CONTENT WARNING: This one is just brutal. If you’re feeling even the slightest bit queasy about the headline, please don’t read any further.
By David Futrelle
Sunday morning, a young man named Brandon Clark allegedly murdered 17-year-old Instagram “e-girl” Bianca Devins, apparently a friend of his, brutally slashing her throat and then slashing his own in an attempt to kill himself. Sometime between the murder and the attempted suicide, he took a photo of her bloody body and uploaded it to 4chan.
The photo quickly spread across social media, including the Incels.co forum, where it was evidently found by a commenter calling himself canino1997, who reacted to the horrific tragedy by masturbating to the picture of Devins’ lifeless body and sending a picture of the resulting “cum tribute” to the girl’s mother (or perhaps her stepmother) as a sort of ‘”lesson” for her.
He attached a screenshot of what he said were the messages he’d sent to the mother along with his “tribute.”
Naturally, other incels applauded canino1997’s initiative. “[Y]our doing god’s work,” wrote one commenter. “Based as fuck,” added a second. “Based kikebook Stalkercel,” agreed a third, which is the Incel way of saying he thought that canino1997 is was an excellent Facebook stalker.
On Facebook, Bianca’s stepmother didn’t say anything about
canino1997’s particular act of malicious harassment, but she did post at length about the anguish of seeing the photos of her stepdaughter’s corpse — an anguish amplified by the knowledge that countless strangers were passing the pictures around in an attempt to shock others and, in some cases, to garner new Instagram followers.
It is absolutely disgusting that people are sharing, screenshoting the pictures of Bianca’s (tragic) death!! Wtf is wrong with you people!!?? … I will FORVER have those images in my mind when I think of her. When I close my eyes, those images haunt me. …
Imagine sitting there, in disbelief and praying to God that this is all some mistake and that your baby will walk through the door any minute. Now imagine seeing those pictures and having everything in you break. Imagine not even being able to yell out and scream or cry because your soul has now just been broken.
After writing this blog for eight years, and watching the political developments in the US over the last three, I can’t say I still have a lot of faith left in humanity. But discovering the incel and his “cum tribute” hit me like a punch in the gut; in some ways it feels as gratuitously cruel as the murder itself.
There’s a lot more to say — none of it good — about this case and the assorted reactions to it online. But I will save that for later posts.
NOTE: Canino1997’s original post was taken down by the Incels.co mods, though evidence of it remains in the responses to it from other commenters. I borrowed the screenshots from a post in IncelTears, a subreddit devoted to monitoring and mocking incels.
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@doormousing_it
I strongly disagree. All we know for sure about his day-to-day life is he doesn’t have sex and he frequents incel forums. We can probably presume he’s sad a lot of the time. There are a lot of sad, sexless people, and we don’t give them all carte blanche to engage in whatever acts of cruelty take their fancy because they’ve been pre-punished by their unhappy lives. Most wouldn’t, anyway.
The only direct consequences he experienced were positive: 1) He received the praise of his toxic peers. 2) He got to exert his power as a man/boy to put both a grieving woman and a dead girl in their places. He was rewarded, not punished.
@Viscaria:. You may be right. I’m through with giving him space in my brain.
@Dormousing_it
That’s more than fair. I hope you can spend today thinking of happier things, like the catfriend in your avatar.
It’s pure tribalism. Incels view themselves are one tribe and everyone else as the other, and anything done that harms, hinder or just annoys the other tribe is inherently justified, because it is done by someone in their tribe against the other tribe. That’s why not agreeing to have sex with someone is considered a crime worthy of death, while mass shootings and harrassing grieving parents are heroic deeds worthy of sainthood. It’s not a mentality limited to incels, either.
Indeed. And he also gets to remain anonymous, which is another luxury that he doesn’t share with everyone else directly involved in this.
Pyxxxie
Your comment to me sounded patronizing and I do not need that, thank you.
(Note I know my spelling on a good day is awful and I really don’t need any comments about that if I made a mistake)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we really do need a spotlight put on these people. If for no other reason than for the rest of us to recognize the warning signs and say “This is what this vile creature does with their life. Is this what you do with your life? Can you not aim higher than this?”
If I might wax reflective… I’ve mentioned my cemetery crawls before. Visited the York Cemetery in North York (just behind Mel Lastman Square) to pay my respects to Mr. Tim Horton himself last weekend. In the center of the cemetery is an obelisk that serves as a memorial to Canada’s war dead, but just in front of it is the Victoria Cross memorial, which has plaques for all 99 Canadian recipients of the Victoria Cross, including their citations:
https://www.mountpleasantgroup.com/~/media/Images/resources/cvmemorial-banner.ashx?sc_lang=en-CA
You read the stories of those whose graves you’ve visited, like William Barker or George Kerr, and those that didn’t survive like John Osborn, and their stories of bravery and sacrifice… you feel the weight on you. 99 stories, each seemingly more harrowing than the last. Then as you walk back towards the subway to go home, you pass by a pair of Muskoka chairs left over from Canada 150, and just behind them is the makeshift sign meant to be a temporary memorial to the victims of last year’s van attack.
As I was making my way there, I passed by Gibson House, which I still vividly remember visiting the day before the van attack that killed 10 and left 16 injured, some permanently. And I’ll always be dumbfounded that right there, literally just feet away, is a fascinating slice of this city’s history. Menassian’s van had to have come within mere feet of the Tolman sweet apple tree, the sole remaining tree of Gibson’s original orchard from 1832. It still bears fruit to this day, despite having a large hole in its trunk that a person can fit inside:
This guy, these people… in a world where there really are curiosities to be discovered all around us… they just can’t let go of their grievances for a second just to marvel at a simple tree. I just can’t wrap my brain around being that nihilistic, that self-absorbed. John Osborn literally jumped on a grenade to save his comrades, and this poor kid won’t experience the rest of her life because some asshole couldn’t handle rejection?
*sigh* Sorry if this felt a little disjointed… a story this terrible is tough to process.
I think that, despite the grieving, we need to take full conscience of what has happened and learn from it. Even in the event that Trump is defeated in 2020, we can’t let things just slide back into “normalcy”, otherwise all of this will just happen again and again.
Future generations need to be vaccinated against fascism and reactionary ideologies in general. I for one do not think it’s a mere coincidence that the current stream of fascism rose out of libertarian circlejerks, where “ironic Nazism” was so common.
Likewise, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the generation that grew up with South Park, which routinely turned Nazism into a punchline and portrayed various reactionary views, went on to form the ranks of the Alt Right and every one of the movements within it.
I think there is more than just correlation there, but I’m not a psychologist or neuroscientist, so I cannot explain how humor helps normalize this type of views, or how it desensitizes you to the suffering of others. Where is Scilfredja when you need her?
@Diego Duarte
I’m so angry today. I’m thinking about the Apollo 11 mission and how women did all that work with no recognition and no opportunity to go to the moon themselves. And how only the most superficial of changes have been made in the 50 years since. Women are still excluded and degraded by the astrophysics community but they pretend like our lack of interest is *our* fault.
I’m thinking about the murderer in this story and how every damn thread on Twitter is full of reply guys talking about how this poor child who was murdered deserved it, actually, for being mean to a boy, once. “She was no angel,” they cry out at people who are hurting and raw. “She really deserves some of the blame. If he just killed himself and not her she would have been put on trial,” they protest, incorrectly.
I’m thinking about how the right has a new ICE guard hero because she’s hot and does a Hitler salute in her mirror selfies.
I’m thinking about how the media is spreading lies about Willem Van Spronsen to get the left to agree his actions were wrong (he was not trying to set the detention facility on fire; just ICE vehicles) and how every post about him is swarming with MAGA-hats reveling in his death.
I’m thinking about how Democrats made a racist, centrist woman who refuses to use the avenues open to her to stop this cruel, inhumane administration.
I won’t settle for mediocrity from men and politicians anymore. I won’t settle for crumbs. There is no “going back” for me because “normalcy” is not good enough.
After sleeping on it, I had a realization:
If the doofus was dumb enough to take the “tribute” photos with his phone, they might have EXIF data that gives his location.
Getting police or any law enforcement to actually care is a different matter.
Doomcup, the person who took the photos actually connects his (apparent) real name to his incels.co handle; it’s trivial to identify him. He lives in Turkey, though, so the odds of rousing law enforcement to act if you’re reporting from the US/UK/Canada are slim, to say the least.
@kupo
You said it. I haven’t corroborated these claims, but I heard Van Spronsen was captured and extrajudicially executed. It wouldn’t surprise me at this point.
Pelosi seems to be “irrationally” insistent in her efforts to prevent Trump from being impeached; which to me betrays her actual fucking stance, as Dalillama eloquently explained it on the last thread. It should also be of note that she bears some of the responsibility for Trump’s latest attack on the “Squad”. He capitalized on the discontent and contempt she’s been aiming at them, which is why he seized the opportunity to include her in his tweet. Still no apologies from her on the matter.
These people do not represent anybody but old conservative, White people, and they need to go; along with the Electoral College. Hopefully she gets primaried next election.
On the subject of Apollo 11 and STEM fields, I have an interesting observation: it seems to me that these fields yield a lot of sexists, at best, and raging incels, at worst. One of the most notoriously communist universities in my country shifted towards the Right, with the expansion of engineering degrees. I also noticed that many of the bigots who post some of the worst comments online graduated from engineering careers, at the same university, which is notoriously known for its gender imbalance.
People tend to attribute misogyny to a lack of education, but most of the worst misogyny I’ve seen comes from educated people. And even then, it seems like these comments are more pervasive among the STEM fields (engineering in particular).
Does the lack of women provide the grounds for unchecked misogyny? Is it taught in the classrooms? I’ve yet to pin down why it’s so visceral.
@Lainy,
Pretty sure Pyxxxie was trying to be encouraging. I read his/her words as saying something like “The world’s been a terrible place for a long time, but your own parents managed to raise you to be a decent, upstanding, moral, contributing member of society despite that. Since you are a decent, upstanding, moral, contributing member of society, I have faith that you will, likewise, be able to raise your children to be a force for good and make a difference in the world.” I didn’t see anything patronizing or underhanded at all
@ribblefizz
I expressed the fact that I feel sicken that this is the world I will have to raise my children in. I felt it patronizing by them because they met that comment with “eh you survived so your kids will do the same.” I don’t want them to be able to simply survive I want them to be able to live. I’ve done surviving, it’s not the same thing as living. I don’t want my children to have the life that I had, or the life my fiancé had. I don’t want their life to be worse or more difficult then what we have to struggle through.
To me the comment felt similar to patting a child on the head and telling them that the bad dream they had can’t really hurt them. I’ve lived in this world for a short time and in that short time it’s nearly killed me. And my story is not that unique from anyone else’s. Also you basically just added a lot of things to something that didn’t say at all.
Yes and often yes. But they also flock to STEM fields because of the misogyny they already have, either because they think of it as a male field or because they think they’re naturally better at it because they’re “objective” unlike women, who they believe are superficial and emotional.
Dudes got *so mad* at me for out performing them in college. There was one CS staff member who was actively hostile to women. Others were more subtle. We warned each other in whisper networks, but sometimes you couldn’t avoid them or you didn’t hear in time. The department head was an excellent ally though, and the most respected faculty were women.
If I said what I actually wanted to say, David would ban me so hard I’d feel it physically.
I’ll settle for just saying that I hope the family of the deceased girl can find some measure of comfort and healing in this almost hopelessly dark time. May they be blind and deaf to the vile fuckheads who spread filth and lies about their daughter, and be filled only with happy thoughts and memories. May the scumbags who find glee in this child’s murder find their every footstep beset by unavoidable legos and their every thought filled with the censure of my fellow Mammoth Hunters.
This just is so beyond disgusting that it broke my brain last night. I still can’t completely express what I want to say about this. For now, that’s just “ick” and “I have (hopefully just temporarily) lost my faith in humanity”.
These people, they are evil.
At this point it should literally be the only word used to describe such actions, believes and motivations.
They said goodbye to society, and there is no hope for them to ever return.
You may have not a lot of faith for humanity, but I have none.
I have long lost any faith in our future. We will be extinct within the next century or so, and I can’t bring myself to care anymore. It’s not like anything useful against this is done.
Canino is a known massive piece of shit, he’s not anonymous, his dox is public and can be easily found on google.
It’s not fair to wish ill on all incels because of a few psychos.
[incel157]
http://ironwolf.dangerousgames.com/blog/wp-content/lolz/images/hurrithreadgy6.jpg
@incel157
Fuck off right now. I can tell you that you aren’t welcome here or on this thread specifically.
@Diego Duarte
I got a degree in Mechanical engineering in the 1980s and i agree with Kupo. They go into STEM a) to get away from women and b) because they believe it’s a career for a Real Man TM (in this case Real Man TM means good at STEM, not buff).
I have some tiny hope that canino1997 didn’t really send that photo to the family. It’s not immediately obvious to me how he’d know where to send it, and incels in general strike me as being all wind. On the other hand I’m too shocked to be thinking clearly. I recently read something somewhere about how internet trolls are pretty much the kind of people you’d expect: dark tetrad types being cruel because they love cruelty.
If he did send it, the police have his DNA at least.
Sort of like how it’s not fair to demonize all women because a few of them turned you down?
You want to whine about how “it’s not fair,” maybe try doing unto others first, skinwaste.
Do kindly fuck off.
I read about this last night and it disturbed me to my core. How can some men hate us so much?
She was a child and… she didn’t even DO anything bad?
Fuck this whole everything is fucked right the fuck up.
Ps. I’m new here. Been reading David’s blog for years but haven’t commented.
@Diego Duarte, kupo, Sheila
I would like to make 3 distinct comments about this topic, as a woman who has always worked in STEM fields, first mathematics and now computer science and engineering.
1) It yields a lot of highly visible sexists and raging incels. Those that combat such problems on purpose do exist, even if some are not perfect, and they are not always women and minorities. I in particular can think of a couple of men that back up their talk with financial opportunities for women, putting their money where their mouth is, so to speak. These men actively lecture about inherent discrimination in big data, and do their best to correct the historical inaccuracy of “men are the sole creators of science”. At times, it has not been a popular opinion for them and they still do it.
This matters because there were no such men (or women, women would throw each other under the bus to get ahead with the men) 15 years ago. In my mathematics graduate program, the department head was the only woman in the department, and she culled every single woman and person of non-white, non-Asian descent from the program. And it was definitely a cull, because white men were not ousted even with the same or lesser performance as women and minorities.
2) The fields have improved, even though they look much worse because of the highly visible nature of the awfulness. I can remember 15 years ago things like a woman physically being chased around an office by a male colleague waving a huge pickle and making comments; jokes made to my face about people getting “raped in the face” and “taking it like a champ”; jokes made to my face about how the Jews deserved the holocaust; many other similar things. Icky white bro culture was the only culture in the office.
Now, the worst I suffer is microaggressions and downgrading (see point below). There is an openly transgender person in my lab, and numerous people of Latin American descent. 30% of the lab is female. 15 years ago, there were 0 openly transgender people (1 closeted, and they later died, I am relatively certain from lack of support), 2 men of Latin American descent, and less than 5% of students were female (and none made it past the PhD cull). Representation has increased, and as a direct consequence, my life sucks less because white bros are not the only culture around. It was indeed the lack of women that provided grounds for unchecked misogyny.
3) It is white men that are the problem, not all men. I have literally never managed to get a good grade from a white professor, and I get A’s and A+’s from every single non-white professor (of which I have had vastly more, so it is easy to identify the pattern). Without exception. You could think “maybe you just suck in those subjects”, but it’s really not that. It’s really white men having a problem with the influx of women and minorities.
Even this has improved from 20 years ago. Now the rationalizations for downgrading women are hidden and can be sometimes combated with a rigorous application of “ok, prove where I went wrong”. 15 years ago, it was a case of a professor openly saying in front of me that he never gave a woman a better grade than a B, and me not being able to do anything about it without getting culled from the program. 8 years ago I was passed over for internships due to gender and not even informed they existed until after the fact, they were given directly to men with less qualifications than I (these were nepotistic faculty internships, guaranteed to go to students of particular faculty). Now I am routinely informed of opportunities and encouraged to take them.
There is change. It is just not highly visible on the outside, but from the inside the misery of being a woman in science and devalued has changed drastically. It’s obviously not vanished and there is much more work to be done, but it is so, so much better than it used to be.