In the weeks since the Toronto van attack, Alek Minassian, the 25-year-old man
now facing 10 countsof first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder, has been cast as a symbol of toxic masculinity, a “disturbed individual attempting to exorcize private demons” and a “random loon.”
Was Minassian a true believer in the misogynist incel movement referenced in a screed posted to his Facebook account shortly before the van attack, or a vulnerable mind who fell under the influence of hateful online message boards? Or was he something else entirely?
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As news of the attack spread and Minassian was publicly identified as the suspect, reporters unearthed a disturbing message posted to his Facebook page around the time of the attack: “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!”
“Incels” are an online subculture of men who are “involuntarily celibate” and frustrated by their inability to find romantic relationships or sex. In their world, “Chads and Stacys” are people who have no issues finding sexual partners. Some incels idolize Elliot Rodger, a 22-year-old California man who killed six people and himself in 2014 after recording a YouTube video vowing “revenge against humanity,” especially the women who rejected him.
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A Facebook spokesperson verified the post as authentic. Toronto police could not confirm whether Minassian wrote it, but a military source told the Star that the number cited — C23249161 — was his military service number. Police said they are investigating all aspects of his online activity.
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People who call themselves incels feel “despair, depression, frustration and a loss of confidence” when they fail to have successful sexual relationships, researchers from Georgia State University concluded in a 2001 study of members of an online incel community — the majority of whom were young, white and male. Since the study, which looked at an early and somewhat more innocent community of incels, the movement has grown with internet availability and the popularity of social media, and has become increasingly extreme and hateful.
After the attack, a user on one forum popular with incels — Incels.me — changed his avatar to a picture of Minassian and wrote: “The incel revolution has begun.” A forum administrator later wrote a message saying that Minassian has never posted on Incels.me and “as far as we are concerned, no one on the forum heard of him before these latest news.” The administrator said being an incel has “no relation” to violence or misogyny, but the dark corners of the internet where incels gather are full of hateful messages and threats of violence toward women.
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Dr. Jessica Jones, a professor of psychiatry at Queen’s University who specializes in autism spectrum disorders, said that while people on the spectrum are no more likely to commit violent crimes than anyone else, they are, generally, more vulnerable to influence.
They tend to have trouble interpreting the intent of others in conversation, along with a black-and-white thinking style that leads them to struggle with the conflicting messages we receive in day-to-day life, Jones said.
“This difficulty with social navigation and reading others — especially when we tend to say one thing, do another and mean something else — can influence individuals with ASD to seek out others who are less ambiguous in their social communication, either positive or negative,” she said.
Susceptible to isolation and social withdrawal, people with autism sometimes gravitate to the internet “for a way of connecting to others without the confusion of our ‘social puzzle’ in the real world,” Jones said.
“Unfortunately, they can also be exploited for their vulnerability in not reading the true motivation of their audience.”
