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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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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Similar to the alt-right's fascination with "cucks."
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Fascinating & disturbing... emphasis on race is misguided, methinks... rather, the angst seems to focus on 'alpha' & 'beta' vis-a-vis sexual prowess/pecking order. This has been complicated by the last several 100yrs of globalization, of course (hence the weird racist overtones)?
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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Why don’t they all just screw each other. If they kill off all women, they won’t have anyone but other incels left to bang anyway. Chaos wld ensue because they’d be no one left to hate, so they’d turn on each other.
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It's almost like there are 70mil fewer women than men in Asia
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Why is that? Sex selecting via abortion due to the massive devaluing of female children. While I believe abortion, when it occurs, SHOULD be a woman's choice, societies with such deep hatred of females have a lot of work to do.
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Oh, I know. I kinda hoped that the current crisis will make them reevaluate their attitudes towards women but reality has proven me wrong. Sadly
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It's also instructive that
#incels don't just hate women, they hate OTHER MEN who have sex. How INSANELY egotistical is that? Instead of thinking, "that guy looks so happy with that woman, I'm going to try to learn what he's doing" they seethe with hatred at those men. -
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Changes to what? What obstacles?
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