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.
solecism
“I gotta say, it took me a long time to realize misogyny existed in the world. I mean, I knew I was a person. It didn’t occur to me that there were people out there who didn’t consider people perceived as women as actual human people. I didn’t realize that until way too late in life. Mind was blown. It just didn’t occur to me that personhood would be a point of contention for already existing human beings.”
Same here. It was only a few years ago that I found out how deep misogyny goes (thanks to discovering the existence of MRAs, Red Pillers, Incels, and PUAs and their attitudes towards women. Sometimes ignorance is truly bliss) did I realise how desperately feminism is needed. Many men find it acceptable to see women as objects. It’s depressing. ?
These guys need to refocus their rage away from women and towards the lies we have all been fed about romance, sex and status. And with compassion for all of us who are hopelessly caught up in the trap set by the big machine run by media, reject the ideas that you need to have a partner or sex or any status indicator to have self worth. Reject that idea and have self worth regardless – focus on that and thrn start a revolution.
It should be officially recognized as a terrorist and hate movement, and those posting about committing violence should be on a terrorist watch list. I am sick of this shit being ignored. The intelligence community should be monitoring these guys and stopping them before they mass murder people.
Also, and I may get some disagreement on this, but to hell with men running the world. I believe that men, if they try, can avoid becoming violent… I just have absolutely zero faith that enough men the world over would be willing to try. I think they enjoy the idea of violence too much. There are plenty of women in the world who strike out in the dating department, or don’t even try due to social awkwardness, disability, etc, and they don’t channel their feelings into such entitlement, anger, and violence. After millennia of being oppressed by the male gender, who took advantage of the situation when women were involuntarily burdened with constant childbearing in order to install themselves as first-class citizens and dictators for life, and who took to raping and murdering and plundering their way through history, I am soooooo out of chances to give for men to get their act together. Women should run the world’s governments. It would be a much more peaceful and progressive place.
Just popping my head back in to say how heartened I am at the recent spate of media articles delving into the incel phenomenon, as ugly as it is. And I actually learned something surprising, recently, too: the term was actually coined by a Toronto woman, back in 1993! Her name is given only as Alana, and she’s chagrined, to say the least, that her neutral descriptive portmanteau has been hijacked by these shitfuckers. She started an internet forum for misfits who had trouble finding love and relationships, and it was meant to be a safe, healing space for those struggling with their sexuality and/or lack thereof. Of course, a bunch of dudes with unrealistic expectations and narcissistic megalomania had to take something a woman created, claim they invented it themselves, and then turn it into a shitpile. Typical.
BTW, I really like Jo’s analysis of an imaginary (but representative) incel dude, too. That vicious cycle of sullenness/rejection/more sullenness/more rejection just keeps getting bigger and meaner with every go-round, doesn’t it?
Also nthing whoever diagnosed incel toxic masculinity/hatefulness as a byproduct of capitalism. Yes! That’s it exactly. Sorry I can’t remember who said it, I’ve been scrolling through the last 2-3 pages to play catchup, but that hits it right on the head, too. Men who see women as commodities, and dating as a marketplace, and women’s looks/fertility (and men’s looks/virility) as “sexual market value”? Sounds like capitalism to me. The problem would no doubt benefit from some socialist analysis — capitalism pits people against each other, scraps those who no longer have utility (or never had enough of it to begin with), and makes us buy crap we don’t need to impress people we don’t like, with money we don’t have.
‘Course, this shouldn’t be construed as suggesting (as at least one luckless wanker has already famously done in the incelsphere) that government should provide men with women in a misguided form of “wealth redistribution”. It will never work that way! Because PEOPLE ARE NOT COMMODITIES, AND WOMEN ARE PEOPLE, DAMMIT. And because, also, that isn’t socialism…that’s state capitalism. And also, finally, because that’s just fucking stupid. Even if every one of these guys got placated with a government-allocated partner tomorrow, they’d still end up losing her in no time because in all their years of inceldom, they’ve learned nothing about how to get along with others, and not be such a bitter, steaming pile of fuckery. The government can do a lot of things, but one thing it can’t do is compel a woman to stay with a man who repels her with his awful behavior. Women have died fleeing abusive men, just as refugees have died fleeing wars. They know there’s a chance that they won’t survive, but they will run anyway…because staying behind means death is not just a chance, but a certainty.
Also wanted to nth anybody who says that hateful people can’t just be converted by preaching at them from a soapbox. They need to first gain self-awareness, to see how awful their hate movement is. They have to WANT to stop before a program to help them stop can work for them. Hate is wildly addictive, just like crack or meth, and until you hit bottom, you can’t climb out; you don’t have the desire to do so until then. While I admire anyone with the nerve and the resources to do outreach, in the end it’s more of a “don’t go to them, let them come to you” kind of situation. You can’t reach them until they’re ready to BE reached. And you can’t MAKE them ready.
And all that being said: Forums for recovering hate-mongers of any stripe would be a welcome thing. Those who got radicalized via the Internet can also be de-radicalized that way. And if you build it, they will come…because deep down, a lot of them must be thinking that there has got to be a better way, and they just haven’t found it yet. I’m really, REALLY hoping that this latest incident shocks them into finding that self-awareness, realizing they don’t want to be that guy, and prompts them to want to change.
@Silo
With all due respect, I want absolutely no incels or recovering incels involved in any kind of revolution until they have spent a long, long time with their heads fully removed from their asses. I have no faith in their kind of rage ever being able to be channeled into a positive force, because it seems entirely based around forcing others to suffer. We don’t need them to rechannel that rage anywhere; it’s destructive and toxic no matter where it’s pointed at. We need them to stop expressing that rage and to smother the thought processes that lead them into that rage.
Hello.
Le Monde also made a short article on that :
the article
It is a very general article, you will find nothing new in it.
Have a nice day.
Whilst the viciousness and rampant hate are real and disgusting I still have a problem taking the vast majority of these boys/ men seriously. They are so extreme that it has become almost cartoonish.
I know that that does not make any difference to the victims of the rare one who actually do kill or injure, but I can’t help feeling that the loudest voices are never going to be the ones doing the deeds.
As for the mass rape idea – isn’t that already happening? Surely no one believes that men who rape women don’t hate women? The reason we do not hear about mass rape is because most rapes are unreported. To be honest I am a bit surprised that the ones advocating mass rape have not pointed that out.
Seems that this fool was very possibly a member of incels.me – they’ve been doing their own detective work in amongst the denial.
Emailed David the details (and he’s received them. Wouldn’t be posting even a hint unless he’d had time to screenshot/archive stuff. Don’t want the buggers to go memory holing their crap. 😛 ).
@Jo: I really appreciated your biography of an incel, thanks.
One thing occurred to me while reading it, about how much of their view of relationships is based on porn. Male porn actors in conventional porn aren’t necessarily the best looking guys. After all, they’re not cast for their faces, they’re cast for their ability to get erections on demand and sustain them. My automatic thought was “Wait a minute, how does this play into the incel worldview? After all, doesn’t this show that average-looking guys can get the girl?” Then of course I realized that this would just make their inferiority complex worse: Either they assume they’re uglier than the porn stars, or that women are such b*tches that an average-looking guy can only get their attention with Chad-ian level of endurance. (How the women can discern this without sleeping with the guy in question, I can’t imagine.) Add to that the fact that the pretty rapey way the men act in mainstream porn doesn’t work so well in the real world, and no wonder their views are messed up.
Hello my new friends; lots of people I don’t recognize! Welcome, please find your misandry-scented gift baskets on the table to your right.
@CCD
:3
I don’t think you’ll find much pushback on that idea here my duck.
Thank you for the illuminating discussions as ever. It was interesting to hear someone explaining “incels” on Radio 4 Today programme this morning.
It’s a minor point, I know, but I do sometimes wonder about the “cel” bit. Just keep flashing back to a conversation I had about 10 years ago with a younger family member who maintained, with a lot of grumbling, that he’d never had a girlfriend.
But he had – at least 2 that we had met.
Turned out he didn’t count them because, according to him they were “not that pretty”.
Hi everyone new! Help yourself to the We Hunted The Mammoth Welcome Package! https://artistryforfeminismandkittens.wordpress.com/the-official-man-boobz-complimentary-welcome-package/
You got it, @bluecat.
For a lot of guys, women aren’t people, they’re a ladder to respect and power. They’ll never be satisfied.
…I liked it better when “Kek” meant, to me, the pre-Ra Egyptian God of the last moment of darkness before dawn broke free. These people ruin everything they touch, even when they don’t mean to and that is just so unbearably upsetting.
@Cats In Shiny Hats No kidding. And Pepe the Frog was just a comic book character.