Reports that the suspected Toronto attacker was an “incel” — a portmanteau for “involuntarily celibate,” an identifier used as a rallying point for virginal misogynists online — reveal the similarities between this most recent attacker and the man who killed six people in Santa Barbara, California in 2014.

In a Facebook post, Toronto suspect Alek Minassian not only appeared to identify as an “incel” — he actually praised Isla Vista shooter Elliot Rodger as the “supreme gentleman” of a “rebellion” inspired by their shared sexual frustration.

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A Facebook employee confirmed to me on background that the Alek Minassian Facebook post referencing 4chan and "The Incel Rebellion" is real: pic.twitter.com/gdydMBOE0l — jane lytvynenko (away this week) (@JaneLytv) April 24, 2018

Along with being an incel, Rodgers was also an aspiring pickup artist — a phrase used by another community of internet misogynists who believe they can follow formulaic and manipulative “game” strategies to convince women to have sex with them.

Pickup artist and infamous internet celebrity Daryush Valizadeh, better known by the name Roosh V, suggested on Twitter that the Toronto attacker “wouldn’t have killed people with a van if the media had not innoculated him and other lonely men against effective game teachers like myself.”

“Sleeping with only two or three Toronto Tinder sl*ts would have been enough to stop his urge to kill,” Valizadeh said in a tweet posted earlier today.

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https://twitter.com/rooshv/status/988877994650427392

At the core of incel philosophy, an offshoot of the larger “Mens’ Rights Activist” movement, is the concept that male loneliness is the fault of women. They refer to the women who won’t have sex with them as “sl*ts,” “wh*res” and other derogatory terms, and bemoan their seeming preference for muscular, unavailable men they’ve dubbed “Chads.”