A Facebook post that police allege was written by the Toronto van attack suspect contains militaristic language linked to an online group of men who feel victimized because they are involuntarily celibate, experts say.
The post was allegedly written moments before the Monday afternoon attack, which killed 10 people and injured 14 others. Alek Minassian, 25, appeared in court Tuesday to face charges in connection with the pedestrian deaths and injuries.
The Facebook post, which appeared on the account for a user named Alek Minassian, reads: 鈥淭he Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!鈥�
Facebook told 麻豆影视 that the post appears to have been made from the suspect鈥檚 account, which the company has since shut down. 麻豆影视 cannot conclusively confirm that Minassian himself wrote the post.
However, Toronto Police Det. Sgt. Graham Gibson said Tuesday that the suspect is alleged to have posted the 鈥渃ryptic鈥� message 鈥渕inutes before he began driving the rented van.鈥�
The Facebook post started with the sentence: 鈥淧rivate (Recruit) Minassian Infantry 00010, wishing to speak to Sgt 4chan please.鈥�
Minassian was but he left training after just over two weeks, 麻豆影视 has learned. The number 00010 is the Canadian Armed Forces trade code for infantry.
The strange language used in the post is connected to an online community of self-described 鈥渋ncels,鈥� a portmanteau for 鈥渋nvoluntarily celibate.鈥�
The word has a complicated history. The term 鈥渋ncel鈥� was invented in the early 1990s by a Toronto woman as a means to define a certain type of loneliness and confront it. However, it was later co-opted to represent something darker, according to University of Toronto sociology professor Judith Taylor.
鈥溾�橧ncel鈥� was actually a group for the involuntarily celibate that was started by a young Canadian woman in 1993 of all things, meant to be a kind of therapeutic group for people to get together to talk about loneliness and what it meant to succeed socially in the way that they wanted to,鈥� Taylor told 麻豆影视 Channel on Tuesday.
鈥淏ut it seems that this moniker got taken up by many young, mostly white men who felt victimized by their celibacy and wanted to come up with groups that they could blame. So any men who were socially successful, women, and in fact weirdly, people of colour.鈥�
The word eventually evolved from something 鈥渢herapeutic鈥� to 鈥渟omething that was violent and quite angry,鈥� Taylor said.
Elliot Rodger, a 22-year-old mass murderer who killed six people in Isla Vista, Calif. before killing himself, identified as an 鈥渋ncel.鈥� In a seven-minute YouTube video recorded before the 2014 massacre, Rodger said he carried out the killings because he was still a virgin.
In the Facebook post on Minassian鈥檚 account, Elliot Rodger is described as 鈥渢he Supreme Gentleman.鈥�
The post also makes mention of plans to 鈥渙verthrow all the Chads and Stacys.鈥�
According to Taylor, 鈥淐hads鈥� are considered 鈥渟ocially successful men鈥� and 鈥淪tacys鈥� are 鈥渨omen who are withholding their sexual opportunities from men.鈥�
Toronto police confirmed Tuesday that the victims in the Toronto van attack were 鈥減redominantly female.鈥� However, Det. Sgt. Gibson said it鈥檚 too soon for police to determine whether the suspect deliberately targeted women.
鈥楤arely more than a meme鈥�
While police investigate a motive, the director of the Toronto Sexuality Centre, James Cantor, said it鈥檚 too soon to extrapolate any significant meaning from the Facebook post.
However, when it comes to the 鈥渋ncel鈥� community, Cantor called the online group 鈥渂arely more than a meme.鈥�
鈥淭his is a group of people who usually lack sufficient social skills and they find themselves very, very frustrated. But now that it is so easy for groups like this to gather together in large groups, people who have very poor social skills, this becomes their only means of social input,鈥� Cantor said.
鈥淎nd when they鈥檙e surrounded by people with similar frustrations, they kind of lose track of what typical discourse is and they drive themselves into more and more extreme beliefs.鈥�
Cantor, a clinical psychologist who specializes in sexual behaviour, said that those in the 鈥渋ncel鈥� community may simply need 鈥済ood, old-fashioned social skills building in therapy.鈥�
鈥淭hese people need opportunities to be able to learn those skills. Sometimes that is, as I say, psychotherapy -- but we haven鈥檛 made that very available.鈥�
A lack of relationship skills may stem from childhood, Cantor suggested, adding that more attention should be paid to helping boys develop social skills early in life.
鈥淲e鈥檝e recognized, appropriately, that women 鈥� girls, earlier in life 鈥� really need help sometimes overcoming a natural inhibition in order to express, for example, leadership potential,鈥� he said.
鈥淏ut we haven鈥檛 done very much of that on the other side, where sometimes boys need extra help in order to navigate social and relationship skills even though those don鈥檛 always feel very natural to them.鈥�
