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.
The incels (wut???) are clearly deranged.
But are they worth the attention David lavishes on them? Of course not.
It makes for deeply depressing reading and I honestly worry that David’s recent health problems (migraines, e.g.) may be related to ‘obsessing’ with various extreme nutjobs and ‘exposing’ them, when ignoring them may be a saner and more dignified approach to these incurables. No doubt the LULZ-type shitlords among these nutcases delight in the agonising over them that is on display at WHTM.
There is much more to write about than the dregs of the dregs of the dregs of the altright tinkerwebs. I used to ‘visit’ RoK from time to time many months ago for a few larfs , but I quit: reading others’ insanity is not conducive to one’s own mental health and sane outlook on life.
Just saying…
Thank you, WWTH.
They have climbed all of the way out of their well, actually, in order to explain us a thing.
I love bein explained a thing. Especially when that thing is “a thing what I googled just now”! Those things are the best things.
Thing what I googled just now
Badly trained rails.
I nearly choked on my sammich.
@Troll
So, since you’re placing sex in the same category as food, water and oxygen, you mean to tell me that if you were denied access to food for a few years, the only effect would be that you would “gravely miss it”. You would certainly not be “thinking of nothing else” or starve to death or anything. Great, now you’ve made things crystal clear.
I wish so hard that I had photoshop skills. I would put a troll face on this
with a text saying “well, actually.”
Vile. I can’t even express how much I despise them. Reddit is a goddamned cesspit, and until they stop giving a platform for hate groups, I hope their site goes down.
“Yeah, well our ability to deal with people (usually men) feeling bad for the men who want us raped, enslaved or murdered is an exhaustible resource.”
It is! I’ll save my empathy for people who don’t dehumanize and hate and want to kill all other human beings.
“Sex, like food or shelter,is something you tend to take for granted if you have it, but think of nothing else if you don’t.”
I once got so badly dehydrated I stopped breathing. I would have died without treatment. Nobody dies because they’re not having sex.
My contribution done in approx. 5 minutes. (Most spent on choosing font because I don’t have Impact installed)
bad rails… BAD
somebody ran outa traction, likely at night or in rain when there was no reference. Wish it was panned further out, see how many locomotives were in the consist 🙂 🙁
This is so utterly disgusting. I just… I have no idea what to say about this. I shouldn’t be surprised, considering they always do this, but I somehow am anyway.
(“I want to grow up to be a mass shooter someday!” FFS.)
Sure, you can twist yourself into a pretzel to come up with vague explanations for the “incel” mindset, but seriously, enough with the “sex is a need and not having it is like starvation” bullshit. It’s not. Okay, I’m demisexual so I’m probably less sympathetic than I could be, but honestly, unless these people don’t have hands to masturbate with they could easily learn to use them or buy a fucking fleshlight or something. But it’s not actually about sex – it’s about the perceived validation they’ve convinced themselves sex will give them, it’s about the power dynamics and domination they feel like they deserve.
Mainstream culture does bear some responsibility for encouraging that mindset, for encouraging men to think that virginity is shameful and detracts from their masculinity, and so on. Likewise, there’s room to talk about how these men congregating in places like r/incel (and, honestly, a lot of e.g. gaming forums) and encouraging each other to be more and more vile reinforces their mindsets and contributes to their long-term radicalisation. We do need to talk about the radicalisation of men via misogyny, we can try to explain it and that’s probably a necessary step in combatting it. But to explain it and to excuse it are two completely different things. Don’t try to excuse these people.
Absolutely. The type of interaction these men (assuming here, but I believe they are overwhelmingly male) want isn’t sex, it isn’t even a relationship, it’s rape. It’s having and exercising power over someone else, someone “other” whom they can abuse. Their commentary makes this outrageously clear.
I would lay bets that a good percentage of the regular posters on these incel forums are lying about their (lack of) sexual history, and might even be currently in sexually active relationships with women who have no idea what kind of trash they’re posting online.
They get validation from hating women, and from others seeing them hate women. It isn’t about sex whatsoever.
Thanks Malitia! You’re the best!
I mean the studies I found by googling “depression and entitlement”. We were wondering how incels can be both depressed (which usually implies feeling of inferiority) and entitled.It turns out, rather logically in retrospect, studies show entitled people tends to become depressed when the world does not obey their wishes, but depression does not cause people to feel entitled.
PruerFox – possibly, but isn’t it even more likely many of these incels are not actually incel women-haters, but simply trolls? At least, that is my hope…
@Skeptic How exactly would “Just kidding! LULZ!!” make what they say any better? No, they say they hate women and wouldn’t mind seeing them dead, we’re going to believe them. ‘Benefit of the doubt’ is not worth my life.
Oh, the Google studies. Those were done at the University of Assfax, right?
It doesn’t matter if they’re “trolling”, they’re still spouting vile shit that hurts people. And I’ve seen research that suggests that rehearsing an idea over and over is a good way to convince yourself even if you don’t initially believe it. So even if they’re trolling, all likelihood is they’ll convince themselves more and more as time goes on.
“Trolling” is a dangerous concept because it assumes talk is cheap and value-neutral. It’s not.
I think most of the regular commenters here have a rather high ability to deal with those who show up dragging along their suitcase of shitty arguments about empathy for people who celebrate mass murderers and oh what terrible things they must have gone through as kids to be so angry etc etc etc…
They just get to a point where they DON’T FEEL LIKE DOING IT, and guess what? They don’t have to. With any of it. It’s less to zero about ability and more about getting to a place where they say “fuck. This. Noise.”
The incel is voluntarily angry and voluntarily choosing to feed that anger as a group, and voluntarily refusing to make any sort of change unless it’s a change to be even more angry. At what point will the bearers of empathy baggage they’re carrying for ‘incels’ finally put the responsibility for the lot of incels misery upon the incels themselves? Feel empathy for the actual victims, which incels are not – they chose to be what they are and what they are is terminally voluntarily angry.
http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view7/3901212/look-what-i-can-do-o.gif
And, of course, this. Take your pick. In any case, I’ve run out of patience for this load of self-aggrandizing, myopic bullshit.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bNz756rOOx8/UWj-oidtXTI/AAAAAAAACmU/mCnItKdWcEs/s1600/California+Sea+Lion+7.jpg