The Toronto van attack that left 10 people dead earlier this week is shedding light on a dark corner of online discussion boards where misogynistic men who refer to themselves as “Incel,” or involuntarily celibate, meet to denigrate women.
A Facebook post that appeared on accused killer Alek Minassian’s now-deleted account around the time of the attack Monday said an “Incel Rebellion” had begun and referred to the website 4chan, which hosts a discussion board that frequently includes comments by self-professed Incels.
Toronto police said the post is a focus of their investigation.
On Tuesday, police charged Mr. Minassian, 25 years old, with 10 counts of first-degree murder and 13 counts of attempted murder for allegedly driving a van through crowded Toronto sidewalks. Officials haven’t confirmed the identities of those killed in Monday’s attack, but police said most of the victims were women and they are investigating whether that was deliberate.
In his Facebook post, Mr. Minassian wrote: “We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliott Rodger!,” according to Facebook and an archived copy of the page reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Elliott Rodger killed six people near Santa Barbara, Calif., in 2014. Before his attack, the 22-year-old posted a video on YouTube saying he would “slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up blond” in a University of California Santa Barbara sorority house because women had rejected him.
People who call themselves Incels and post to internet forums—usually anonymously or using pseudonyms—have developed their own vocabulary. “Chads” refer to conventionally attractive men who are romantically successful, while “Stacys” describe the women who choose them.
The Incel name has its roots in a webpage started by a bisexual woman in Canada in 1993 seeking to create a safe space for lonely individuals, and the term was later co-opted by extremists and misogynists, said Amarnath Amarasingam, of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based research organization.
Mr. Amarasingam said online Incel forums were secretive and anonymous, but added that they appeared to be all white men.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, said Incels are “part of the online male supremacist ecosystem.”
“They are one of the more extreme poles,” said Keegan Hankes, a senior research analyst at SPLC. He said people claiming to be Incels have been linked with two mass-casualty events in the past four years.
One poster on a 4chan message board said sexually active women were to blame for Monday’s attack, because they wouldn’t sleep with the suspect. Several others expressed dismay that violence had been discussed on the forum.
On Tuesday, police escorted the handcuffed Mr. Minassian into an Ontario courtroom. When asked if he understood the charges, Mr. Minassian responded with a loud “yes.” His lawyer, Georgia Koulis, told the court she needed more time to speak with her client before he responded.
People who knew the suspect described him as socially awkward. Elliott Tencer, who attended the same high school as Mr. Minassian, said that Mr. Minassian had participated in a special-education program at Thornlea Secondary School in the Toronto area, where he often twiddled his fingers and made sounds like a cat meowing.
The school didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Before the attack, Mr. Minassian had been studying software development at Seneca College, according to a classmate. He had enlisted in the Canadian armed forces in 2017, said Canada’s Department of Defense. A spokeswoman for the department said he left voluntarily after 16 days of recruit training.
