UPDATE: The CBC has confirmed with Facebook that Minassian’s post declaring himself an incel and hailing Elliot Rodger is real.
By David Futrelle
As I write this, it’s still not completely clear if Alek Minassian, the alleged driver of the van that killed ten pedestrians in Toronto yesterday in what appeared to be a very deliberate attack, is in fact a self-identified “involuntary celibate” trying to take revenge against the “Chads” and “Stacies” and other “normies” he blames for ruining his life — or if these reports are simply some sort of 4chan-style hoax.
But on the Incels.me forum, one of the more egregious hangouts for incels online, many are already hailing the alleged mass murderer as one of their own.
In an assortment of threads that popped up after the news media began to report on a supposed Facebook post from Minassian announcing that “the Incel Rebellion has … begun,” some of the Incels.me regulars are celebrating the killings and the alleged killer as “life fuel” for them and their nihilistic, misogynistic, misanthropic “movement.” (Click on the pics below to see the comments in context on Incels.me.)
Naturally, it didn’t take long for one of the regular commenters to adopt a picture of Minassian as his avatar.
But no one was quite so enthusiastic about the killings as the commenter calling himself BlkPillPres, who wondered if the killer had taken the advice he had given in a previous thread to use something other than guns in his “ER” — that is, Elliot Rodger-style — attack.
Many in the media and in politics are unwilling to label attacks driven by misogynistic ideology as terrorism — often declaring them to be simply the result of “mental illness,” as many did in the case of Elliot Rodger’s murders (ignoring his hundred page manifesto), and as the authorities are already doing in the Toronto attacks.
But misogyny is not mental illness; it’s hate. And what BlkPillPres is talking about here is essentially the dictionary definition of terrorism — “[t]he unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” The tactics he suggests are an explicit attempt to subject “normies” to “constant fear” — that is, terror — in all areas of their lives, in order to advance BlkPillPres’ goal of “black pilling” the world and intimidating those who criticize incels into silence.
Following his link back to the older thread, one quickly discovers that it is even more disturbing. In it, BlkPillPres sets out what he sees as the virtues of various terroristic strategies, from acid attacks to mass rape to vehicle attacks like the one we saw yesterday. (If you are feeling at all fragile you may wish to stop reading this post right here.)
Others in the thread suggests that this all sounds great to them, with one aiming some of his ire at the IncelTears subreddit, which is devoted to criticizing Incels on Reddit and elsewhere.
Other commenters offer their own even more horrifying ideas.
Like Ub2w, BlkPillPres is especially taken with the acid-in-the-face tactic.
“Kek.”
Sadly, as someone who has been writing about incels for several years now, none of this is surprising. Disturbing, yes, but not surprising. Incel is a hate movement, and it is long past time for it to be treated as such.
NOTE: The reaction amongst Reddit incels has been more measured; I may delve into that in a future post.
I think the only silver lining to this awful event is that it’s hugely raised the awareness of the wider public of the dangers of the incel movement and there is a great opportunity for people like us to educate journalists and people at large as to who they are and why they are so dangerous.
When I first started reading Manboobz, it was mostly about daft claims from bitter Elam types on Reddit about false rape accusations and the prevalence of domestic abuse. Awful people and there was the occasional violent act, but mostly just a bizarre fringe. But this movement has grown, morphed and formed links with all sorts of horrible fellow travellers. David is now one of the foremost experts in one of the most influential (and evil) political forces in the west and beyond.
This massacre might be a tipping point where anyone who follows current events needs a basic understanding of incels and the wider manosphere. And I don’t want to sound like I’m giving a rousing speech at the start of the last act of an action movie, but we’re the people to do that education,
There will be misunderstandings and lies and counter-narratives in the weeks ahead, which we can refute or at least point out to influential people like David who can refute them more widely.
It’s totally terrorism. Terrorism by design, with a movement that started decades before it started calling itself by its current name.
Left-wing and centrist people really tend to underestimate how well-coordinated and tech savvy the right-wing extremists are. They figured out how to do this online youth radicalization stuff in the 90s, and the rest of us are only playing catch up. There’s no single head of the movement, true, but that’s by design – so that if one figure is discredited it doesn’t damage the movement as a whole. They rebrand every few years because they know stuff gets stale on the internet – but just because they’re calling themselves Alt-Right or Incels now doesn’t mean crap. It’s still the same racist and misogynist far right, with a new name.
As for what the end game is, my guess is that it’s the same as what the end-game was for my parents’ movement when I was a kid: Which is to say, total takeover of all levels of government and society as a whole, and the ability to make their fantasy world come true. What exactly that would look like was very fuzzy back then and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s fuzzy now – the far right wants the ability to dictate what society will look like, but they don’t necessarily have it figured out what they want it to look like. Beyond things like undoing women’s suffrage and abortion rights.
Wow, these guys sound so juvenile. Always easier to blame other people for their crappy lives than to do something about it .
Maybe they should just fuck each other lol
This is why I personally don’t like groups such as Life after hate. They spend all that money and energy on helping Nazis get better, on helping them to move on… imagine if they’d spent it on helping their victims instead, or on helping Antifa in their struggle against the Nazi menace.
This might be my white-hot anger talking, but I don’t think Incels, Nazis, TERFs etc. deserve a life after hate.
@Dan Someone
Well, obviously all the surviving Stacies will sleep with them and all the Chads will treat them with respect and fear and deference, because if they don’t the incel terrorists will get them. If Stacy and Chad aren’t sufficiently cowed, then the government will just give the incels sex to fix the problem and stop the terrorism!
@Alan
And most prisoners will reoffend. But I don’t think we should shoot them into space. 😉
@Jo
Yup yup all true. But I still don’t get why anyone in our society would think that relationships would solve their depression, low self-esteem, or anything else. Like this idea that men need partners to talk to about their problems with. True on a surface level, but the reality is that no-one’s got time to be their full-time therapist, partner or not.
I think everyone has to work through some unrealistic expectations about relationships (especially when young), but incels expectations of “having a girlfriend” sound so off the wall that I wonder how they hold them in their heads without floating into space. Have they never seen a real relationship up close? ;p
“Many in the media and in politics are unwilling to label attacks driven by misogynistic ideology as terrorism — often declaring them to be simply the result of “mental illness,” as many did in the case of Elliot Rodger’s murders (ignoring his hundred page manifesto), and as the authorities are already doing in the Toronto attacks.
But misogyny is not mental illness; it’s hate.”
A few points to consider:
1) It is easier for troubled people to be radicalized- if you’re reasonably content you’re not going to be drawn into a toxic ideology or into a belief that killing or maiming other people is a good idea
2) Because of this, there is very high likelihood that an ideologically driven killer will be mentally disturbed
3) Whether or not a mass killer is actually mentally troubled has nothing to do with whether they are labelled a terrorist or merely mentally disturbed. I remember when, a few years ago, a Quebec man ran people down in the name of “Islamic State”. A short look into his life story indicates that he was mentally troubled. However, the fact that he was radicalized into Islamic State ideology was enough to earn him the label of “terrorist”.
4) What actually gets something classified as terrorism has a lot to do with the ideology behind it. Certain ideologies are seen as inherently “terrorist”, others not.
5) Conveniently for Islamophobes, the thing that is most likely to label an act as political terrorism is if it has anything to do with Islam or Muslims. That means they can say “Of course, it’s Muslims who are doing all the terrorism”. Well, yeah, but you’re making “Muslim” a criteria for calling something “terrorist”, so of course!
@DawnPurityseeker
Short answer, no, they probably have not! Not in real life because they’re screen addicts – and the media they consume doesn’t portray realistic relationships.
And I don’t think they believe the companionship of a romantic partner will make them feel happier. They think that the fact they aren’t having sex makes them less of a man.
@Jo I liked that breakdown of the incel mindset – thanks
@Cindy I do understand why you feel that way. I feel that way sometimes myself. But I do believe it is possible for people to change. For example if you look at left_wing_fox’s post, above.
The problem is that hate breeds hate. If we say “they don’t deserve a life after hate” then we are effectively saying they don’t deserve human rights. And if we are saying that, then we are playing their game, because that’s what they believe we think anyway. That attitude reinforces their prejudices: “See? They think we’re subhuman!”
It’s the same way Islamic terrorist factions use attacks by white supremacists as propaganda to radicalise further. These people are trading on a mindset of prejudice and exclusion, so if you offer them hate….you’re effectively recruiting for them. Anger and hate are natural emotions but they will not solve this because this problem already comes from anger and hate and adding more will just fuel it.
I don’t know how you get out of this one, tbh. Because at the same time as saying all that, I also know I don’t fancy myself skipping through fields holding hands with members of the incel and far-right community. Especially not after reading the above post.
But I do know that organisations like Life After Hate can help a lot of people out of a mindset which could have eventually led them to do something like the post above and I believe communication, hard as it is, is really the only way we are going to change anything.
Behaving in a “good” way is, by its very nature, harder than bad behaviour. When you’re trying to do the right thing, you have to obey a set of rules; see different points of view; make allowances; all of that stuff. And this is very fucking hard, especially when you read something like the above. Evil doesn’t have to do any of that and can just do what it wants (you hates it; you kills it; done. See above). Basically, good has constraints and evil has none.
@Violet I think I’ll have to read your post later, when I’m less fucking angry. Maybe what I said was too harsh.
Hopefully this atrocity will bring greater attention to the Incel movement. But while the Incel subculture is truly poisonous, it is also really important to draw connections with broader cultural issues around dating, sex, and male entitlement. Namely:
1) Where are these people getting the idea that the amount of sex you can say you’ve had and with whom is a measure of status and worth, and that if you’re socially awkward and have trouble getting dates this makes you an object of scorn or pity?
2) Where are they getting the idea that women owe them sex?
We recoil at the hatred on display and at the evil it commits or supports, and rightly so. But we cannot be too quick to distance ourselves from it. These people are part of our society. Their hatred is the consequence of them taking common beliefs in our culture to their logical conclusions. We need to take on these toxic beliefs. Only then will we have a chance of defeating the toxic ideologies that derive their power from those beliefs.
@Cohen the Librarian:
The point, which for some reason we constantly need to discuss on this website, is that mental illnesses don’t cause misogyny and aren’t the sole reason people act on their misogynistic ideas. Constantly ascribing terrorist attacks like this one solely to mental illness, however, has the effect of reinforcing in the public opinion that people with mental illnesses are all dangerous. You said it yourself:
What exactly is the benefit of defending the status quo here? If we as a society never accept that people are capable of committing acts like this regardless of their mental state, how are we supposed to change the fact that these events based in deeply misogynistic ideals keep happening? This man and many others like him aren’t being radicalized into bigoted hate by nebulous mental illnesses they may or may not have; they’re being radicalized by the hatred they take in from other men.
What dslucia said.
I suspect that the “he was just mentally ill” angle is a form of ideological self-defence, practised by people who buy into the toxic ideas that informed the tragedy, to prevent them from having to examine those ideas too closely.
The concept of ideological self-defence is something that I don’t understand well enough to be able to speculate on further. People who know more about ideology might be able to help here.
Yo I read Spinoza too, still don’t believe they didn’t choose to become monsters. They absolutely did. Mental illness is one thing (fuck knows I have more than my fair share), hate is another, period.
EJ
You pretty much nailed it.
Your code is so self evidently true as far as you are concerned, that anyone who doesn’t agree with it or acts against it obviously has something mentally wrong with them.
It’s easier and more comforting to assume mental illness on their behalf than to assume your own unspoken assumptions and habits of thought are wrong.
For the reeducation angle : remember, it’s impossible to make someone change if he don’t want to. Or at least, you need chinese-level of atrocities.
For Cohen and his ill-adviced notion of “mentally troubled” : to talk in a constructive way, remember that mental illness don’t lead to more radicalized people, or anything close to that really, which make the entirety of your 1) and 2) point total and utter bullshit.
@ dawnpurityseeker
Heh, I got a bit disoriented there because we’d been having a discussion last night about penal policy generally, and I was thinking “Hang on, was that on mammoth?”.
I suppose it is peripherally connected to the discussion here. There have been some rehabilitative successes with ‘restorative justice’ schemes; but that usually involves young kids embarrassingly meeting the victims of their general foolish malarkey.
I’m not sure that would work with those people who’ve got a deep seated ideology. There’s also the fact that it’s unfair to expect victims to have to work with the people who want them dead.
The MRAlt-right are properly radicalised. And again, whilst there have been some successes with de-radicalisation programmes, they’re few and far between and one has to ask, is it a good use of resources that might be better deployed elsewhere?
I have lots of thinky thoughts on this one (And lots of blistering rage) but just wanted to hop in here quick while I have a moment.
@Cohen the Librarian, my duck, welcome! You done yourself up a little thinking error. It’s even syllogystic! Here is what you said in your points 1 and 2:
1) Troubled people are more susceptible to radicalization
c) Therefore people with mental illness will be more common in extremist organizations
This is an unstated premise fallacy. You’re missing one, I guess you figured it wasn’t needed?
2) People with mental illness are more prone to be troubled
’cause that’s contentious! In what we’re talking about, “troubled” means “prone to violent behaviour” – we’re talking about extremist organizations!
In less specific terms, you’re suggesting that people with mental illness are easier to convince that violence is an acceptable action, it seems?I don’t think that’s true at all.
I think our societal definition of “mentally ill” is a convenient deflection, and nothing more. We want to think that everyone in our society is good, so anyone who is deliberately and obviously violent is mentally ill, cause we just can’t accept that our society might churn out these beliefs on the regular.
Also, I am not really interested in getting into a long conversation about mental illness here. It’s not you, Cohen, it’s just that every time there’s a mass murdering asshole article, mental illness is blamed by the media, and every time there’s someone who shows up in the comments to throw my friends under the bus to preserve the Good Society illusion. I’m tired of it.
I normally just read, and don’t usually comment, but you reminded me of something relevant that just annoyed me this morning. This article here:
http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/gurski-why-the-toronto-attack-cant-be-called-terrorism-yet”
Apparently this journalist thinks it’s too early to declare it a terrorist attack because the suspect is not a confirmed Muslim. As if that’s the only criteria.
He also writes this:
As if having issues and being a terrorist are mutually exclusive?
There was also another article on the CBC this morning about the futility of adding labels to this type of incident. I find that opinion naive and reductive. Yes, I agree, labeling people as single thing is not helpful (see above – “He’s not a terrorist, he’s mentally ill! Case closed!”), but affixing the correct label to something can be very constructive. For example, maybe labeling this as a ‘terrorist attack’ may give people cause to take misogynistic groups, that idolize mass murderers and wax poetic about murder and rape fantasies, a little more seriously, instead of dismissing them as ‘loney, laughable losers’. Considering, in the past 4 years, there seems to be at least 2 mass murdering ‘incels’.
But that’s just my opinion. I am definitely not an expert, just frustrated.
actually I don’t think this is true at all. most incels and entitled mysoginst men are white men who grow in middle class or wealthy families. they also grow there with plenty entitlement – they have very less suffering, most things are given to them without effort, they don’t have to work for things. this means their entitlement grows more and becomes like a disease. when women will not just “given” themself to them – they become angry.
“I get everything I want – and I want a woman! you deny me this! women deny me themself!” and they become angry and confused because they don’t get what they want, because they learn they get everything and think everything belongs to them if they want it.
mental illness or “disturbed” is nothing related.
and edit: their nice life in a little box means they don’t see other people as human – that is why it is so easy for them to hurt other people without guilt.
plus – I know I am not alone that I am SO TIRED of this arguement on mammoth when mass killing happens. ?
@Cindy
Haha it is rather a long post. I didn’t realise until I read it back.
Actually, you made a throwaway comment to be fair, I have a lot of thoughts I have been mulling over since this first happened.
@Cohen
If my comment about the incel mindset wasn’t already far too long, I’d have added examples of where our wider society supports the fledgling incel on his journey from entitled youngster to terrorist. The end of the journey may involve online communities like the ones in David’s post, but the start is very much grounded in common social tropes.
Which is to say, I absolutely agree.
Yes. There’s nothing wrong with reforming shitty people and putting effort into doing so. As long as those people who wish to do so don’t 1. expect those targeted for hate to be the ones doing the bulk of the work and 2. recognize that people do have to want to change or it’s not going to work. Nobody’s going to ever change for the better if there’s no hope in rehabilitating their reputation. So I’m fine with forgiving past hate as long as the change really seems genuine.
People do need to understand though that there’s no magic formula to manospherians or white nationalists or whatever to change. No phrase or reassuring words that will cause a light bulb to go off. They have to be actually willing to listen to other people and to be a little bit hard on themselves and their assumptions. Most people don’t want to do that.
I think the reason misogynists can be so difficult to reform is related to the other conversation in the thread. Which is that women are usually expected to be the ones to provide the emotional support for men and counsel them through their problems. But misogynists don’t listen to women. And women for good reason aren’t willing or able to be their shoulder to cry on. It’s not safe and it’s too emotionally taxing. That’s why we get so many coming in here asking us to sympathize with and help incels and that’s why they get such a hostile reception when they do.
As a person with mental illness, I can tell you that I am absolutely sick of us being blamed for this shit. I know why people do it, but that doesn’t change the fact that blaming us perpetuates harmful stereotypes and just makes our lives that much harder. It needs to stop. It’s not mental illness that causes this – these guys are poisoned by their own entitlement.
@left_wing_fox
Are… are you me? You basically summed up my life trajectory right there (including the furry fandom and Pandagon/Marcotte). Only I haven’t heard of Captain Awkward; for me, it was spending a lot of time in the atheist YouTubes during the late Bush early Obama years, then seeing them channel the same misogyny their cultural warrior counterparts did after “ElevatorGate”.
I think the only permanent answers involve breaking the capitalistic consumer stranglehold on the commons. They’ve been told they’re the center of the universe and every whim of theirs should be indulged, whether it’s the latest AAA game, film or Netflix series. Damn near every cultural touchstone is that of the “special boy” who saves the universe and wins the girl, only they wake up to a gig economy, student debt, broken homes and fraying social connections.
That kind of cognitive dissonance is hard to break through piecemeal. But if I had one of these toxic guys in front of me… I’d probably take the tack that Chris Knight did in Real Genius when he had to convince Mitch Taylor not to give up:
I’m in my early 30s now, with university and high school more than a decade behind me. As such, got a lot of hindsight about how crappy the cliques were and how obnoxious a lot of the people you meet can be when you’re an awkward self-absorbed white kid. But I wasn’t the first and neither are any of teenagers flirting with the 4chan crowd. My advice would be find something creative and make it your own. I draw, write and photograph historic landmarks. Something that expands your world beyond your own narrow self.
The problem is that it takes work. The toxic internet communities out there offer easy solutions. You don’t have to care. You don’t even need to lift a finger. It’s those people to blame, so just troll them from your swivel chair.
I keep thinking of that Gibson Museum, which is right behind one of the office buildings that Alek Minassian blew past in his van, tucked away from Yonge Street by concrete and steel. The Gibson House is a restored 1851 farmhouse that offers a glimpse of life in what was a rural township back then. And I can attest: that life was tough. 40 buckets of well-water to a bath, plowing a field that stretched from Yonge Street to Bathurst, hay-filled mattresses for the lucky farmhand who slept indoors… I photographed it inside and out for an hour and a half the day before this tragedy, including David Gibson’s surveying equipment. All that history and knowledge just sitting right there… and this guy was obsessed with Chad and Stacy memes.
Just absurd even to type out.