Mass Violence and Terrorism since Santa Barbara

Since 2014, multiple perpetrators of mass violence and attempted violence in the United States and Canada have referenced the Santa Barbara perpetrator or been connected to misogynist incel ideology. In the first couple of years following the attack, there was one serious thwarted threat of mass violence, and one successful attack that referenced the 2014 attack: In 2015, the Santa Barbara perpetrator was praised in the manifesto of the Umpqua Community College shooter, who also wrote about his own lack of sexual relationships.¹ (In December 2017 and February 2018, two mass shootings occurred in which the perpetrators had mentioned the Santa Barbara perpetrator positively online, though without indication that misogynist incel ideology motivated them.)

The media awareness of incels changed with the April 2018 Toronto van attack, by a perpetrator who explicitly wrote before killing 10 people, “The Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman [Santa Barbara perpetrator]!”² While most of these perpetrators of mass violence killed themselves at the end of their attacks, the Toronto van perpetrator survived and went on to describe his knowledge of misogynist incel ideology in a police interview (he is now undergoing trial). This attack was followed six months later by a 40-year-old man, who had compared his younger self to the Santa Barbara perpetrator, opened fire at a yoga class in Tallahassee, Fla., killing two women, cementing the new attention to the ideology.³ Any time perpetrators choose spaces associated symbolically with young attractive women, such as a sorority or yoga class, that suggests a misogynist and potentially terrorist motivation, similar to the targeting of synagogues or mosques to represent anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim ideologies.

Military and law enforcement in the United States began to pay more attention to incels following the June 2019 shooting (no fatalities) at the Earle Cabell Federal Building in Dallas, Texas by a perpetrator who had posted memes associated with incel communities.⁴ In Canada, another attack in Toronto in February 2020, in which a man used a machete to kill one woman and injure another who worked at Crown Spa erotic massage, was charged for the first time as incel extremist terrorism.⁵ In May 2020, at the Westgate shopping center in Arizona, a man shot three people while live-streaming video before being arrested. (None of the victims died.) He identified himself as an incel who had been rejected by women, seeking to target couples, to make them feel his pain.⁶ In June 2020, a Virginia bomb-maker was arrested after injuring himself with his own explosives. Investigators found a letter imagining targeting “hot cheerleaders,” with the statement, “I will not be afraid of the consequences no matter what I will be heroic I will make a statement like Elliott Rodgers did.”⁷

While focused on North America, as thus far related mass violence has been geographically circumscribed, the online nature of this movement facilitates its influence across countries with English-speaking populations and should be approached as a transnational threat. In 2020, for instance, a bomb-maker connected to the misogynist incel movement was arrested in Britain.⁸ And a recent report by the Swedish Defence Research Institute found that the United States and United Kingdom were the most common nationalities across incel forums, but that Sweden had the most participants on a per capita ratio.⁹

The question of whether to label acts of misogynist incel violence as terrorism has been ongoing. Namely, the debate centers around both what movements and acts are included under the definition of terrorism as well as the discussions over the pros and cons of labeling a group or an act “terrorist.” Not all attacks perpetrated by misogynist incels should be categorized as terrorist acts; however, acts of mass violence with clear ideological motivations and goals, like the 2014 Santa Barbara attack and 2018 Toronto van attack, fit the category of terrorism. The Santa Barbara perpetrator makes clear that because he “cannot kill every single female on earth,” he plans an attack to create fear and hopes to inspire others.¹⁰

Though misogynist incels are often perceived as a movement without political aims, violent perpetrators have the same type of far-reaching aims that white nationalists have: to completely change the culture and politics of society to favor their own group. Political ideas supported by misogynist incels range from concentration camps for women to mandating government-sponsored girlfriends and enforced monogamy to wiping out most of the existing “alpha” men and women. The Santa Barbara perpetrator had his own vision for an ideal society that his manifesto conveys. The specifics of a political agenda are not cohesively developed for the overall movement; however, they see themselves as an oppressed group that can only improve their situation through a total overthrow and restructuring of society.

Though misogynist incels are often perceived as a movement without political aims, violent perpetrators have the same type of far-reaching aims that white nationalists have.

While incels have taken up a prominent place in popular consciousness since 2018, approaches that remain aware of other forms of male supremacism will be more effective. Some mainstream journalists have erred in attempting to connect unrelated misogynist violence in Europe and North America to incels. In the case of the February 2020 attack in Hanau, Germany by a far-right perpetrator, some outlets rushed to claim the attacker was an incel because of a passage in his manifesto stating that he had not been in a relationship with a woman for 18 years. The manifesto demonstrated misogynist beliefs, but not a connection to incel ideology. As scholars Greta Jasser, Megan Kelly, and Ann-Kathrin Rothermel have written, this focus only on incels obscures the extent to which male supremacism and misogyny animates beliefs and violence outside that specific movement.