I’d disagree with new level on the rental van.
See: McVeigh, Timothy and that incidentally in Nice, France.
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10 dead, 15 injured.
Apparently, there’s a social media post about an incel rebellion against chads? Sounds like the dark side of reddit has hit the streets of Toronto…
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You mean from the perpetrator? Do you have a link?
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Here’s the best I could find on the net:
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The scary thing is, I trace my path back to high school, and then forward again… I can see myself having become one of those Incel people.
There was a time when I was very lonely, and very angry about it, and very stupid. I felt I was owed romance, entitled to it, and I felt betrayed by certain specific women for not providing it to me. Had I found such a community at exactly the wrong time…
I don’t think I’d ever have murdered people, in that darker timeline, but I can see an alternate version of myself as a card-carrying member of that community.
Thankfully, I’m not as angry now. Still lonely, and still stupid (although in different and more exciting ways), but that particular window has long since closed.
(On a completely different note, I find it amusing that the word my phone suggests to go after “stupid” is “autocorrect.”)
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I thought “Incel” sounded familiar.
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I was just about to post something similar. Probably the majority of young people go through periods of loneliness and feeling unfairly rejected, although men seem to react with violence far more often than women. In my case I didn’t feel as if I was owed romance, more that maybe I wasn’t worthy of it, but I did feel resentment for what I felt was poor treatment by a couple of women. My reaction was to withdraw, not to lash out.
This was in pre-internet days, so I was never exposed to some sociopath telling me I should feel rage and seek revenge for my pain. The incel movement sounds horribly toxic to anyone in that vulnerable state.
I feel about cases like this the way I feel when I hear of a young person committing suicide. I want to go back in time, grab them and say, “Look, you’re at the bottom now. Wait a day, a week, something will happen and you won’t feel this way.” This, of course, is the message of the “It gets better” campaign, but it doesn’t only apply to LGBT youth.
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Yeah… There is certainly an undercurrent in Western culture that romantic relationships are based upon a meritocracy, and that if you don’t have one, it’s because you’re somehow unworthy of love. It’s part of my self-esteem issues to this day.
Exactly. One of the many problems here is that before the Internet, withdrawing meant disconnecting from this kind of influence; with this kind of community existing, though, it can become a place someone can withdraw to, where the unhealthy attitudes can be reinforced and fostered to the point where lashing out becomes an acceptable option.
I can pretty much pinpoint two or three moments, as a teenager, when I would have been the most vulnerable to this kind of movement, and I’m incredibly grateful that I didn’t come across it at the time.
I’m not so sure that’s the message that needs to come across. I think the message needs to be something more to the effect of “You can be a complete, happy person alone.” In a world where society seems to demand that you have a romantic partner, but doesn’t provide one, it’s easy to feel outraged about that. It needs to be reinforced that making close friends can stave off the worst of the loneliness, and that the “Everyone must be paired off” attitude is a relic of a world where “Be fruitful and multiply” was both a sociological necessity and a religious imperative.
And even then… I know all of that, but I’m still struggling with the cultural baggage that expects me to pair off with someone.
Dreaming got me here,
And yet, the dream won’t die:
I can’t wish it away,
No matter how I try…
True love
True love
True love
Gah. I hate being a hopeless romantic. Especially the “hopeless” part.
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Oh certainly. When I said “something will happen”, I didn’t mean only an external event, but the sort of shift in one’s thinking that we all experience when a good day follows a bad one for reasons we can’t quite explain.
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I think my quibble is more that you’re describing something passive and I’m describing something active, rather than “internal” and “external.” Your point is that if you’re at rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up, which is valid, but I’d say that it applies more to the suicidal situation you describe than that of desperate loneliness. My point is that if you’re waiting for someone to throw a rope down, you’re never going to start climbing out of the pit on your own: you can make an active choice to live the best, meaningful life that you can alone, rather than waiting for another person to arrive and provide meaning.
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Same here.
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Yet more examples of calm “police” work in Toronto:
Great job remaining calm throughout all of that!
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Dude, no.
Mental illness can’t make you an asshole.
If you’re already an asshole, it can exacerbate those tendencies. Bipolar disorder, which sounds like what you’re describing, can especially affect your impulse control.
Mental illness can affect how you think of yourself, turn you into a general misanthrope. It can make you seek out common ground with people who are assholes in the same way you are.
And, in certain cases, it can affect how you perceive reality, the very sights and sounds you hear.
What it can’t do is create misogynistic, or racist, or islamaphobic, or homophobic beliefs out of whole cloth. Those are all yours.
You want people to think you’re a better person now? Fine: prove it. Show through your actions that these are not things you believe any more. However, chalking it up to what sounds like bipolar disorder, when most bipolar people are nice people who alternate between being sad and unmotivated and being energized and impulsive, is just plain not cool.
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And how much did this cost?
Seriously, it’s shit like this while the elevators at stations remain non-functional why I vote “no” when the question comes up about giving TransLink more tax dollars.
TransLink is the epitome of the rot of P3s. They have a monopoly, and their status as a private company means limited oversight of the decisions they make with the taxpayer $$$ they rake in from various sources.
I don’t mind paying taxes for services, even if I don’t avail myself of them. I do mind lining the pockets of overcompensated executive, and their hallways with expensive art.
Want some money, boys? Try selling a painting or two.
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According to the article, not a cent of public funds; it’s part of a Visa ad campaign:
The collaboration did not cost TransLink anything and the transit authority did not pay or hire Freeman for the voice work; the announcements are part of an ad campaign paid for by Visa Canada.
“Ads featuring Morgan Freeman’s voice are part of an ad campaign created by Visa,” explained TransLink spokesman Chris Bryan. “Visa bought ad space on our system to highlight the ability to pay at fare gates using contactless Visa cards.”
The actor has been the longtime voice of Visa credit cards and their marketing campaigns — Visa and Mastercard will be the only credit cards accepted by TransLink’s new tap-to-pay card readers at this time.
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Forgive me if I am skeptical about that explanation. Not you, them. They’ve been caught with their hands deep inside the cookie jar, far too many times.
Maybe I am being irrational, but the whole thing smells heavily of bullshit.
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Your weekly reminder that Andrew Scheer is a shitstain and federal Conservatives are trash people:
Most punchable face in Canadian history.
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A cheaper option was considered turns out Gordon Freeman’s voice didn’t go down as well with focus groups.
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OMG.
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