If you have had the good luck not to have heard of the "incel" movement — the one which inspired Monday's terror attack in Toronto — here's a great intro. (h/t Sabrina Weiner)https://www.vox.com/world/2018/4/25/17277496/incel-toronto-attack-alek-minassian …
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Briefly, it's part of a web of recent movements radicalizing alienated men, mostly in the US and Canada, around the idea that women are responsible for all of their problems — and especially the idea of women having autonomy.
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Other terms you may have heard in this context are MRA ("men's rights activist"), PUA ("pick-up artist"), GamerGate (an online hatestorm which helped crystallize this movement), and MGTOW ("men going their own way"). They are all closely related.
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They also have significant overlap with far-right movements, which often try to recruit from the same batch of alienated, young, white men. Reddit and 4chan have been major centers of radicalization, with boards like /pol/ servicing the overlap with Nazis.
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Monday's attack is not, unfortunately, the first mass murder perpetrated in the name of this movement. Elliot Rodgers' 2014 killing spree has made him a sort of idol of the movement, cited in Minassian's final post before going on his own rampage.
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Even since Monday, incel boards have been reporting excitement and adulation, and discussion of further and future attacks. Those of you who have spent time studying terrorist online traffic from groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda will see a very familiar pattern.
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Unlike al-Qaeda, these groups have no central organization; they simply provide the radicalization. In this, they're much more similar to ISIS, which runs very few operations outside its physical territory: mostly, it just encourages others to kill in its name. //
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For those wanting to see a good response to the incel community:https://plus.google.com/+MatthewGraybosch/posts/W3zQ1LyUF7g …
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I was an incel until age 29, and it was largely because I have both autistic spectrum disorder and narcissistic personality disorder, leaving me utterly unable to navigate the fjord of approaching women. This response encompasses disabled men who have no violent ideations.
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