By David Futrelle
The Internet’s incels long ago adopted Isla Vista killer Elliot Rodger, the maladjusted twentysomething who murdered six in cold blood as a kind of revenge for his “involuntary celibacy,” as a patron saint of sorts.
Now they are doing the same with Nikolas Cruz, the Florida teen who allegedly murdered 17 students and teachers at a high school in Parkland, Florida today. On Incels.Me — the web forum that Reddit’s incel population migrated to after the admins at Reddit shut their forum there down — one enthusiastic commenter got the discussion started by posting a thread titled “A hERo rises on this day of incel exclusion (Florida Valentines Day School Shooting).” (All links in this post go to archived pages.)
The capitalized “ER” in “hERo” is of course a reference to Elliot Rodger.
In the thread, assorted incels cheered as the details of the shooting came out over the course of the day, declaring their “immense respect” for their new “HERO.” And some wondered — with more than a little justification — if the shooter wasn’t one of their fellow commenters on Incels.Me.
“Respect to him if he kills over 60 normies,” a commenter called Towncel declared. “Hopefully he isn’t just using 2 pistols and actually has an assault rifle,” he added in a followup comment.
Vman, a prolific commenter with over 2500 posts on the site was already set to declare Cruz his new idol.
holy shit its on valentines day! what a fucking hero! we have a new model! PLZ BE UGLY PLZ BE UGLY. WE NEED INCEL AWARNESS
Spicycurry was a little more reserved. “Watch the news blame incels rather than the femoids who mock us and oppress us,” he groused.
lonelyistheworld has a rather different fear. “The media will probably try to cover up the fact that he’s an Incel,” he complained. “The elites know that there’s a huge problem with lonely men in the west.”
Naturally, many of the commenters hoped that most of the victims would be “femoids.”
“Hope his roastie kill count is high,” Reddit_is_for_cucks opined
Roastie contribute nothing to the society anyway, sll they do is shopping and suck chads dick and get free stuff from cucks
Incel_Dikshit concurred, expressing his hope that the shooter had “snagged some degenerate roasties and depsrate beta orbiters with him.”
“Roastie” is a favorite incel slur for (cis) women, whose labia are thought (by incels) to resemble roast beef.
Many of the commenters took great pleasure in the fact that this murder spree took place on Valentine’s Day. “LIFEFUEL,” declared one. “The best Valentines Day in history buddy boyos.”
When several commenters expressed their uneasiness at this open celebration of mass murder, they were denounced as “Jooz.” Indeed, one prolific commenter called knajjd went so far as to justify the murder of young girls because, in his view
female children can, at best, be considered a timebomb. even if you believe that children are totes innocent creatures, etc. etc. that argument makes no sense since they’ll inevitably develop into roasties.
Comments like these continue for page after page; all of those quoted so far come from the first three pages of what is currently a ten page thread.
It didn’t take long for some of the commenters to wonder if the shooter hadn’t frequented Incels.Me. Several mentioned a recent Incels.Me thread in which a lurker posted an elaborately detailed threat to shoot up his former high school and other schools in the area (including an elementary school north of his high school) on February 12 before escaping by blending in with the those fleeing from the scene.
More than a few of the details match up with what happened today. The alleged shooter today targeted his former high school. There is a middle school northwest of the high school, though it is more west than north. Some reports suggest the shooter escaped the school by blending in with fleeing students. The date of the threatened rampage was only two days different from the actual assault. The gun he reportedly used is similar to, though not the same model as, the one mentioned in the post.
You can see the screenshotted post here.
It’s certainly possible that the threat posted to Incels.Me was nothing more than a fantasy, and that the similarities between it and the events that unfolded today mere coincidence.
EDITED TO ADD: But even if Cruz wasn’t the anonymous commenter on Incels.Me, he may well have thought of himself as an iucel. The Daily Beast reports that someone calling himself Nikolas Cruz left a comment on a YouTube video a year ago declaring that ““Elliot rodger will not be forgotten.” (Meanwhile, a self-described paramilitary white supremacist group in Florida is telling The Beast that Cruz had trained with them.)
Was Cruz an incel, a white supremacist — or both, or neither? The clues to his motivation are certainly unsettling. As is the existence of a forum overloaded with so many bitter, furious young men who look upon mass murder as a kind of righteous retribution for the refusal of “roasties” to offer them sex.
NOTE TO REGULAR READERS: I was planning on returning to regular posts here shortly. I’m sorry it had to be with a story on this horrendous incident.
It’s good to have you back nonetheless.
I wonder if any of them stopped to consider that some of Cruz’s victims might be themselves incels, perhaps even ones they know.
It’s still wonderful to see you again David.
I’m baffled that gorgeous women don’t flock to these bitter, jealous haters. Who wouldn’t want to hang out with guys who call women roasties and laud a mass murderer!
PS: Welcome back, David! So glad that you’re feeling well enough to post a column.
Welcome back, David!
Why does Reddit continue to let this hatred spread? These Incels are abusive and vile.
I mostly lurk now, but it’s great to have you back, David. Too bad it was such depressing subject matter that brought you back. Hopefully the next article is less sad and horrible.
Such a mix of happy and horrible when I checked my inbox. So good to see a new post. Heartbreaking that this is the topic.
Thanks, David. We appreciate what you do ??
Welcome back, David.
Here’s some David Bowie which might be relevant:
what terrible circumstance in which you make your return David! But I am glad you written a new article.
there is something specific and horrible about school shootings in America. feels like there is no escape, heavy sadness and hopelessness.
I simply wish they willl finally make more gun control. there should not need to make ‘school shooting drills’ for schools. this is not acceptable.
on Twitter victims of this shooting make live tweets – victims of previous shootings provide comfort ?
@Valentin,
I just saw some of those tweets a few minutes ago ?
I didn’t even notice there was a new post! Sorry it had to happen like this though.
I think this was my favorite quote
Oh, how terrible it would be if the news blamed a shooting on the shooter rather than on the entire female half of the population. That just makes no sense at all!
Mish
I only read one – I didn’t want to read any more…
I just seen someone who said about it. followed thread and found them. then stopped.
Should the killer be referred to simply as “some asshole”, rather than by name? I’m thinking of the policy suggested in this comic:
http://nonadventures.com/2015/06/20/the-some-of-all-fears/
On “thoughts and prayers”:
http://nonadventures.com/2017/11/18/a-moment-of-paws/
Welcome back, David ! I hope you feel better. If not, take care of you, no need to rush.
Sincere condolences for the victims and their family. And to the pain of the loss, they have to endure those deepshit comments and behaviors from empathyless attentionwhinyvampyres.
That is becoming the fourth Saint Valentin Massacre (the most “famous” being 1929 Capone one, wikipedia providing the two others : 1349 – Strasbourg (France) – 900 Jews burned (yes, Nazis just have recycled an old hate) ; 1952 – Moule (Guadeloupe) – 4 deads, 14 injureds, when police fire at strikers (to note, some of the injured and deads were not strikers).
Damn, anything with massacre in it is never good (except in food), yet they cheer that. Still wondering how they dare to call themselves human being.
Non related infos :
Steam was providing SVD theme related games yesteday. One of them was… this game. A PUA game. Ok, it is less extreme than the one against feminism from the other day, yet, wow, what the fuck this thing doing here ? And i say “game”, but this game takes itself really seriously. As it has been done in collaboration with some kind of PUA guru, there is some kind of seriousness aura that may strike the ones already sensible to the PUA style of discourse. Not only it is sad for potential buyers, but, looking at the demo pictures of the game, i feel also sad for the actresses who have been paid for that. They hardly look genuinely happy, rather they often have a “let us quickly finish that and give me my paycheck please” look…
I do not have test it (will not put a ding in that dung), but it is some kind of descendant of the old FMV “Man enough” game. Except “Man enough” dialogs were so over the top and extreme that was making it funny (like a funny bad movie). This one is far too serious.
Rather than this one, i have tested Kitty Powers’ Matchmaker, which is far more fun and far more acceptable. All gender matchmaking, non-gendered pronouns use, very colorfull (no tatoo, though), some mini-games are funny. On the “less” side, no body type (every one is a thin non-ugly character), the impossibility to choose your own interests (the game randomnly attribute 3 to your character), the face decorations lack some options (no stubble or 3-day beard, as an example), and some games have too much randomness. Well, nothing is a big down. If you play on steam and if your steam friends also play this game, your character is send as a potential client/match in their game, and you receive them in yours as well. If some of you play this game and do not mind a casual player like me as steam friend, please let me know.
Have a nice day.
Just glad to see “you up and about”, so to speak. Yes, it is a pity it’s such shitty news, but it was really good to get that notification email.
Yeah, I was wondering about all that when I came across the news.
According to what I read the alleged murderer was expelled from school for violence among other things.
And apparently it is easier for young adults to buy and assault rifle (AR-15) than buying a bottle of beer in Florida.
Something is seriously wrong there.
‘Se don’t trust young people to drink responsibly, but rifles are just fine!’
The fact that there are more or less daily mass shootings now and that the major news outlets only report on the really high profile ones is sickening.
The USA has about 4% of the world’s population.
And owns 42% of the world’s guns.
Hi, David. I’d like to join with the people saying welcome back, even (or especially) under these terrible circumstances. All sympathy to the victims (for whatever that’s worth), and fuck the NRA.
Anyway, one of the incel comments really struck me.
1. And you do?
2. I find it bitterly ironic when incels talk about “society” since they’re so anti-social. Their entire worldview is based on hatred and resentment, which is not a good basis for friendship or cooperation. What would their ideal world be like? As WHTM has discussed, some of these guys fantasize about a Mad Max future where they would reign as barbarian warlords, which is pathetic on many levels.
There’s a reason America has so many shootings. Yes, the lax gun laws make things easier, but I don’t think that’s the main thing.
It’s a stew of toxic masculinity and white supremacy. These young men feel that they aren’t getting the respect, and rewards from life that areally their automatic due for being white and male. They are terrified when they see equality coming, they see minorities & women starting to move to am equal playing field and they know, deep down that being a mediocre cis-het white male isn’t an automatic ticket to success anymore. So they rage, and that rage boils over into violence.
Canada has fairly high gun ownership, Switzerland as well. They don’t have these problems. America is unique in that it was born and built on white supremacy and patriarchy.
P.s. welcome back David.
You’re a stronger person than I. Bailed on the response at the incel hangout in a nauseous fury after about a page, and even then I spent more time on the thread where one asked if it was a hangout for psychopaths instead of incels, looking for an even vaguely human response.
(Sorry for the ableist word, but it’s the thread title.)
Anyway, welcome back David. Shitty way to restart. 🙁
Of course, our favorite rage pudding Alex Jones is already shouting about false flags.
Edit: Same link as Victorious Parasol posted on previous thread. Only just saw that post.
The thing is incels believe the whole world is laughing at them and mocking them for being a virgin. And that every women who rejects him must HATE him and want him dead, which is what causes the hate to build up inside them. They hate the fact that they arent cut out to date, and they just dont realise that there is more to life than getting laid or dating.
Memo to incels; Theres nothing wrong with not being able to date. Theres everything wrong with blaming women and being a hateful little shit about it. I know men who are 33 year old virgins, who live a nice and fullfilled life. I know men who are married and are having a rough time. And vice versa of course.
I wish incels would stop thinking about dating and sex, and BAN themselves from letting that entering their thought. For the good of society for god sake
Rage pudding is my new favourite term ?
@Valentin,
I know what you mean. These are people my son’s age (or a wee bit older). My brain goes some way into trying to picture it, then shuts down in horror.
@wwth,
This is off-current-topic, but I’m posting it here as everyone’s probably migrated over from the other thread: I couldn’t open the link you shared (Mirai Nagasu’s triple axel), but a quick Google fixed that. Her face when she’s landed, that whole pose, is just magic. Obv the triple itself was incredible, too!
Whoever had under 14 hours for Trump to play the “mentally disturbed” card wins a prize. 🙁
@Mish – it just fits the way his little cheeks wobble when he’s tantruming. 😛
This lurker is very glad to see a post and grateful for the horrifying incel update. David, I hope that you are feeling better and continue to improve.
@Moggie: YES to support that policy–actually, ever since I heard this song, way back when.
https://youtu.be/rjUTa71Ph48