NOTE: See note at the end of the post for an important clarification.
By David Futrelle
Yesterday morning, a middle-aged man in a Long Island Bagel Boss shop launched into an abusive, if sometimes barely coherent, tirade after he became convinced that a young woman working there was smirking at his short stature. His meltdown was caught on video, and quickly went viral.
“Why is it ok for women to say ‘oh you’re five feet?’ on dating sites ‘you should be dead’ THAT’S OK?!” you can hear him yell furiously in the video, gesticulating wildly. When another patron asks him who
at the bagel shop said that to him, he responds that
women in general have said it on dating sites. You think I’m making that shit up? Everywhere I go it’s the same fucking smirk, with the biting lip.
After he gets in the face of several male bagel shop patrons and challenging them to fight, one of them throws him to the ground and holds him down. A second video, apparently taken shortly afterwards, captures the man, now back on his feet, continuing his tirade against the shop’s female staffers until he is finally led from the shop.
Viewers of the video quickly labeled the man an incel. And so did incels themselves, with the regulars on the Incels.co forums
dubbing him St. Bagelcel — and hailing him as a new incel icon.
He’s “the hero us manlets need and deserve,” gushed someone called ManletHalfCurry.
Others went further. He “was speaking truth that is never spoken about the suffering of manlets,” wrote someone called ScornedStoic. “He’s our prophet.”
“He is my god now.,” declared desperatecel178.
The Incels regulars were somewhat less positive about the man who jumped their new hero. ScornedStoic let loose with this fantasy of extreme violence:
I want the guy who tackled him to have his nails pulled out and forcibly castrated with zero anesthetic, then his teeth ripped out.
Fuck him, burn him alive.
Others wished that their new hero had pulled out a gun and shot his assailant. “Guy should have put a bullet in that tallfag,” wrote Shigechi.
Others held out hope that “the next time” their new hero would carry out a massacre in the style of Elliot Rodger, who famously became an incel martyr after murdering six in Isla Vista California in 2014 in what he deemed his “day of retribution” against the women of the world.
“I hope he take it a step furthER next time,” wrote Insomniac, the capitalized “ER” a reference to Rodger. “It’s not worth living that short,” added Evildoer. “i hope he goes ER and revenges all these who mocked him.”
CLARIFICATION: This post originally discussed the video of a YouTuber who claimed he was the man in the store. Since then the real “Bagel Boss guy” has come forward and it appears to be a different guy, one with a long history of similar public confrontations, many of which he himself filmed and put online on his own YouTube channel.
UPDATE: I reworded the first paragraph to make clear that it was his perception that he was being mocked for his height; other witnesses say the woman working there merely smiled at him.
H/T — Thanks to everyone who sent me the Bagel Boss videos.
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While I can completely understand that height can impact people’s dating experiences (speaking as a tall woman, my height is generally perceived as a negative) the main issue here is entitlement.
Nobody is entitled to anybody’s else attention. If women were telling him he should be dead due to his height that would be awful but as I am pretty confident no woman has ever told him that it’s moot.
He probably saw profiles of women who prefer to date men above a certain height and yeah while it feels sucky when you are outside people’s preferences that’s life.
The Angry Man would do better working on his sense of entitlement than whining about women’s choices.
@Dormousing_it
One day then perhaps
That was an interesting article, Katamount – thank you for the link!
Sarkozy, the former president of France, had a REALLY BIG issue about his height.
-his wife was only allowed to wear flats
-when he visited somewhere for a foto op they only allowed people shorter than him in the shot (except for bigwigs)
-when he visited a company or factory all employees taller than him were sent home for the day
Also, a friend of mine used to work in movie promotion in Germany.
She met Tom Cruise a few times. He’s also quite short and a right prick about it as well. On top of everything else shitty about him, mind you.
@ Lainy
With you on the issue of high supermarket shelves, below average height myself. One advantage I get from being a Parkie in late middle age, I can hook non – fragile stuff close enough to reach with my walking stick.
To @Lainy and others: Romanian comic artist Cassandra Calin feels your pain ?
@ Knitting Cat Lady
I keep hearing that Tom Cruise has many shitty things about him, but not specifically what. I only know that he was a right douchebag about how he divorced Kidman, and that he is sensitive about his height (but not specifically in a douchy way to my knowledge).
Contrast that with videos I have seen of him handling physical harrassers with far more grace than I would be able to, his co-stars saying in interviews that he is relentlessly positive and nice, and being a person who doesn’t hog the camera on group chat shows with lesser-known celebrities and displays what appears to be real interest in their talents and conversation (on Graham Norton in particular comes to mind)…
What did he do to get the shitty label? Is it just because he’s a member of a shitty cult, or did he do specifically shitty stuff that I just don’t know?
@Kevin:
I scale the shelves of certain stores like I’m rock-climbing. I don’t know if you’re in the US, but Home Depot is a giant US home-improvement chain, with shelves that go up to the stratosphere. So frustrating.
Concerning short men in general:. I worked for one organization where one of the department heads was about 5’3″. I’ll call him Bill. Once, during a meeting, another man said, “I’m going to do an impression of Bill,” and he kneeled. Bill took it in stride. He stood up, smiled, and said, “This is all you get.” His small stature hadn’t hurt his career. From what I’ve seen, it’s mostly men who pick on short men.
epronovost:
If he has a whole collection of these videos, I suppose he must walk into these situations with a cameraman in tow?
As a short male and bagel lover, I am very disappointed.
Great job reinforcing the idea that all short guys are insecure asshats who walk around with a chip on their shoulder.
@Big Titty Demon:
His treatment of pretty much all the women he dates and his schilling for Scientology are a couple of things that come to mind. He basically acts as a mascot for an organization that he knows commits extreme human rights abuses.
I’m also a relatively short dude, about 175 cm (and yes, I’m going to make errybody look up the conversion because eff Imperial units), but I never really experienced any anxiety about it. Probably because despite that, I’ve always been broad-shouldered and stocky, with big thighs and calves to match, so I’ve still felt physically comfortable in my own skin despite being below average in height.
It’s an odd thing on my father’s side of the family: elder son is a little below average, younger son is a giant. That’s me and my younger brother along with our dad and his younger brother.
@epronovost
If there’s one thing I hate about the internet (and they are legion), it’s this. What I’m curious about is how much it scorches people. Not sure who else watches Vic Berger videos (everybody should be), but I was watching his Logan Paul compilation and… god, it’s just depressing that children actually respond to “”””humour”””” like that. He learned nothing from the suicide forest incident and it doesn’t seem like it’s hurt his bottom line too badly.
@Big Titty Demon
Keep in mind that abusers are often sweet and charming to everyone but their targets.
@Big Titty Demon:
He’s not really just a member of Scientology, he’s in their top echelons. Check out the book “Going Clear” if you want more info.
Five foot seven isn’t that short – and I can confirm from extensive personal experience that while six foot three is something that incels claim to aspire to, there are distinct downsides.
For starters, these days I almost always have to book an aisle seat in a theatre or cinema, as I need more legroom than much current auditorium design allows for and I’m much more likely to get cramp in my knees now that I’m past my first half-century.
(Sitting up straighter is always an option, but it generally isn’t one that appeals to the people immediately behind me, and I can entirely see where they’re coming from.)
Before YouTube was a thing, Harmony Korine set out to make a film in which he’d deliberately antagonise people to the point of physical assault, and would then let himself be beaten up without resisting. He ultimately abandoned the project because he hadn’t taken into account just how quick a real-life fight is (especially when one of the participants is completely passive), and he’d most likely be dead or at least maimed for life before he’d be able to spin the material out to feature length.
It’s not even top shelves at supermarkets guys. I can’t reach the top shelves in my own closet, kitchen, or reach the line that we have hooked up to hang up laundry to dry. I once had a roomate who was a volleyball player (who also looked a lot like wonder woman. My little bi heart was always in a flutter) and I use to have to get her to get things for me because I couldn’t afford a step latter at the time.
I was diagnosed early on with congenital hypopituitarism and, for several years, received human growth hormone injections three times a week in my… lower back. This was before the synthetic stuff, so it was genuine pituitary extract from the brains of dead folk. With its help, I was able to reach a reasonable 5’4″. It’s fortunate that, considering the injection site, I didn’t become a giant asshole; however, given their source, I believe they contributed to my being a smart ass.
Regarding shelves, domestic and abroad, I keep both a footstool and gripper at home, and have been known to scale store shelves (at least step onto the lowest shelf), or occasionally creatively use adjacent merchandise.
@Big Titty Demon:
What the others said.
And here’s more:
Scientology uses their members, especially the SeaOrg members, as slave labour.
Tom Cruise knows this, as he’s pretty far up the hierarchy.
He uses it personally. There is a flock of SeaOrg members (usually teens/young adults born into Scientology) that caters to him personally. Their whole job is to keep him happy. Tom Cruise wants a pool in the middle of the desert? His flock of SeaOrg members will make it happen. Or else.
In which ‘Or else’ is sometimes LITERAL TORTURE.
Tom Cruise is only nice to people when it benefits him. Being nice to fellow actors and not being an attention hog? Makes it more likely for him to be rehired for more big money roles.
But people below him in hierarchy, who have to jump at his whims? Them he abuses.
Sounds a lot like feudalism, with Cruise as one of the barons.
How the fuck is this legal? Didn’t you guys fight a revolutionary war to put an end to that sort of shit?
This guy needs to step his game up, this is nothing compared to the riot I started in an IHOP when they offered me a short stack.
No, that war was to transfer it from one group of assholes to an entirely different group of assholes.
@richard
My best friend has the same thing. She only managed to reach 5ft and right now her youngest brother is going through his hormone injections. Price goes up a lot now. One little bottle is a thousand dollars. Hopfully his goes better then hers did.
@ Dormousing_it
I’m in the UK but we have B&Q in the same sort of market as Home Depot, with that kind of layout. Thank goodness for staff with forklifts, cherry pickers and stepladders. Being a doddering ancient, I can usually politely request assistance should I need it, with a reasonable expectation of receiving it.
In another interview it becomes clear he adopted this aggressive and antisocial character to protect himself. His history of being sexually abused by his neighbor also contributes to this. He says that he repeatedly had women tell him to kill himself on online dating applications which lead to being admitted to the hospital on suicide watch, and after he left the suicide ward he vowed to never let anyone speak to him again that way. It would be better if he had integrated these experiences but the world is a cruel place and people pick poor defense mechanisms.
From what I can tell Cruise seems to be a pretty friendly, down-to-earth guy on an interpersonal level. I don’t believe it’s fair to suggest he’s only nice to people “when it benefits him”; he doesn’t, in fact, have to be as generous as he is with his co-stars in order to continue to get big-money roles. (Most other movie stars certainly aren’t, and it hasn’t hurt them.)
That doesn’t in the least excuse his role in Scientology, even though he seems to be a sincere believer and not a grifter like (in my opinion) some of the other higher-ups in the organization. I think it’s possible to carry both of these ideas in our mind at the same time.