Meet the 'incels', the celibacy movement that may have influenced the Toronto suspect

Moments before he allegedly mowed down a crowd of people on a busy Toronto street, leaving ten dead and wounding 14 others, Alek Minassian posted a short, cryptic message on Facebook.

It referred to mass killer Elliot Rodger - who shot dead six people and wounded 13 others in Isla Vista, California, in 2014 - and cited a group called "incels", a term used to describe men who are "involuntarily celibate" and blame their celibacy on women. 

“Private (Recruit) Minassian Infantry 00010, wishing to speak to Sgt. 4chan please. C23249161,” reads the post. “The Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!”

Canadian police have yet to suggest a motive for the attack (Facebook has since deleted his account), but the post appears to connect Minassian, 25, to the so-called "incel" movement, a deeply troubling, mysogynistic online subculture of almost exclusively men, who either have never had sex or haven't had any in a long time.

Police are yet to confirm whether Minassian's post was real, or in fact an old post which internet trolls placed on his Facebook page in order to mislead the media following the mass killing. 

But if it's true and he is indeed connected to the disturbing subculture, the alleged attack sheds light on the way some lonely, anger-filled men are using internet forums to bolster their personal campaigns against an unfair world which they believe is out to trip them up.

Incels.meis the online forum where many of them gather anonymously to develop an ideology which centers around the belief that the modern world is unfairly stacked against awkward or unattractive heterosexual men. 

Unsurprisingly, it makes for disturbing reading. The site's "Introduction to Inceldom" provides some explanation of the ideology behind the movement, namely that it is "vastly easier for a female to get validation and sex than a male in today's society".

"Unless a female belongs to the bottom percentile in terms of appearance, it’s going to be very hard for them not to be able to find many suitors for any kind of romantic/sexual activity."

An incel, it says, is a person who "can't have sex despite wanting to", and argues that society is set up so that some men can have numerous sexual partners, while others have none, while women get to take their pick in the "sexual marketplace".

Users refer (as Minassian did in his alleged post) to "Chads" and "Stacys" - code for sexually successful men and attractive women. 

Reddit was forced to ban the largest incel subreddit last year for inciting hate. 

In videos and a manifesto, the Isla Vista shooter Elliot Rodger (mentioned in Minassian's alleged post) justified his own mass homicide in 2014 by presenting it as revenge for his own romantic rejections, and the fact that at 22, he was still a virgin.

Incel.me distances itself from "violence, misogyny, or illegal activities of any kind", saying "we do not advocate any illegal activity, nor we allow it on the site." In the past couple of days, a thread titled "[Venting] No apologies" which appears to have formed in direct response to the attack, features users seeming to reject Minassion. "He never posted here, we didn't do anything wrong so no need for an apologise," writes one.

Other posts are more threatening, and cite the "torment" they have personally suffered over the years as a reason not to feel remorseful for what has happened. "Why should I offer my apologies?" writes one user. "When did I ever get an apology for being rejected and ridiculed?"

Administrators on the site say they don't condone violence, but much of the rhetoric on their threads (much of which is too vile to include here) would suggest otherwise. 

The Globe and Mail reported that students who spent time with Minassian at Toronto’s Seneca College described him as a socially awkward tech nerd who was good with computers, and did not appear to have violent tendencies or any strong political or religious ties.

It's all too easy to see how a lonely, angry man could latch onto this community and find support among this band of hate-filled, anonymous men.