Toronto van attack: Inside the dark world of 'incels'
By Jonathan Griffin BBC Trending
1 hour ago
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illustration of a young man with head in hands Image copyright Getty Images
The suspect accused of a deadly van attack in Toronto wrote about an "Incel Rebellion" on Facebook, prompting huge attention on a little-known internet subculture. Who are the young men who frequent incel - short for "involuntarily celibate" - message boards?
"Obviously I don't have much hope of attracting a woman in the first place."
Jack Peterson is a 19-year-old from Chicago. He's one of the thousands of young men who visit forums on Reddit and other incel websites.
"I've had a couple of negative experiences in relationships and so that has made me feel, like you know… it's hard to move on from my past and start a new relationship," he says. "I've had women who have done pretty bad things to me."
These overall themes of failure and frustration - along with anger and hate - are common on incel forums. I spoke to several young men who call themselves incel. They're in their teens or early 20s and many have experienced rejection or negative encounters with women.
They go to message boards out of loneliness. What they find is a group of angry men pushing the idea that they have lost the genetic lottery, and there's almost nothing they can do about it.
Jack has a YouTube channel and a podcast. He is one of very few incels prepared to speak to the media after the Toronto attacks.
Others agreed to speak if I changed their names. They're embarrassed because they're unsuccessful at relationships - but many are also hiding extreme views.
One 19-year-old incel from the UK - I'll call him Liam - has been active on forums from a young age. He's unemployed, and lives at home with his family.
He admits: "I've got this sort of misogynistic view which is not helping me in life, generally."
I ask him directly: does he hate women?
"In some ways, yes," he stutters. "I try not to, but I find myself like - I'll just be talking and I'll say things that I shouldn't really say, just because I've been looking at forums."
Our conversation is stilted, thoughts trail off and silences punctuate our interaction. I ask Liam what kind of things he says in real life that he thinks he shouldn't. He reels off several unprintable insults that he mutters at women. So is this behaviour a result of his time in incel communities?
"I guess I can't actually say if it's related, because when you're younger, you probably wouldn't end up saying those things anyway. But I guess I wouldn't have before.
"It's what these communities are," he adds. "It sucks you in so you get into this echo chamber of people who experience similar problems.
"You think one small [thing]… then you get other people thinking far more radical things. So you then think the small things are acceptable."
The radical things Liam talks about are in plain sight on incel message boards.
