"Love is a beautiful thing. But, when it is broken, hell is unleashed"
-unknown
Take a look at the faces in this collage. If you don't know the stories behind these faces, you probably would never know that, collectively, these men have been responsible for more than 200 murders just over the past 50 years.
They were men of many ages; as old as 50 and as young as 11. They were middle schoolers, high schoolers, college graduates, and members of the workforce. Some were even parents of children themselves.
All of these men share something in common: They professed jealousy, envy, and frustrations over their lack of success with females. All of them were, in whole or in part, driven by these frustrations to kill and maim innocent people. All of these men suffered from rejection by girls. All of them felt ostracized at some point in their lives by women. And all of them dealt with their insecurities, their frustrations, and their anguish through terrible acts of violence.
There is Steven Roy Harper, who, after suffering years of rejection by girls, poisoned his ex-girlfriend's lemonade with the highly toxic chemical N-Nitrosodimethylamine, killing her husband and nephew and severely injuring her daughter, sister, and brother-in-law. Harper, who killed himself while awaiting execution for his crimes, had long held a grudge against women in general and his ex-girlfriend in particular for rejecting him, and the poisonings were the climax of a sad life filled with loneliness, hatred, and misery.
There are Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who massacred 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in 1999 before killing themselves. Harris had long had problems interacting with girls, and he had fantasized about kidnapping and raping his female classmates, while Klebold was severely depressed, lovesick over a girl who was not interested in him.
There is Austin Rollins, the 17-year-old boy who, scorned by a 16-year-old girl who did not return his affections, shot and killed her at Great Mills High School, shot and wounded another student, shot at a police officer, and finally committed suicide.
There is Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old man who, frustrated over being a virgin and never having a girlfriend, stabbed, shot, and rammed over a dozen people in Isla Vista, killing six of them, before committing suicide. Rodger left behind a lengthy manifesto in which he railed against women, calling them "sexually deviant" for rejecting him, and he proclaimed a hatred of young couples, fantasizing about killing them with knives.
There is Jaylen Fryberg, the 15-year-old Marysville-Pilchuck High School student who, angry after his love interest instead began dating his cousin, shot and killed her, his cousin, and two other girls before committing suicide.
There is Andrew Wurst, the 14-year-old middle schooler who, rejected by a female classmate he asked out on a date, became furious and began shooting at fellow eighth-grade students attending a middle school dance. Wurst killed one teacher and wounded two students before being apprehended by an armed civilian.
There is George Hennard, the young man who, also distraught and furious with his inability to get a girlfriend, deliberately crashed his truck into a Luby's Cafeteria in Texas and massacred 23 people in a shooting spree before killing himself. During the shooting, Hennard screamed that women were "vipers" and "snakes" who had ruined his life. He deliberately targeted female patrons and called two of them a "bitch" as he shot them.
There is Jakob Wagner, a depressed 18-year-old high schooler who, enraged over not having a girlfriend, fired an SKS rifle at attendants of Antigo High School's senior prom, wounding two people before he was killed in a shootout with responding policemen. Wagner was the only fatality of his attack, but he had intended to kill dozens and his motivations were more than clear.
And there is James Genrich, the mentally unstable man who, in the 1990s, set off pipe bombs all around Grand Junction, Colorado, killing two people, including a 12-year-old girl.
"Valentines Day is coming, and I still don't have a sweetheart, so fuck you all. All I wanted was a girlfriend, but these girls won't talk to me.", wrote Genrich in his journal. "These bitches still won't even talk to me. If I can't be happy, I might as well kill one."
These men were all, in the end, simply different forms of the same killer: The Incel Killer.
Incels, short for "Involuntary Celibates", are nothing new. The Incel subculture is a new phenomenon, yes, but the motivations behind the Incel movement and acts of violence perpetrated in its name have always existed.
I have written about Incels before on this website. In fact, I used to be an Incel myself, and I have chronicled my experiences here. I managed to escape the Incel lifestyle by the age of 17, but my experiences as an ex-Incel have given me a unique window into the frightening world of the Incel movement.
Often, Incels are dismissed as "losers" or "creeps", and it is easy to see why. Incels are often socially ostracized. Many of them suffer from personality disorders or mental impairment which makes it very difficult for them to interact with others, especially women.
But it is social ostracization itself that serves as the fuel for the Incel fire. And the more we ostracize Incels, the worse the problem will become.
I experienced the Incel lifestyle for myself for nearly four years, and I can attest that it is a miserable life. It is a life filled with sadness, depression, despair, self-loathing, and loneliness, interspersed with feelings of anger, rage, extreme jealousy, envy, and hatred not just towards girls, but towards humanity itself.
It is, in the end, a destructive path, not just for other people but for Incels themselves.
It is not by coincidence that so many Incel killers take their own lives at the end of their rampages. At the core of the Incel movement is extreme self-loathing. Incels are always full of self-loathing, and, to deal with it, they project it onto others. They blame the rest of the world for their misery, and they thirst for vengeance for their misfortune.
When I was an Incel, I was consumed by self-hatred. There is nothing worse than feeling like your life is over. This isn't a feeling of disappointment like not winning a sports game or failing a test; this is a feeling that your life itself is over, and that nothing lies ahead save for more misery, more loneliness, more anger, and more sadness.
In the midst of this misery is the compulsion to force the rest of the world to feel your pain. You want to show the world how much you are hurting, how much pain they have caused you, how much agony you are in. You want them to hurt just as much as you are, so that, at last, you can feel some sort of power, some sense of superiority in an otherwise inferior life.
And that, in the end, is why Incels are so prone to violence. They are damaged souls, and the damage can start from as far back as elementary and middle school, as it did with me. Adolescence is a tumultuous time for everyone, especially those who cannot adapt to social situations as easily. Kids break into different social circles, ostracizing those who do not "fit in" to their strict standards.
As I previously recounted, my descent into the Incel movement began when I was in sixth grade when I first began to see couples. By seventh and eighth grade (13-14 years old) I was completely immersed in the Incel lifestyle, consumed by jealousy and anger. It wasn't until I was about 17 that I finally left the movement, but, even to this day, when I think back to my life four years ago, I can still feel the same frustrations, the same anger, and the same agonies that plagued me so much.
Hatred is very difficult to get rid of. It's like a narcotic, in some ways - very easy to get addicted to and a very hard habit to kick. Even if you break the habit, the damage is often already done, and healing from it can take years and lots and lots of effort.
Insulting Incels, calling them "creeps", "lowlifes", "losers", and "trolls" will not fix their problems. Insults weren't what saved me; community was. Love was. Friendship was. Affection, acceptance, assistance, maturity, care - these are the things that saved me from the Incel movement.
And these are the things we need to show to the thousands of troubled young men who are falling prey to the hatred, fear, insecurity, and misery of the Incel movement. Insulting them will not fix anything. It will only aggravate the problem, and more people, Incels and innocent victims alike, will continue to die.
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