Toronto Van Attack: INCEL

In a nearly three-hour-long interview between Det. Rob Thomas and the man accused of driving a rental van on a busy Toronto sidewalk we got insight on the driver's frustrations with women and his inability to attract a partner.

"I would say that sometimes I am a bit upset that they choose to date obnoxious men instead of gentlemen," he said in the interview.

He then speaks about 4Chan — an online anonymous image board — where he engaged in conversations with others about his anger with women and being a part of the involuntary celibate ("incel") community, an underground online community that lives primarily on the dark web.

Experts have been studying the proliferation of the incel community for several years.

Mike Halpin, an associate professor at Dalhousie University, said the term was coined in 1997, when a Canadian woman who only went by her first name, Alanna, began a support group online for people struggling to form relationships.

"It was more about the kind of frustrations and complications with wanting a romantic partner, not being able to have one. Over time, the community became more and more populated by men and also more and more by people who were upset and angry about being alone," he said. The incel community then started popping up on places like 4chan and Reddit, he explained.

Halpin has been studying the incel community for several years and this episode of What happened to... Erica Vella speaks with Mike Haplin about the complex subculture of the incel community; she also finds out if the community has grown and learns more about other incel-inspired attacks. She also speaks with experts about incidents of gender-based violence that continue to increase across North America. 

Contact:

Email: erica.vella@globalnews.ca

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