By David Futrelle
Valentine’s Day is a shitty day for a lot of people who aren’t in happy relationships, and it’s an especially shitty day for incels who have put their bitterness over their own romantic and sexual failures at the core of their identity.
But some of the regulars on the Incels.is forums have found a perverse reason to celebrate the day this year — because today is not only Valentine’s Day; it’s also the first anniversary of the murder of 17 students and staffers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Incels celebrated the attack when it happened, and some of them are celebrating it just as enthusiastically today.
“Valentines day feels a little more special this year,” Incels.is commenter Angryatsociety declares in a post labeled “LifeFuel” today, announcing that he’s going to “block out my own meaninglessness and sadness” about the holiday and his life “with something that made me feel happy.” That is, the Parkland murders.
“I’m happy for Valentine’s day because this time around I finally have something to celebrate,” he explains.
[W]hen other high schools were painted red with flower decorations those hallways at the [Marjory Stoneman Douglas] freshman building were painted red with tiny puddles of blood and .223 shell casings. I FUCKING LOVE CARNAGE!!!!!!!!!
He recalls his reaction to the news a year ago:
That morning when I was sad about being alone was overturned with a sense of joy when I heard someone say theres been a shooting then checked the news on my phone and went to the snapchat map and saw that masterpiece vid of those kids screaming inside the classroom with gunshots ringing out (i hadn’t had that much of a field day since las vegas).
He especially enjoyed the cell-phone videos of Parkland students reacting in terror to the sound of gunfire in their school.
That moment when the burst of gunshots happened with some kid saying “omg holy shit omg” I chuckled right after the girl screamed her whoreish ass off.
He declares himself grateful that he lives in a world in which mass shootings have become almost routine.
I hate people and society so much and you know what? Everyone of these mass killings wheather done with a car, a knife, a bomb, starting a fire, poisoning, or an ar 15 super duber scary rifle……………….makes me glad I’m alive to watch the world that’s why I check the news every 30 min. Everytime I check the news, i get this hopeful feeling that somewhere in the world a mass causality attack happened
Luckily for him they do happen with alarming frequency.
i look at china first with their vehicle and knife attacks, because they draw the inspiration that no matter how many road barriers you put up, no matter how many guns you ban, no matter how many people are put under authoritarian surveillance…………………. there will still be a backback bomb detonating outside an elementary school.
Fucking monster.
Time to address the real problem society.
Nikolas cruz wasn’t the first and he is the furthest from being the last.
My only regret about that day is that he didint meet his goal of killing 20 people.
I’m in the mood for writing a long ass fan letter to him rn.
Oh, but he’s not encouraging mass murder; he’s just happy when it happens
I’m not inciting any crime or threat of violence, I’m just saying why I have something to really like about Valentine’s day now.
Live on hero, everyday I hope to see more just like you……………….. and i see the world ending another day hahahahahhahahahahahahahah.
In a followup comment, he said he thought
the bloodshed across the world will forever continue, I hope it gets so bad to the point where a sizeable amount of people are too scared to go out into puplic and theres armed guards with automatic rifles at every store, venue, event, etc.
I love the kind fear the public has.
While there were a few dissenters, most of those who responded to Angryatsociety’s post on Icels.is shared his sentiments.
“Fills me up with joy,” wrote AsiaCel, a prolific contributor to Incels.is who has posted more than 3000 comments to the site.
I don’t support mass shooting, but my support/against won’t change anything it’s going to happen regardless. Might as well sit back and watch the show.
Others suggested that the bloodshed was necessary to bring attention to their inability to find dates. According to commenter Hate_My_Life,
All this pain and suffering is something that society and people deserve until they open their fucking eyes and ask: Is there a problem with us?
It will probably take millions of deaths before they even question that, but I’ll be waiting (Again, I’m not encouraging violence/shooting up schools).
I hate women indeed, but the world follows closely behind.
Someone called FinnCel agreed:
No one talks about loneliness until a couple of students get shot.
Even then, it’s briefly mentioned and the discussion changes to gun control, instead of loneliness prevention.
I don’t support shootings but it is a necessary evil. Those brief moments when our loneliness is mentioned, when put together enough times, just might open the society’s eyes and we will finally be noticed
That’s the logic of terrorism.
Once again, I’m struck by how similar this particular incel argument is to Jordan Peterson’s infamous argument for “enforced monogamy.” Like the incels, Peterson suggested that this kind of male violence is the inevitable result of women rejecting certain kinds of men; indeed, he made his comments in response to a question about the Toronto van killer, a self-described incel. “He was angry at God because women were rejecting him,” Peterson declared in an interview with the New York Times. “The cure for that is enforced monogamy.”
It’s an argument that’s absurd on so many levels it’s hard to even know where to begin. Somehow cajoling (or outright forcing) women into dating the sort of guy who contemplates mass murder when he can’t get a date won’t solve the problem of male violence; it will simply shift the target of the anger. Men who are this angry about being told no outside of a relationship will almost certainly get angry about being told no in a relationship — and will have the perfect opportunity to take out this anger on their partners and children.
These men might not go and shoot up a school, but some of them would almost certainly end up murdering their partners and other family members. Indeed, these sorts of murder-suicides happen so regularly they almost never get national attention, and “enforced monogamy” would almost certainly make them much more common.
This sort of male violence is born from the same sort of aggrieved entitlement that drives the incels. You can’t solve it by forcing (or even by more subtly cajoling) women into giving these entitled men what they say they want, because they will simply find new reasons to feel aggrieved. That’s especially true of incels, whose entire identity is built around their sense of grievance. (Take a look at yesterday’s post to see an ex-incel talking about how aggrieved he remains even after finding several girlfriends.) The real problem isn’t that these men feel aggrieved; it’s that they feel entitled.
Depressing thoughts for Valentine’s Day, but then again this blog specializes in the worst people in the world. I’ll put up a Valentine’s Day open thread for those who’d rather discuss somewhat more pleasant things,
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It still astounds me that there’s not an FBI watchlist for incels. A lot of this is literal incitement to domestic terrorism, albeit for the stupidest fucking reasons I’ve ever heard.
(Again, I’m not encouraging violence/shooting up schools).
Pfaugh, no, of course you’re not. You’re just celebrating when it happens, because the pain of others is pleasure to you.
@Diego Duarte
Exactly! Nazi germany didn’t just pop into existence out of thin air. Words are some of the most powerful weapons. Which, I think, is why the powerful and hateful fight so hard to prevent any restriction on it’s use, even harder than americans fight against gun control.
@Talonknife
Trump/Repugnicans shut down, cut and/or completely defunded domestic (read: white) terrorist surveillance programs on nearly the very first day of office. An incel watchlist will never happen under Trump, it would pave the way to other things that Mr. “I’ve met some very nice nazis” definitely does not want.
This is, after all, a country that is right now fighting over erecting a physical monument to white nationalism (the wall).
Lately I’ve been thinking that white male entitlement is a feature of quite a few of the more rabid Brexiteers. Not the only thing or even the main thing, but there’s a streak of it. Like the man I saw on Quora the other day, saying that the boarder between Northern and Southern Ireland was an internal UK matter, and how dare the EU stick their noses in. Never mind that it’s also a boarder between the UK and the EU customs union.
Sometimes some of them remind me of a man who bought the Brooklyn Bridge from a dodgy bloke down the pub, and now they’re screaming in fury because the city of New York won’t hand it over.
Lately I suspect this isn’t even an oversight on Peterson and his ilk’s part. It’s a feature of their ideology.
Isn’t it what family values in the good old days meant? Man was the absolute master of the house, divorces were not available and no one had the right to break the sacred bond of marriage, especially not the abused women.
And once the abuse happens behind closed doors, “natural” order is restored and everything is as it should be. Boys will be boys and suffering of women is just a fact of life.
The Catholic clergy is good at pushing for this “family model” without outright saying that’s what they want, so I have no reason to believe other regressives don’t think the same way.
Dear incels
I’m absolutely delighted you do not have girlfriends and can’t get laid. No-one this evil and full of hate should be allowed near another person. I hope it continues until you fully understand how awful your behaviour is or you die alone, whichever comes first.
Yours sincerely
Violet
@Sheila Crosby I have noticed exactly the same thing.
@Violet Thank you.
It’s nice to feel I’m not alone
There’s something very rotten in society when we think that relationships are the “cure” for unhappiness. Relationships are just the cherry on the top of life, they’re not going to make you a different person. They don’t make people happy if their baseline is misery, and if anything romantic relationships would just give these guys more responsibility to be spoiled baby miserable about.
Peterson; what the fuck would any of these men bring (emotionally) to the table in a relationship? Oh right, we don’t care about the woman’s unhappiness, just the man’s.
And I’d like to punch every one of these sniviling brat’s mothers in the face just for raising such entitled little shits.
Do these guys ever all get together in one place?
No reason.
What?
Two questions.
One. Why do you assume all their moms are responsible? Parents have a limited amount of control over how their kids grow up. Every interview I’ve read with the parents of Incels/MRAs/MGTOWs/etc show a woman who despairs for how her son has grown up.
Two. Why’s it Mom’s fault and not Dad’s?
Like, holy shit, dude. You want to punch a woman in the face because her son’s being an asshole? And you want to say this on a feminist website?
May I gently suggest that you spend some time reflecting on this statement you’ve made and how you came to it.
The distinction between the edgelords and the true believers is a meaningless one.
At best, the edgelords are providing cover and encouragement to the would-be spree killers, and simply don’t care about the consequences of those actions.
More likely, though, they’re entrenching themselves deeper into those beliefs with every repetition of them they write. We are what we pretend to be, after all. If they didn’t start out believing in the rhetoric, then being immersed in it constantly and repeating it regularly is going to pull them into that belief system. And going down that road most likely means one of three outcomes. The incel becomes yet another spree killer, the incel continues to engage in stochastic terrorism by encouraging his fellows to become spree killers, or the incel manages to isolate some victims and “merely” becomes an abuser and potential murder-suicide perpetrator against a more intimate group of people.
Anyone who engages in this kind of rhetoric should be viewed as dangerous and treated as such.
I was asked on the Lobsterkin Reddit why I’m so opposed to the Lobster King. I pointed out that if enough people had laughed at Hubbard, we wouldn’t have Miscavige now.
That was not favorably received.
@Freja
Parents may not control a lot when it comes to their kids, but one thing they do have quite a lot of control over is whether or not their kid grows up feeling entitled. Entitlement starts little, with the little things. Entitlement is learned.
We love our boys, and raise our girls, right?
No shit it’s dad’s fault. And the teacher’s fault. And the TV’s fault.
And our fault.
Every snowflake in an avalanche thinks it’s not at fault.
But mothers should be the front lines in inoculating their sons against patriarchal bullshit, so I’m not being unfair at all.
I was being hyperbolic. Venting. Yes at people. “The Patriarchy” is made up of people.
I am sick of the parents of boys. I’m sick of watching my daughter get hurt. I’m sick of knowing what these boys are going to grow up into. I could go on and on with examples taken from my own life, of watching mothers ass-kissing their son’s shitty behavior when it’s supposedly “innocent”, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t know the mothers of anon internet trolls, and neither do you. I do know this- mothers (or mother figures) are the single most important influence on their sons. So why shouldn’t they hold some responsibility when their sons turn out badly?
I wouldn’t expect any less for myself.
@Red R. Lion:
Not to mention that if they go poorly, relationships can easily become the cause of unhappiness. I mean, sure, a relationship might be the one cherry on the shit sundae of your life, but it might also turn out to be a shit cherry that ruins the rest of your perfectly alright sundae.
Note to any passing incels: In the above metaphor, the cherry does not represent a girlfriend. It represents a relationship. Just as sex is not some treasure hoarded by a woman in the depths of her vagina, but an activity engaged in by two (or more) people, a relationship is formed between two (or more) people, who are both responsible for how it turns out. If the relationship fails, responsibility for the fact will not necessarily be 50-50, but all participants share some of the blame. I am quite content to assume that if your started a relationship with someone and it failed, 99% of the shit would be yours.
@Robert:
Love it. Have you pointed out that Hubbard is who the Lobster King wants to be when he grows up?
@Red R. Lion
I call bullshit. Fathers and the way they behave – toward their sons, their daughters and perhaps most of all toward their partners – are at least as important and influential in this as mothers are (even if this is sometimes less obvious). The behaviour and relationships they model are one of the most powerful examples in a child’s life of how men are “supposed” to interact with other people. And unless they died or buggered off before the kid was born, they’re a major influence – by their absences as well as by how they act when present.
Oh, well, that makes it all all right of course.
I’m sure you have some studies to back up this assertion, right? You’re not just assuming that, because it follows logically, it must be true, right?
Who is “we” here?
Then why didn’t you call any of that out?
Why mothers, specifically? Why aren’t fathers included in this? Do you maybe see where it might be unfair to decide, based solely on gender, which parent is “the front lines” here?
Do you really not see the issue with calling out a whole gender of parents and not holding any other parents accountable?
When I was a young man, I think i got my ideas about gender from my peers more than from my parents. I understand that a lot of young men also had a coach, minister, or other male mentor who influenced them. If I were going to assign blame for sexist ideas I believed, I would probably blame boys i knew, books and movies, girls i knew, and some of my other relatives before i blamed either of my parents.
My sons grew up (from age five, when we adopted them) with two fathers and no mother. I don’t see signs of entitlement or misogyny in either of them now, when they’re 21 and 17.
@Robert
Well of course not! Your sons didn’t have any terrible, terrible mothers to instill awful ideas in them! Fathers are of course totally blameless, so it stands to reason that your sons turned out totally fine.
The real problem is the mothers, doncha know.
/sarcasm
@Catalpa
Ah strawmen. Looks like I’ve hit a nerve if you’re down to attacking the LITERAL opposite of what I said in my reply to Freja.
No shit it’s dad’s fault. And the teacher’s fault. And the TV’s fault.
And our fault.
Every snowflake in an avalanche thinks it’s not at fault.
Well shit, looks like I had a whole post @kupo go missing. Probably it’s caught up somewhere?
I can probably sum it up better anyway.
In short, parenting isn’t 50%/50%, it’s 100%/100%. The gender of the parent on the front lines is a nonissue, because every parent is 100% responsible for teaching their kid right from wrong.
Yes 100%. No diffusion of responsibility.
I’m not claiming that you said that mothers were solely to blame for incels deciding to be terrible shitbags. I was making a hyperbolic statement to attempt to illustrate how ludicrous it is to blame (not solely, of course!) the mothers of strangers on the internet whose backgrounds you know absolutely nothing about.
Of course, toxic masculinity and male entitlement are massive issues in our culture and are perpetuated by the vast majority of people in our culture, and parenting plays a role in this.
But apparently mothers, specifically, are the ones who deserve to be punched in the face for it. Not fathers, not society, not even the fuckwads who are celebrating the mass murder of children. Nope, the mothers are the ones who you jump to the idea of physically assaulting first.
Maybe take a moment to examine why those people are the ones who you immediately attack when you feel the need to ‘vent’.
I’ve been thinking about how someone descends from lonely virgin to PUA advocate to MGTOW to Inceldom. I think they all share the same fsult: they all consider women as essentially non-human aliens, as weird creatures that have no connection to the human race.
This feeling is natural with 14-year-old boys who don’t understand girls (and is one reason SF stories about “first contact” with intelligent, yet weird, aliens are so popular).
Most men pass this stage, but some never do. After repeated faiures with approaching women, they decide – angrily – that they were right all along: women *are* alien creatures, only *evil* ones who *enjoy* being insulted and abused; sure, human beings don’t, but they’re aliens, remember?
This is why some men think the PUA’s methods – to abuse and insult women – may (all moral considerations aside) work. When they naturally don’t, they “conclude” they just weren’t abusive *enough*, and turn to inceldom fantasies and the “bitter virgins going their own way” movement.
Red R. Lion, we all read what you posted, and we can all scroll up and reread it.
You are holding mothers responsible for their sons growing up misogynistic.
We’re telling you that that is fup duck.
(Sigh) look, it’s simple. Misery loves company, and incels are very very miserable indeed, so they enjoy others being terribly miserable too. That they cannot see the difference between being miserable because you don’t have a date and being miserable because a mad shooter is about to kill you is, shall we say, a bit of a problem.
There is a tiny (repeat: tiny) point in their favor, which is that clinically depressed people often DO feel they are literally the most miserable person on Earth, and wish they were *anybody* else, including death row prisoners or dying cancer patients, because at least *their* trouble would soon be over.
But even when I was “there” and had such thoughts, and was suicidally depressed, which is no fun I (unnecessarily) assure you, I swear I never fantasied or wished harm on anybody, let alone reveled in that wish.