This Twitter Thread Explains The Chilling Alt-Right Movement That May Have Inspired Toronto Attack

A viral Twitter thread breaks down the link between the alt-right’s misogyny and violence

A few minutes before Alek Minassian killed ten Toronto pedestrians with his van, he allegedly took to Facebook and celebrated another murderer. “All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!” he reportedly wrote in a since-deleted post, referencing a man who killed six people and wounded eight at University of California, Santa Barbara. There’s a pretty clear link that connects these two killers to each other — and it seems to boil straight down to misogyny.

Before Rodger committed mass murder, he wrote a 107,000-word essay all about his virginity which, he claimed, was still intact because of “the cruelness of women.” Meanwhile, Minassian’s alleged Facebook post seems to speak directly to Rodger’s mission, which was to cause pain and suffering to people who (they believe) have sex lives.

“Private (Recruit) Minassian Infantry 00010, wishing to speak to Sgt 4chan please. C23249161,” the Facebook post reportedly read. “The Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!”

This whole disturbing concept of Incels, Chads, and Stacys was broken down in a Twitter thread by Arshy Mann, a journalist at Daily Xtra. It is disturbing, horrifying, and will make you feel sick to your stomach.

Basically, “Incel” means “involuntary celibate.” These men say that women won’t have sex with them because of their looks and personality. There’s a whole online community where they gather to bash women.

They refer to good looking women who have sex as “Stacys” and good looking men who have sex as “Chads.”

Mann noted that topics in these chat group include “acid attacks and mass rapes.”

He also offered up some in-depth reading suggestions, if you want to learn more about this whole “Incel” ideology and its connection to the alt-right movement.

According to David Futrelle, a writer for We Hunted The Mammoth, members of this community are celebrating Minassian’s mass murder, and discussing tactics for future attacks.

“In an assortment of threads that popped up after the news media began to report on a supposed Facebook post from Minassian announcing that ‘the Incel Rebellion has … begun,’ some of the Incels.me regulars are celebrating the killings and the alleged killer as ‘life fuel’ for them and their nihilistic, misogynistic, misanthropic ‘movement,’” Futrelle wrote.

While this is an unfortunate reality worth knowing about, it seems like — for right now — all focus should be on the ten people who lost their lives in this completely senseless, hate-filled act of violence.