempted rape” has been talked about, as opposed to actual rape. (There was a brief metaphor about murder and attempted murder, but that’s more analogous to “expressing misogynistic and violent attitudes in words” and “acting on the misogynistic and violent attitudes beyond words” than it is to “attempted rape” and “rape”.)
We’re not claiming that the channers are attempted rapists. We’re saying that it’s overwhelmingly likely that some of them are, or are planning to be, rapists and spree killers, and that the ones that are “just trolling” are indiscernable from the “dangerous” ones. The ones that are “just trolling” are ENCOURAGING the “dangerous” ones. And they are likely transitioning into being more dangerous the longer they spend “trolling”.
No. Let’s not.
Why is he still not banned? Haven’t there been multiple votes for it already?
Not being a rapist is a really fucking low bar to pass and an all-too-large percentage of people (most of whom are men) do not pass it, but not being a troll who tortures and delights in the pain of others is also a really fucking low bar and none of the channers in question pass that one so I really don’t understand what Skeptic thinks he can prove by showing the Venn diagram of the overlap in those two groups.
Edit: BritterSweet, I emailed David this morning, but haven’t heard back yet. I hope everything is okay with him.
@Scildfreja;
You are a treasure… And I’m stealing this!
@Ellesar
Incel men are far more dangerous than Incel women, thats why the focus is on them tbh. Some men who arent good enough to have sex or get laid, go on rages and end up getting messed up. Incel women are FARRRRRRRRRR better at dealing with failure and not getting laid than most INCEL men.
I still believe that some people (men in this case, the focus is on) are just not attractive enough to get laid, And you know what, (I am one of them), there is no shame about it. I personally dont see myself lower than any other guy for not being able to attract a woman, but I dont have any pity either. “Your not good enough, tough fucking shit, get on with life, plenty out there to do”- My attitude
Anyway, the point and the real question is…how do we stop Elliot Rodgers of this world becoming as nasty and twisted as they are? Obviously better gun laws would reduce shootings and opportunities, but how do we STOP/PREVENT certain INCEL men getting into that mindset in the first place?
Education is the answer in my opinion. Men need to be educated that.:
1- No one is entitled to sex (even though most loveshy virgins and even incels dont believe that, its the VOCAL idiots on reddit that gives them all a bad name)
2- AND MOST IMPORTANTLY- HAVING SEX/GETTING a girlfriend isnt the BE all and end ALL. FOR GOD FUCKING SAKE GUYS COME ON! Noticed that I wrote “girlfriend” not “partner”, not including female incels in this? Why? Because I think females who struggle with dating are already mature enough to realise this. Some men arent. I think self-hatred and “Im a loser because Im a virgin” is WHERE it all begins. When self hatred becomes large enough- it spreads to other people, then races, sexes…ect
Kill it from the beginning
Ban the INCEL subrettid/4chan
The loveshy forum is OK, but it needs intense modding. Any resentment should be stomped upon
@ joeb
A great bit in the story, and possibly pertinent to our discussion here, is that it transpires the Nazis knew he was a spy all along but allowed him to continue the broadcasts because his fascist rhetoric was so helpful to them it was irrelevant that he didn’t mean it.
@Skeptic: “Let us continue […]”
As @BritterSweet says, no, let us not.
This is not a debate forum. @Skeptic, my experience is possibly like yours in that I came to this blog from the typical internet discussion-messageboard environment in which if other posters disagree with you, that just means you go on arguing harder. But this ain’t that, and I found out my mistake in one thread where I was the one being widely disagreed with.
Around here, if people persistently disagree with you about something, even if they keep on arguing with you about it, what they want is for you to shut up and let it go. And there is nothing wrong with letting it go. Not all of our opinions need to be expounded to the last drop in every situation when other people are tired of hearing about them, even when we are passionately convinced that I JUST NEED TO EXPLAIN THIS IN SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT FORM ONE MORE TIME TO CLARIFY THE POINT I’M REALLY TRYING TO MAKE. Ain’t no shame in letting it go.
Whatever, Skeptic. Once again I am hearing someone making up excuses and minimising hate speech.
I don’t care about debating whether these guys have raped anyone, and if so how many of them have done it (why would it be okay if only a small proportion of them are actually rapists, btw? Is that going to make their victims feel better?) Numbers don’t matter.
If even *one* person has felt empowered to rape someone off the back of that site, it’s one too many. One rape is too many.
Skeptic,
Who the fuck are you even talking to?
No one made the argument that all internet misogynists are overtly threatening rape.
You have however, completely failed to respond with the arguments that we actually have made.
Either you lack the basic reading comprehension required to participate in a conversation or you’re a shitposter yourself. I just don’t see any other way that one could miss the point so spectacularly. Care to tell us just what your problem is? Because if you don’t show some signs that you’re posting in good faith soon, you will likely be banned.
@ JoeB:
Ah, yes, the heart-warming life-affirming endings that Vonnegut was always so famous for!
heeee
Okay, well. That was one excellent and eloquently worded strawman argument, @Skeptic.
No one here thinks that ‘shitposting’ == ‘rape’ || ‘attempted rape’. No one thinks that. We’re saying that people who joke about rape are more likely to actually commit rape. They are correlational, not f’ing identical.
And that leads into why you’re a terrible skeptic, @Skeptic. Skepticism isn’t about arguing harder or using your brain-meats to be super smart. It’s about interpreting counter-arguments honestly. And you’ve shown a great habit of ignoring strong counter arguments to focus on other things. Such as the strawman mentioned in the above paragraph.
Learn to skept! Or change your name to something more appropriate.
EDIT: <3 WWTH
This is absolutely true of Canada. Section 15 of the Charter is just such a provision. But really, whenever the law is brought up by one of these clowns with respect to “free speech”, it’s a red herring and speaks of how little they understand the judicial process. I mean, my only law experience is taking a high school course in Grade 11 and that equipped me with enough Constitutional Law knowledge to know how full of shit these people are.
To lawsplain a bit, Section 1 of the Charter (yes, before even freedom of expression, which is Section 2), it reads as follows:
Translated, that means that the rights are guaranteed, but can be limited by laws that can be justified to the satisfaction of the judiciary (namely the Supreme Court). The US Bill of Rights does not have such a provision. But the courts of Canada since 1982 have been very careful about violating charter rights; the Dickson court in R v. Oakes effectively crafted a test that puts the onus on the Crown to demonstrate that the violated right is pressing and substantial in its objective. Furthermore:
– The means must be proportional
– The means must be rationally connected to the objective
– There must be minimal impairment of rights
– There must be proportionality between the infringement and objective
In short, the laws we have in place against hate speech set a pretty high bar for the Crown to clear. You’re not going to be tossed in an 8×8 cell for being mean to a trans person, Jordan Petersen. If you are hauled before a Human Rights Tribunal and taken to task for being a discriminatory employer, expect to pay a fine. Hardly unreasonable things.
But all of this is really beside the point: these people want social license to be terrible people. Jordan Petersen needs those sycophants of his to laud him as a “brave truth teller.” If he came out with his declaration and everyone just gave him the stink-eye, I can imagine him just shutting up and being an asshole in private. These people are playing three card Monte with the gullible and using the law as the cards.
I spent most of my adult life (so far) learning to live outside of my own head and interact with other people as actual people. This required unlearning a congeries of behaviors built on a basis of high verbal intelligence and poor ability to read/interpret social cues.
Skeptical seems to have embraced and weaponized those behaviors. It’s a dismal, dismaying spectacle, Skeptical. Believe me, acting like an actual human being is as much work as it looks like, but it’s worth it.
Didn’t I already vote to ban Skeptic? I vote for that again.
But if we ban them who will I eat?
http://rwby.wikia.com/wiki/File:82733-why-not-both-meme-5LvD.jpeg
Do people think rapists are born evil?
Rubbish
Trolling, lack of self worth, hatred of themselves and misogony is were it starts
Something has to be done
No, let’s not. Why would you think this is a useful point to continue to attempt to make here, 4channer? (>>>>)
Alan Robertshaw .
I haven’t re-read it in a while but my memory is that his father-in-law, a faithful nazi, knew he was a spy and but figured there was no way his work for the allies was outweighing his propaganda work but the nazis in general didn’t know.
Dimmy
Vonnegut has some great life affirming lines and quotes but they don’t tend to come at the end of his stories.
Let’s have a Troll Challenge! Skeptic has to address the arguments we’ve made directly, and isn’t allowed to bring up new topics until then.
@Robert Walker-Smith:
I’d be interested to hear more details about this, including tips/pointers if possible. If this wouldn’t be the appropriate venue (or an adjacent “open thread”) feel free to suggest another.
Way late to this party, but well done everyone who’s been dealing with the so-called skeptic. I agree with those who want them banned.
from back on page 1, antisocialite said
QFT, but it’s actually worse than “couldn’t care less,” they revel in violence and death and use it to threaten others in a “see-what-you-made-me-do” type of way. Or maybe more of a “we’d-feel-totally-justified-if-we-did-a-mass-shooting-so-everyone-should-totally-care-about-our-unique-first-world-problem” way.
A bit further on, Kimstu said
Not to defend this guy in *any* way, but I’m 57 and have had all of three actual, committed relationships. I haven’t been dumped since high school, which was (AAACK!!) 1977 *wanders off to listen to Rod Stewart*
Not quite – they convicted every single American rapist in 2012. All 70,000 of them! (I guess only men are rapists, though?)
In any case, well done America! I’m happy to hear that you’ve been rapist-free since 2012.
Apologies if this issue has come up before, but have any of the long-established commenters here considered offering their services as a moderator to David, at least whilst he is ill? It might be a lot less effort to share the banhammer than it is for him to police his blog right now.