Facebook post linked to Toronto van attack points to insular, misogynistic world of 'incels'
The deadly van attack in Toronto is shining a spotlight on the controversial, often misogynistic world of "incels."
The term incel is short for "involuntarily celibate," and the community that uses the label is typically dominated by men voicing frustration online about their lack of sexual relationships, sometimes blaming women for their failures with the opposite sex.
Toronto police said Tuesday that Alek Minassian, the 25-year-old suspected of driving the van that plowed into pedestrians on a busy stretch of Yonge Street in Toronto's north end Monday, killing 10 people, is alleged to have published "a cryptic post on Facebook minutes before he began driving the rented van."
Minassian has been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder and 13 counts of attempted murder. Fourteen people remain in hospital.
"Private (Recruit) Minassian Infantry 00010, wishing to speak to Sgt 4chan please. C23249161. The Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys. All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!" reads the post.
Facebook confirmed the authenticity of the public post, created under a profile on the social networking site belonging to an Alek Minassian that has since been deleted by the company.
"It's something that we'll take into account in this investigation," Toronto Police Det.-Sgt. Graham Gibson said of the post, before declining to speculate on a motive.
Police said the victims in Monday's attack were "predominantly women."
Incel group banned on Reddit
Members of the incel community are active on online platforms associated with the alt-right, said Maxime Fiset, a former neo-Nazi who now works at the Montreal-based Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence and tracks websites espousing extreme or violent views.
Alt-right is an umbrella term, coined by U.S. by white supremacist Richard Spencer, used to refer to a movement that takes in elements of the far-right and white-nationalism and has been associated with misogynistic and homophobic views.
In the incel community, "Chad" is a name used as a stand-in for conventionally attractive men who always seem to succeed with women while "Stacys" are unattainable women who always turn them down.
A number of incel-related posts have idolized Elliot Rodger, a 22-year-old California man who killed six people and injured a dozen more during a deadly rampage in Isla Vista, Calif., in 2014.
In the wake of that attack, police found a trail of YouTube videos and a 140-page manifesto in which Rodger ranted against women and lamented the fact he remained a virgin in college.
The term incel grabbed headlines last November when the online discussion platform Reddit banned the community and its main thread — r/Incels — for violating its policy against content that glorifies or incites violence.
At the time, the group had more than 40,000 members.
"It's a very toxic environment of people who seem to be disfranchised with society and who may, [or] who have actually, in the past, tried to seek revenge against society or those they think are responsible for their ills," said Fiset.
He said the majority of people who are active in incel groups are not violent, but the online forums can sometimes act as incubators for radicalization by justifying the ideologies being shared among members.
"They have this huge resentment towards society and women, mostly women, because they feel that women are rejecting them even though they see themselves as nice guys. And that is the feeling of injustice that can fuel radicalization," Fiset said.
Sociologist discusses what might drive alienated men to commit acts of violence:
The origins of the word "incel" can reportedly be traced back to a Canadian woman known in the media by only her first name, Alana.
Alana told Elle magazine in 2016 that she came up with the term while trying to find a label for her own sexual identity and create an inclusive online space for people who didn't fit the conventional pattern of adult sexual experiences and relationships.
"I was trying to create a movement that was open to anybody and everybody," she told the magazine.
'High degree of misogyny'
Aditi Natasha Kini is a New York-based journalist who wrote about incel culture for the news website Vice — and faced a deluge of harassment and threats online as a result.
She describes incels as cisgender heterosexual men who haven't had sex — "not out of choice."
"On the surface, incel sounds harmless," Kini told CBC Radio's As it Happens . "It sounds like someone who is trying to make sense of why they cannot connect with other people."
But, she says, there's "a high degree of misogyny" in the "self-created" incel community.
"There is a growing faction of men who have found outlets for their anger against women and dating culture in general online. And that's been codified into a sort of indoctrination," she said.
"They have lingo. They have educative documentation. And I think it just reifies and confirms itself [or] establishes itself through these echo chambers online."
According to Kini, such communities intentionally leave out women and gay people because they believe those groups have easier access to sex.
Incels, on the other hand, believe themselves to be so undesirable that they'll never be successful when it comes to love or sex "because of how they were born and how they look," she said. Gaining dating experience or learning pick-up techniques won't help, they believe.
Kini said she's seen a lot of discussion about revenge in such communities, including in the wake of Monday's attack. Others, she said, were questioning whether Minassian was a true "incel" or rather someone simply looking to tarnish the group's name.
"It just hard to parse how much people are saying things to be trolls [or] how much they mean it," she said.
Little else is known about Minassian, who is from Richmond Hill, Ont., and was attending Seneca College int he north of Toronto.
The Department of National Defence confirmed Tuesday that the 25-year-old joined the Canadian Forces last August and was 16 days into his basic training before he requested to be voluntarily released.
A senior official with the Forces said Minassian wasn't adapting to military life, including in matters of dress, deportment and group interactions in a military setting but that "there were no red flags and nothing that would point to anything like this."
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Honestly had never heard the term incel prior to this happening, just goes to prove there's sites out there for everyone.
ooops wrong article
I only saw this term a few days ago on Face Book where someone had written an article about it.
These "men" called themselves incels because they want to have sex but think they can't. The problem is, they're not trying. It's easier to sit back and feel sorry for yourself than it is to actually do something to change your life.
So right, these guys spend their time complainiung about women not responding to them, but doing nothing to make themselves a possibly attractive romantic partner. And now we are int his day and age where people on the edge consider it acceptable to murder others over their frustrations. I turly believe that this is the end that needs to be addressed. Why is it okay to do murder in these people's minds?
If I had the answer to that, I would share it with you and then we could go preach it to the world
Obviously, they blame women instead of considering that they have a problem that makes them unattractive as a partner. These people have serious mental health problems.
Of course they do.
What do you want to bet the first impression you get from them is "insecure" and "lack of confidence".
Exactly they are introverts who can't communicate. This guy wasn't hideous looking but they have either confidence problems or they are very arrogant and believe that they deserve sex if they pay for her dinner.
I had an ex-boyfriend say that on Facebook. He said that there was nothing different between paying for a prostitute and a date. He said that he paid for sex because of dinner and a movie.
LOL, the 'you pay for it, one way or the other' school of thought. That's someone looking to get laid, not someone looking for a relationship. Probablt god that you sent him on his way (if you did).
It was a long distance relationship but I got tired of his games. It was almost impossible to hold a conversation with him and he always wanted phone sex. I put up with it for a few months and then moved on. He is a decent guy and has some money but he wasn't that good and money isn't attractive to me.
Their idea of foreplay most likely is "Get in the truck bitch."
Can't argue with you, well said.
Just goes to show you, there are people out there with some ODD ISSUES !
Yep it does
I had never heard of this ''group'' before this article. WTH, I have no empathy for them. They bring on their isolation themselves.
Grow the hell up losers.
I've done a little reading on this guy and his lack of success had more to do with his being socially awkward, introverted and uncommunicative. He should have addressed these issues rather than try blame a conspiracy of Chads and Stacy's.
I've seen memes about incels on various sites. I had to look up the meaning.
Oh jesus, these bitches again? All they do is blame everyone else for the fact that they are fuckin losers and have done nothing in life to improve themselves. Essentially they are just looking for a handout from women, pretty pathetic.
They are the future rapists of America if they don't get some help.
I first heard about these groups after the Isla Vista shootings by Elliott Rodger. I remember reading a few comments on Facebook that some women should have "taken one for the team", or similar. And that's just scary. It means these guys actually have sympathizers - people who think that some women should risk their own safety (because we all know these guys are likely to be abusive in any relationship they DO manage to have) by having sex with a guy who will literally kill people who don't want to have sex with him, along with the men with whom they do consent to sex.
It seems to me that these killings qualify as terrorist acts. They themselves have declared a "revolution".