For the past little while, I've been working on a piece about Toronto's relationship to the alt-right, especially the "manosphere." Unfortunately that research has become relevant. I'm going to share as much as I can here for people who may not be familiar with these movements.
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"Incel" was a term actually coined by a queer Toronto woman in the 90s to give a name to how she was feeling at the time. It morphed into something horrific. "I can't uninvent this word, nor restrict it to the nicer people who need it." https://www.elle.com/culture/news/amp34512/woman-who-started-incel-movement/ …
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Self-described incels today are almost entirely men who are laser-focused on their inability to have sex & blame women. Of the manosphere communities, incels are the most virulently misogynistic.
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Incels have a variety of memes & tropes that they return to constantly, such as "Stacy" (attractive women who have sex) & "Chad" (attractive men who have sex). Non-incels are described as "normies" & they're also derided.
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Elliot Rodger, the Isla Vista shooter, is worshipped (semi-ironically, but also semi-seriously) as a kind of god. His manifesto is shared & quoted & he's constantly deployed as a meme. https://www.facebook.com/SupremeGentlemanMemes/?ref=br_rs …
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Incels differ in important ways from Men's Rights Activists. While both movements are misogynistic at their core, MRAs deploy a human rights framework to argue men are oppressed. Incels don't talk about rights, they just hate.
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Incel language is often explicitly racist & they can be especially focused on interracial relationships. That element of racial panic is prominent in Elliot Rodger's manifesto.
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There are a number of online destinations where incels gather and are radicalized. /pol/ on 4chan. r/incels on Reddit was popular before it was shutdown. They moved to r/braincels, but it's not as widely used. Also SlutHate, the forum where Elliot Rodger posted (formerly PUAHate)
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Incels often play out violent fantasies online. People who report on the community, like
@DavidFutrelle, have been trying to warn us that more incels will turn those fantasies into reality. Even now they're talking about acid attacks & mass rapes.http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2018/04/24/incels-hail-toronto-van-driver-who-killed-10-as-a-new-elliot-rodger-talk-of-future-acid-attacks-and-mass-rapes/ …Show this thread -
The path to radicalization for incels often starts with the Red Pill/Pick-Up Artist communities. They try to utilize the pseudo-scientific/dehumanizing seduction techniques, still can't get laid & become infuriated. That's the path Elliot Rodger went down.
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To clarify, the manosphere is a catch-all term that refers to a number of online male communities that overlap, branch off, interface & oppose each other in complicated ways. It includes pick-up artists, men's rights activists, incels, men going their own way etc.
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An important point: if Minassian was an incel & the author of that Facebook post, his attack should probably be described as terrorism, although the lone wolf variety. Incels have an ideology & the goal is to terrorize women & "normies."
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Incels & the broader manosphere are an important component of what we've come to think of as the alt-right (depending on your definition of that term). Misogyny is the most common gateway drug to other forms of hate.https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/14/13576192/alt-right-sexism-recruitment …
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There's a lot more to say on this topic, and we still don't have all the information about yesterday's attack, so I'll just end with a few recommendations for further reading.
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To better understand the rise of these toxic masculine online subcultures & how they interface with one another & the rest of the alt-right, @AngNagle's book "Kill All Normies" is an invaluable resource. https://www.amazon.ca/Kill-All-Normies-Culture-Alt-Right/dp/1785355430/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524591601&sr=8-1&keywords=kill+all+normies …
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4chan & the "ironic-but-not-really" brand of hatred it created is a big part of the incel story. For a primer on how that platform evolved, read
@DaleBeran's essay.https://medium.com/@DaleBeran/4chan-the-skeleton-key-to-the-rise-of-trump-624e7cb798cb …Show this thread -
To really understand incels & the manosphere, you have to dive into the archives of "We Hunted the Mammoth."
@DavidFutrelle has been following this stuff for years.http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/Show this thread -
For a more crowdsourced approach to understanding incel culture specifically, take a look at r/inceltears.https://www.reddit.com/r/IncelTears/
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Not getting laid terrorism. You’ve gotta be kidding me?! People dying for this?! Life is crazy.
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So crazy. Next it’ll be the moustache haters or killing for eye colour. Messed.
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did he say all men are incels? all hes doing is putting the spotlight on a community that's been relatively ignored by most people, and really shouldn't be bc they're dangerous.
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I guess guitar guy didn't ment to criticize ArshyMann but the Incels themselves. They are the ones looking for a stupid excuse to be assholes, instead of looking for a therapy to get over their frustration
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oh, well that makes more sense.
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