On April 23, 2018, a driver deliberately rammed a rental van into a crowd of people in Toronto’s New York City Centre business district. The attack, which left 10 dead and 16 wounded, was carried out by 25-year-old Alek Minassian – though his reasons for doing so apparently had nothing to do with Islamic extremism as many had erroneously predicted.

Instead, Minassian follows in the footsteps of Elliott Rodger and Christopher Harper-Mercer: mass murderers who identified as “incels” or “involuntary celibates.” They were social outcasts who blamed the popular, good-looking “Chads” and “Stacys” of the world for their sexual inadequacy, and wanted to strike fear into the hearts of the women who rejected them.

After this latest act of terrorism, journalists rightfully zeroed in on the incel community’s gross and violent misogyny. Numerous pieces have been written about their fondness for inflicting pain on women in retaliation for a number of perceived slights. However, the incel community also shares similar views on gender — and race — with at least one other online subgroup: the so-called “alt-right.”

The alt-right is the latest incarnation of America’s white supremacist movement, only much more tech savvy and with a better grasp of pop culture. It’s a bizarre hybrid of anti-Semitism, conspiracies, racism, irony, victimization, and, yes, anti-feminism. Along with the incel community, the alt-right can trace its roots back — at least partially — to the fever swamps of 4chan’s /pol/ and /r9k/ message boards.

Unsurprisingly they both traffic in the same language, sexual psychoses, and beliefs. Take, for example, the forum Incels.me, whose members routinely fantasize about committing rape and acid attacks against women to compensate for not having the sex lives they believe they’re owed.

They rail against “normies” who torment them, and denounce enemies as “cucks” — an insult invented by the alt-right which carries connotations of sexualized racism. Women who have multiple sex partners are called “sluts,” “whores,” and “roasties.” The latter pejorative is derived from the juvenile myth of “tight” and “loose” women whose vaginas supposedly grow to resemble roast beef sandwiches.

(Unfortunately the myth about excessive sex making women “loose” isn’t just prevalent in one or two online communities. Far too many men appear to believe in this nonsense, which is a testament to our failing sex education system.)

The forum has its own podcast, known as the Incelcast, hosted by incels Jack Peterson and Mahlo — along with several guests. In the episode following Minassian’s murder spree, Peterson and Mahlo were joined by forum members mikepence, NKL, and Dilapidated to discuss the tragedy. Let’s just say their reactions weren’t terribly sympathetic.

Mikepence, sounding weirdly detached, said he doesn’t “support these kind of attacks, really” but added that “this is the result of what happens when people are just — especially young, ugly dudes who are just isolated from society completely.” Mahlo asked mikepence what happens when “unattractive” young men are “pushed out of society.” He replied that they tend to gravitate toward websites like /pol/, or engage in violence.

NKL blithely responded that the “attack was bad, I guess.” He blamed “online dating and birth control” for creating a “polygamous society” where “beta” males have no reason to contribute. And he hypothesized that when these same beta males consistently lose out to the Chads — or “alphas” — they become violent because men are hardwired to react that way. “That’s a good point,” said Mahlo. “So violence has an evolutionary benefit.”

To prevent attacks like these mikepence suggested “legaliz[ing] prostitution.” This suggestion is wrongheaded because it fails to take into account the safety of sex workers who probably shouldn’t have to deal with sexually frustrated and violent men who dehumanize women. NKL, on the other hand, suggested “some sort of enforced monogamy,” though he declined to explain what that meant.

Later in the podcast an incel from Toronto going by the name Dilapidated said he was “indifferent about the whole thing.” Although he admitted that it “sucks that people died,” he claimed to have had “a little chuckle” when he saw “one of the roasties” that Minassian murdered. Judging from their response, the Incelcast hosts also found this amusing.

Dilapidated also referred to Toronto as “cuck central,” as well as a “stronghold for all the [men going their own way], and incels, and red pillers.” He told the hosts that it’s “not the place to be right now for ugly dudes.” When asked when he first became “black pilled,” Dilapidated replied that he only harbored these negative feelings since December when he came to terms with his unsuccessful dating life.

The YouTube video for this episode was removed shortly after it aired, prompting an incels.me thread called “[RageFuel] Youtube takes down Incelcast Episode 3.” The first post was by Mahlo, who wrote that he hopes YouTube “rots,” and posted a meme of Pepe the frog screeching. Another user, nklfdnblidnfbli (presumably NKL, one of the show’s guests), gave the video hosting platform the anti-Semitic echo treatment: “(((((((((((((((youtube)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))).” In a separate thread, NKL called it “jewtube.”

Multiple forum members utilize alt-right slogans in their user names. Some choose mass murderers like Ted Bundy, Augusto Pinochet, and Marc Lépine as their avatars. Others opt for Pepe the frog. One poster, Blackpill101, refers to himself as a “Nazicel” and uses a combination of the Iron Cross and totenkopf (“death’s head”) as his avatar. A forum member since November 2017, Blackpill101 currently has over 1,500 posts to his name.

In a recent thread, Blackpill101 claimed that, “The only reason as to why femoids detest far right movements in general is because they’re composed of incel-looking men who want to bring back patriarchal values,” and that, “Hitler lacked pussy throughout his whole life until he gained status.”

He accused the Jews of having “destroyed the US (as a group) and promoted ideologies that have harmed incels.” (His posts carry the tagline “Remove Degeneracy. Smash International Jewry.”)

In another thread he complained about being an incel despite having blonde hair and blue eyes, and said “females are repulsed by my face.” He describes himself as having “acne scars, a bloated face, blonde hair, and blue eyes.” But he still pins the blame on women, whom he calls “beasts that need supervision.”

Another forum member gave himself the name “Richard spencer” in honor of the alt-right leader. In a thread titled “Is there anything more hilarious than a woman getting raped by a refugee?”, spencer replied, “Yes a woman getting raped by two refugees.”

When another forum member asked if he should attend his high school reunion, spencer told him to attend and “go ER” (“Elliot Rodger”) — a shooting spree, that is. He also claimed that Rodger was “justified” in killing 6 people in cold blood.

And spencer celebrated the Toronto attack as well. In a thread started by eliotrogerhere called “Happy to see dead normies but I hope the next shooter throws in a rape or two,” spencer agreed with the sentiment. “100% and whoever gets the highest rape count gets his name enshrined like ER,” he wrote.

Upon learning that most of Minassian’s victims were women he crowed, “Fuck yes any pics of the dead Roastie cunts.” Responses by other members included “Lool nicely done,” “Based Alek, he did a good job,” “Femoids,” and “I guess you could say he finally did slay some pussy.” FeminismsCancer — a slogan coined by alt-right promoter Milo Yiannopoulos — responded with “Kek I’m dead.”

And it isn’t just incels mimicking the language of the alt-right. Alt-righters have responded in kind, borrowing incel community slurs like “roastie.” Take, for example, the YouTube personality Naked Ape. In a May 28, 2017 video titled “Why Women Ruin Everything / Feminism Destroys Civilization,” Naked Ape went on a prolonged and unhinged rant about promiscuous women who want to be treated like “princesses.”

“Have you ever seen anything more disgusting than modern women?” he asked with audible disdain. “And to preface I’d like to add that this isn’t all women. There are plenty of good women out there, but there are a huge amount of modern women who are self-serving, selfish, stuck-up morons.” He complained that women were no longer held up to “some kind of social standard.”

Of modern women he said:

Women decided that instead of settling down and building a family, they were going to use the prime fertile years of their life getting an education and sleeping around with as many men as they could. Going to clubs where 20% of men get 80% of the women. They rode the cock carousel of Chad and pals, and then they expect to find the alpha Chad to pick up her emotional wreck of a life at the big 3-0 and treat her like she’s a little princess. But the problem is, they aren’t princesses anymore, and alpha Chads are using her as a pump-and-dump no-call, because astonishingly most men aren’t going to cuck themselves to female expectations and support their degenerate 20s lifestyle. Most men aren’t going to treat an unmarried woman in her 30s like a princess, because, chances are, you’re not a princess. You’re a roastie. A dirty, little roastie.

Like Milo Yiannopoulos before him, Naked Ape is extremely misogynistic and openly gay — he brings up his sexual orientation in the aforementioned video preemptively fend off accusations of not being able to get laid with a woman. He’s also a supporter of scientific racism, arguing in YouTube debates — where he comes off as petulant and uninformed — that The Bell Curve demonstrates that black people are less intelligent than whites.

Then there’s Black Pigeon Speaks (“BPS”), a racist and anti-Muslim vlogger who resides in Japan, bemoaned women’s suffrage and their apparent disloyalty to their “tribe.”

In a video with a nearly identical title to that of Nake Ape’s, BPS claimed that women “throughout history have shown time and time again they’re quick to seek the favors of men they feel are stronger and more dominant, whether they’re part of their in-group or not.”

Using the example of women in Nazi-occupied France and Belgium who carried on relationships with German soldiers, BPS noted, approvingly, that these women were punished after the war.

“Now, not only are women not punished for inviting alien and unassimilatable armies of men into the West, they then vote for parties that force the entire society to have its national wealth redistributed to this army of aggressive and hostile men,” he said, referring to non-white and non-Christian refugees.

He went on to say:

The entire basis of Western society was the male agreement to keep only one woman in public, so that every male has near equal chance at reproduction. It’s for this reason that organized and advanced civilizations have always needed to agree on the equitable distribution of women so as to incentivize its men to produce and have a stake in the society’s health and security. But this, like other cultural arrangements that held the West together for centuries, is breaking down, and can be observed in something as basic as the fact there are no Western countries that are even at replacement levels in their birth rates.

This is precisely the point that the Incelcast participants were trying to make when arguing for either legalized prostitution or some vague form of state-enforced monogamy. And like Naked Ape, BPS went on to repeat the same claim that the “top 20% of men” were ending up with 80% of the women, thereby hastening the death of Western society.

And who are the “top 20% of men” in this case? BPS refers to them as “scoundrels,” though the incel community might refer to them as the “bad boys.” As BPS put it, “many women seek out aggressive men, whether consciously or not.” He called it a trait that has been “ground into women after countless years of our species’ evolution.” According to BPS, women prefer “criminals, gangsters, and mass murderers” over “hard-working, honest men.”

As he told his viewers: “Think of how many women throw themselves at drug dealers versus, for example, math teachers. Sexual attraction is based on this reality for many women, regardless of whether they admit it or not.”

And there’s Relampago Furioso, a PUA/alt-right blogger for the male supremacist website Return of Kings (“RoK”). On his own blog, The New Modern Man, Furioso writes that, “We Red Pillers know women are only interested in male utility. We’re not viewed as human beings in female eyes. Only something to be consumed.” An ironic complaint given his blog runs a feature called “Eye Candy of the Week.”

Interspersed throughout his posts condemning feminism are ones promoting the alt-right “white genocide” myth. In one post he writes, “It’s no secret the white race is dying off. The U.S. is nearly conquered demographically and Europe will be Muslim by the turn of the century.”

And like BPS, Furioso believes that, “Nothing turns women on more than a murderous psychopath.” Citing the fan mail received by Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz, Furioso concludes that “female psychology is that dark,” and “letting female instincts run wild will totally wreck a civilization.” He also concluded — based on a Heritage Foundation study — that “Anglobitches who have been around the block more times than the Good Humor man don’t make good bets for marriage”:

One would think that as women’s sexual options wane with their breasts sagging and behinds drooping with each passing year, along with the prospect of becoming a genetic dead end as eggs die in their womb they’d settle down and be grateful that any man was investing himself in such a depreciating ASSet. But, that just isn’t the case. The more sausage they’ve had, the less likely the hapless Beta male who marries one of them is to have a successful marriage. This is true even for women about to hit The Wall or who have already impacted with it. Similar trends are seen among younger women who marry, and although there is a little more statistical noise the trend lines reveal the same sad fact: More cocks before the vows, less marital fidelity after the vows. Marrying an Empowered™ slut comes at an extreme risk to your finances, personal property, and dignity.

If this sounds strikingly similar to Naked Ape’s rant about “dirty, little roastie” women turning 30 and desiring to be treated as “princesses,” that’s because denigration of women’s sexuality plays a significant factor in both the incel and alt-right communities.

Although alt-righters want women to become more “traditional” and less promiscuous, incel opinions vary. Some, like the alt-right, want limitations on female sexuality to control what they call the “sexual marketplace.” Others want the option of turning to sex workers to lose their virginity.

Of course, these are far from the only examples of the Venn diagram overlap between the alt-right and incels. Stefan Molyneux, a YouTube ranter with an utterly bizarre fixation on single mothers, consistently dabbles in pseudoscience surrounding race and IQ. He has been viewed by many as a gateway to the alt-right.

Pickup artist James Weidmann of Chateau Heartiste writes blog posts dripping with racism, anti-Semitism and misogyny. Roosh Valizadeh, the pickup artist behind the RoK website, has become increasingly hostile to Jews. Although Molyneux, Weidmann, and Valizadeh are not themselves incel, they traffic in the same misogynistic beliefs about dating, sex, and women as the incel community.

Even Elliot Rodger, nicknamed the “Supreme Gentleman” by incel and alt-right fans, had a disturbing preoccupation with race. In his lengthy manifesto, Rodger recounted his horror after learning that a black acquaintance of his lost his virginity to a blonde-haired, white teenage girl:

How could an inferior, ugly black boy be able to get a white girl and not me? I am beautiful, and I am half white myself. I am descended from British aristrocracy. He is descended from slaves. I deserve it more. I tried not to believe his foul words, but they were already said, and it was hard to erase from my mind. If this was actually true, if this ugly black filth was able to have sex with a blonde white girl at the age of thirteen while I’ve had to suffer virginity all my life, then this just proves how ridiculous the female gender is. They would give themselves to this filthy scum, but they reject ME? The injustice!

On the website PUAHate (now SlutHate), Rodger reportedly posted angry messages about seeing non-white men with white women, including “this black guy chilling with 4 hot white girls” and “an Indian guy with 2 above average White Girls!!!” On a bodybuilding forum he also wrote that his goal was to “get a beautiful, white girl.” These racist ramblings helped the Southern Poverty Law Center in classifying Rodger as the first true alt-right killer.

It is important for hateful, underground communities like the incel movement to be followed extremely closely. Their anti-woman ravings can easily translate into real world violence against women as we’ve seen time and time again. But we should be mindful of the many ties to other extremist online movements that influence them. That includes the white supremacist alt-right and other fringe groups.