By David Futrelle
Several hours after the news broke that a gunman had shot five people dead at the Capital Gazette newspaper offices in Annapolis, Maryland, but before we knew much of anything about the shooter himself, I took a look at the forums on Incels.me to see if anyone on the site was saying anything about this latest mass killing.
Incels, after all, have an almost reflexive tendency to praise or excuse anyone who kills a high enough number of the “normies” incels consider their sworn enemies, and many of them worship incel mass killer Elliot Rodger as a virtual saint.
But no one there seemed much interested in this particular killer. “[P]rolly some political kind of shit given that it’s a newspaper,” wrote someone called mutant in a not-very-busy thread on the topic, “really it’s only normals who care about left v right.”
Several hours later, we learned that the Annapolis shooter’s anger at the media — and at the Capital Gazette — had its roots in the newspaper’s coverage of his conviction for harassing a former high-school classmate on Facebook. Though she didn’t remember going to school with him, she told the paper, she tried to be nice because it seemed like he was having a rough time. But he quickly turned on her, allegedly bombarding her with threats and trying to get her fired from her job. Ultimately, the future shooter pleaded guilty to pleaded guilty to one count of harassment — and then started directing his ire at the Capital Gazette for having the gall to write about his case in a way he thought was unfair. (A court disagreed, dismissing his defamation suit against the paper.)
Well, this bit of news woke the murder fans on Incels.me right up, and soon they were hailing the Capital Gazette shooter as a new hero.
“Praise the saint,” wrote someone called JeffGoldblumInTheFly.
“When will he be canonised?” asked AfrikanCel.
“The newspaper was bullying him for being incel and Jarrod Ramos stood up to his bullies,” added incel4life. ” Jarrod Ramos is a hero.”
“Bless His Heart,” agreed doktordoom, “death to the media.”
A few of the commenters wondered if their new hero had managed to kill any “femoids” — that is, women — in his rampage.
“Did he score at least one femoid frag?” asked the aptly named evildoer.
In fact, he killed two women. “I don’t condone shootings,” noted someone called Jackson14, “but anyways looking at the victims one was a Stacy.”
This last assertion proved somewhat controversial, because the possible “Stacy” in question was a bit older than most incels consider ideal. “Maybe Stacy from 30 years ago,” grumbled Notgoingtomakeit.
“Come on man you don’t think she is hot?” Jackson14 asked.
Not everyone on the incels.me forums considers Ramos a saint, though. Someone called AR15 was unimpressed with his body count. “Weak score tbh,” he sniffed.
Others were unimpressed with his looks. “Homeboy look like a Lamb Of God tribute act 
,” wrote one. “He legit looks like an egg.” added another.
Somehow I suspect that all the “sex redistribution” in the world wouldn’t transform any of these guys into actual decent people. It would just put more women at risk.
These people always find the worst takes
typo Dave.
Ultimately, the future shooter pleaded guilty to pleaded guilty to
If I could bottle these arse-clowns personality I’d have the perfect emetic.
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/xpectd.gif
Empathy disorders really seem to be on the rise at the moment and I have absolutely no idea how we’re going to deal with it as a society.
I honestly don’t understand how anyone, anyone can read about this rash of shootings of the last years, even desensitized to violence as we are, combined with the information overload of our culture, and not think of the shock, fear and pain of the victims. The last minute thoughts of the people they love for those who take bullets and don’t, the physical shock and pain for the wounded and the dead, feeling helpless to give medical aid in the blank interim before help arrives, the survivor guilt and the hell of trying to incorporate being shot into the life narrative to list just a few. A very few.
Instead, we have these guys talking about how justified and heroic the shooters are? And so many others who silently cheer if the victims are different in even the smallest way? Does it really take a leap of imagination to be there with the victims?
Or am I undervaluing the lure of identification with the aggressor?
Is this a way to feel safe and powerful? Superior?
When I read that his grudge started when the paper accurately reported that he pleaded guilty to a charge stemming from the harassment of a woman, I knew it wouldn’t take long for the human sharts that are these “incels” to deify the shooter.
I was wondering how long it would take.
@AuntieMame Redux
I really hate to make this about myself but I think maybe I can’ provide some helpful perspective. I was a loser in school. I was invisible to girls and I knew it. Entitled or not, to constantly fail at engaging in something that every other boy engages in, all media tells me that I should be able to, I failed with girls constantly. This combined with the bullying that comes along with the being a turbo-virgin was extremely traumatic.
There is a song lyric I heard that kinda clicked with me because it felt true. “Women seem wicked when you are unwanted.” It isn’t the right thing to feel but it felt true for me and I bet all of my money that these guys feel the same way. I’m not defending their completely depraved and extremely deviant opinions. But you asked how these guys can be so depraved. Well let me ask you a question, would you feel bad for the suffering of the wicked? Men and women who engage in normal social relations with one another just pisses them off to no end. So honestly, I’m not suprised that atrocities delight them.
I think the guys who are too deep in this really should be put under observation. If a Muslim were to publically cheer for several terrorist attacks in a row they might be put under observation. I think Incels need to be observed as well. I think if someone is willing to cheer for mass murder then the only thing that stops them from performing an attack is nerve.
Anyways, I think one way to reduce the number of incels in the future is to actually pay attention to children’s social development and treat it as serious as we treat language and motor development. When we see a little girl or boy not hitting ‘social milestones’ we need to get those children professional help.
When I got professional help about a year ago, it very very literally changed my life. The internet and electronic glowing rectangles (screens) are really perverting human social interaction and I really truly believe that we need to start paying attention to social health. I don’t have sympathy at all for assholes who praise vicious killers, but I do have sympathy for boys who are going through what makes an incel. I went down that road and I chose professional help over the “black pill”. One thing to remember is that incels have an extremely high rate of suicidal thoughts. I hope that makes sense and I really hope I don’t offend anyone.
J: The song is “People are Strange” by The Doors.
@j
I mean my opinion is only worth so much but i thought you did a good job of threading that needle.
The internet is such a powerful tool for connecting people, but there’s a lot of terrible people who probably shouldn’t be connected exclusively to each other.
Ramos is a Latino name. Apparently — at least at this moment in time and for certain incels — hatred for women wins out over hatred for people of color.
From Elle magazine, a women’s fashion magazine:
The Line From Misogyny to Trump to Violence Is Undeniable and Unacceptable
By R. Eric Thomas
Jun 30, 2018
https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a22001672/misogyny-is-at-the-root-of-our-mass-violence/
J,
The thing is, a lot of young women go through the same loneliness and social isolation. Yet, there isn’t a female version of this movement. Forever alone women aren’t cheering on mass murderers. Neither are young gay men for that matter. It can’t be attributed solely to having social problems or depression when gender is such a huge factor. If our culture wasn’t telling straight men that they deserve a hot woman (or several) and if women aren’t into them, they’re shallow bitches, we wouldn’t have this movement. That’s not to say that social awkwardness/isolation and depression aren’t part of it at all, but loneliness and depression are not gendered, so male entitlement is pretty clearly a large piece of the puzzle. The most important piece of the puzzle even.
This part isn’t directed at you specifically, but it’s honestly kind of terrifying that so many men over the years have posted here saying something along the lines of “I could have easily become an MRA/incel if not for (insert this or that reason). I was an awkward and insecure young woman. Didn’t have a boyfriend until my early twenties. Didn’t lose my virginity until I was nearly 19. I’m pretty sure my opinion of myself was far lower than most other people’s opinion of me, but I felt like an ugly loser a good portion of the time. Yet, it never once crossed my mind – even when I felt angry about guys not liking me – to want people to be killed over it. I never for a second wanted to rape men or throw acid in their faces. As far as I know, the same was true of other young women like me.
So why is it so easy for troubled young men to become virulent misogynists? Why is it almost a default state that decent guys have to talk themselves out of for the sake of being decent? If the decent, pro-feminist guys can understand how young men can become violently misogynistic, what the fuck is going on in the minds of all the other men? When I really think about this stuff, it makes me want to run off and join an all woman commune or something. How, as a society, can we just accept men reacting to rejection or even just the fear of rejection as normal?
Am I understanding this correctly that one of the ‘social milestones’ that you think children need professional help if they don’t hit is something along the lines of getting a girlfriend/boyfriend or losing their virginity?
@j
I thought you did an amazing job of explaining aspects of the psychology of incels. I know that there have been times living in a toxic patriarchy that I’ve had to be very careful that fear wasn’t the first emotion I had about men.
I will point out a couple of things though. First, these mass murderers and shooters that the community is celebrating aren’t killing only women, not that this would be all right, but the incel community also celebrates the deaths of other men, otherized by labels like Chads and normies.
In other words men who can theoretically get female company. I realize that people who are socially ostracized feel hurt and resentment that leads to rage. I know that male socialization and social self respect has an element of being at least nominally successful with women. And that other men express their contempt for men who can’t perform as “real” men. I’m not ok with this and see it as one more aspect of the toxic patriarchy that we all live under.
I know this becomes a vicious cycle. I really do understand this. I know social development is important and that the ways human beings can be damaged are myriad. I know that often the people who need the most love, social support and understanding are sometimes the least able to attract and receive the social support they need.
I really do understand all of that and so do many others. I think this is the reason people often feel sorry for the incels and think that well applied humanist principles will heal them. And for some this may be true. No group and is a monolith.
But the absolute lack of any feelings for the victims or even acknowledgement that mass murder is a problem. And this over several years and numerous murders. Well, this is a problem for me.
Plenty of people have been bullied and don’t fit the mold that society brands normal and come from families ranging from the unloving to the dysfunctional and through to abusive. I know people who survive this as even reasonably functional people are rarer than our feel good individualist bootstrapping culture likes to think.
But the gleeful and repeated celebration of rape, murder, slavery and totalitarian ideals? This seems to me a step beyond. And we ignore it at our peril.
The pain of the outcast is sharp as you’ve described. That pain has been used to manipulate hurt people by enticing them into a group where they “belong” by stoking the rage and hurt as you’ve described. But you got help as you told us. And that is the difference.
Because help can’t be forced on people. I know people can take comfort in hyperbole and posturing but both the community support of rape, murder and every other sadistic social Ill combined with the fact that some of the recent murderers seem to have come directly from the incel community? And more enthusiasm and encouragement to murder all of the time? Well, this is something beyond hurt young men.
Thank you for writing and explaining.
It’s because we live in a society that’s already at a fairly high baseline of misogyny. If you take a sample of random young men, most will hold misogynistic ideas about women because they’ve been taught by their families, churches, schools, and media to be misogynists. They’ve been taught that there are “rules” and if you follow them a girlfriend automatically follows. In other words, low-level misogyny is the default setting in our society, and people–especially men–have to actively work to combat it and most aren’t even aware that there’s anything to combat.
note to David: I used to be a poster here years and years ago with the same handle but a different email
@Kat
Great link to the Elle article, thanks. What is up with threatening a congresswoman? When exactly did it become ok for a president to do this kind of thing?
@j
I wrote a long reply to you but the post eater seems to have gotten it. I’m still hoping it will show up, but if not I’ll repost but this brings me to
@weirwood
Thank you for doing a great job teasing out the thing that is leading to not only the support of murder and rape and fascist ideals but the incel community is fielding actual murderers by their own claims. I feel bad for the hurt, the bullied, the awkward and the outcast but this is something beyond that. You pointed out the gendered nature of this phenomenon.
J, I’m going to echo what the others said: you did a really good job explaining your thoughts! We’ve had a lot of apologia for incel from “explainers”, you did well.
But I’m also going to echo what weirwoodtreehugger said, because my life was relatively similar. I was bullied from kindergarten up until I voluntarily left school at sixteen. My non-dateability was part of the jokes, a big part, actually.
In the suicide letter I wrote, having planned it all out, I realised two things – I didn’t want to die, I just wanted it to stop (which made me drop school instead of killing myself because fuck, life is beautiful in so many ways and I’m not letting them take that from me) and that I didn’t hate them.
They were all stupid, yes. But I had empathy for them. I knew they were teens like me, sometimes from weird backgrounds, with their own troubles and they didn’t know how to deal.
The only exception to that was one of the teachers. Him I would have gladly known run over. And I still can’t bring myself to say I want him to die lonely, because being lonely is horrible. I hope he feels guilty and I hope he suffers some kind of retribution and again, I wouldn’t mind him being dead – but I don’t want him to die painfully or such shit. Just…. Go away, don’t hurt other people.
You asked:
So yes. I would. And I believe that we all should. There are people I want gone, but I don’t want them to suffer, because my suffering was horrible to me. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, because it fucking sucked.
In fact, I much prefer “go away” to mean they’d change, realise the error of their ways than just die, because death is not really a solution.
@kupo
Since he was taking about “little boys and girls” I really really hope (and think) he wasn’t talking about sex. I read it more as kids not having friends at all or not getting invited to play with others when everyone is and so on.
@weirwoodtreehugger
Entitlement certainly is the biggest piece of the puzzle in my opinion. However, a lot of guys are lonely and entitled and they don’t become incels either. I just believe that there has to be something ‘extra’ to create an incel. I might be wrong though. Maybe these men would be out-and-out rapists in another time but for whatever reason, they just aren’t. (I suspect though that a lot of them actually are).
I think the majority of this kinda stuff comes from how boys are raised. My mother taught me to not be entitled to women’s bodies or company (but also taught me that girls/women might mistreat me as well). She was pretty feminist even though she hated the label, so I grew up with a lot of feminist axioms already in my head.
Boys are also more likely to externalize their feelings than girls. As in, girls will likely think the ‘problem’ exists inside them and boys will likely think the ‘problem’ exists ‘out there’. That’s why girls apologize and boys throw tantrums. It takes emotional intelligence to understand when a problem is external and when it’s internal. Frankly, I believe boys just simply aren’t taught emotional intelligence. I certainly never was, ever. When I first met my current mental health profession, that was the first observation she made about me. That I don’t know how to ‘feel’. She said that most boys/men she treats are like that as well.
To me, this means that men are often times emotionally children and children throw temper tantrums. However, when a grown man throws a temper tantrum, people can get hurt or killed.
I don’t know, I’m not an expert on this kind of thing at all. But maybe extremely low emotional intelligence feeds back into the entitlement thing? After all, what do children do when they ask for something and you say no? They get pissed like you committed a crime for not giving something they have no right to receive.
I’ve been thinking about and rereading your post for far too long and kinda realized that I’m attempting to project my personal experience on these incels. It was this line in particular:
that made me realize that I just simply do not understand these people. Just like you never thought about killing people over rejection, neither have I. It’s just a completely alien concept. I’m not going back and changing what I’ve already written but the line above made me consider that maybe incels are just evil men, plain and simple, and need to be put in cages.
Anyway, I think boys need to be taught emotional intelligence to at least the level that girls achieve (on average) even if that means that particular attention be paid to boys.
—
From one lonely loser teen to another, I’m sorry you had to go through that. It sucks and it hurts for sure. And it sucks to hear that you’d want to run away from the co-ed society we have, but I think I understand your reasons.
@kupo
Just real fast because I really don’t want that misunderstanding to stand lol.
No, I don’t think virginity should play any role at all. You can be perfectly healthy and not have sex until later in life. However, if a teenager is unable to begin dating then I’d think there would be numerous other signs as well. Difficulty making friends, not being invited to or not engaging in normal play, being the subject of bullying and responding poorly to it. That sorta thing. I think that a lot of children could benefit from early intervention when they are displaying abnormal social growth. Not that we track when bobby gets his first kiss.
Wow, I thought everyone these days knew what “bless your heart” and “isn’t that nice” really meant.
Not to downplay your feelings on the matter, but this is something nearly everyone I knew went through at least once in their school lives, myself included.
I was a loser in school too. I was invisible to boys my age, and I’ve even had a guy and his friends openly laugh in my face when I attempted to tell them that I had a crush on him. This isn’t gender exclusive.
I failed hard when it came to attempting to manage my feelings and hormones when I was a teenager, and hell, even into my 20s. To this very damn day I still balk at the idea of telling people if I have a crush on them or if I feel a certain way because I’m so scared of rejection, and it’s partially because my self-esteem was crushed by my peers (and my abuser, but that’s another sad tale for another day).
I also can’t fucking tell if someone’s trying to flirt with me because I literally believe that I’m not worth being flirted with. The person I’m dating now literally called me bae for MONTHS before they just came out and told me that they had a crush on me. We’ve been dating for a little over two years now.
Media also tells young girls that they’re nothing if they can’t get a man. If we’re not some dude’s arm candy, we’re not important. If we’re not pretty enough to be desirable, we’re not worth the air we breathe, and that can lead to bullying as well. I was constantly bullied for being fat and not wearing makeup and being too poor to afford all the trendy clothes. The only way I made any real friends outside of my normal social circle was by joining my high school’s drama class, and that didn’t help my anxiety any.
I’m not trying to hand-wave your experiences away, and I hope it doesn’t come across that way, but I just want to give you a bit of insight to show that it’s not just men/boys that go through this, people of all genders do. It’s a commonality, even if the circumstances are a bit different.
That…that seems like a slippery slope, my dude.
Some issues I can point out off the top of the ol’ domepiece:
– Parents might not be able to afford the “professional help” that these children might need.
– Government clearly doesn’t care about mental health (or physical)
– Those children might not be at risk of becoming incels or some other domestic terrorists, but they might just be mentally ill with other things. And while getting some professional help might help with those other issues, assuming that these kids might be at risk of becoming assholes because they don’t hit their social milestones at some arbitrary time frame might actually be more damaging to their mental development.
– Asshole is not a mental illness. Just because these people are assholes, it doesn’t automagically make them “mentally ill”. This creates more stigma around people with actual mental illnesses and makes it harder for them to come out to get help.
It’s a thought that comes from a good place, but you know what they say about the road to hell, right?
While I agree that the internet has changed social interaction for worse, it’s also made good changes, and I don’t feel it’s particularly fair of you to kind of sweep that under the rug.
For instance: When I felt suicidal, I was able to go online and talk to people who were able to help me. When I wanted to talk about my abuse but couldn’t afford professional help, I went and talked with other survivors to just get it off of my chest and out in the open.
I met my now roommates online, and we were online friends for years before they helped me get out of a very abusive situation and get me back on my feet.
My datemate lives all the way on the other shore of the US, and the internet is the only way I can talk to them. It’s also how we met. (We met on this very website, actually.)
Yes. The anonymity of the internet has made some monsters out of people who are able to pretend to be a decent human when the mask isn’t there, but it’s also allowed me to meet people who are decent with or without it. It’s allowed social movements to be born and it’s allowed people to become more informed and learn from the experiences of people they never would have met without it.
All change comes with pros and cons, but we can’t just ignore or downplay the pros because the cons are present.
I said it before on a thread a few weeks back, but Inceldom and their thought processes aren’t a mental illness, but rather a cult like mentality.
They tell their victims what they want to hear, precisely when they need to hear it, usually at a very low point in their lives. They hear that all their woes aren’t their own fault, but rather the fault of society. It’s “Chad” taking all the women, and “Stacy” that’s turning her nose up at them over their wrists or the tilt of their eyes, things they have no control over.
And it’s the rest of us “Normies” that just want them to go away and not exist, according to the Dogma of the Incel.
Yes, getting some professional help might banish some of these thoughts, but the issue isn’t that their numbers are inherently mentally ill, but rather they took someone’s toxic bait, and are now regurgitating it.
Again, asshole is not a mental illness, but it is an intoxicating way to get some semblance of power when you feel powerless. And that mentality can be cured. Mental illnesses cannot. They can be managed, but they can’t be cured.
And therein lies the difference.
So do I, but I don’t threaten to kill or otherwise hurt other people.
I’m going to be evil and triple post. To reply to everyone else, yeah you all are absolutely right. The simple depravity of cheering for mass murder is just…how does one even begin? I’m afraid that while I did spend time in the mano-sphere, my time there just isn’t the same as the incel-sphere. I thought I understood them but I simply have never had their kool-aid before. Every single incel is a clear and present danger to everyone holy crap.
And thanks everyone.
@j
Nah. Lots of feeling, but only a small number of feelings are acceptable, you see. Disgust and lust would be the important ones, pretty much everything is gay, obvs.
@Paradoxical Intention
I don’t mean to disregard anything you said in your post because pretty much all of it would just be repeated head nods. Though you didn’t say it, it seems that I’ve been too sympathetic with the incels. But one thing, specifically the portion between the first and second block quote about your childhood.
Never in my entire life until tonight did I even consider that childhoods like what you describe happened to girls/teens/women. Not being hyperbolic either. I almost want to say sorry but I’m not even sure what for.