Police inspecting bags of students at Umpqua Community College after the shooting today
UPDATE: The shooter has been identified as 26-year-old Chris Harper-Mercer. Rumors spread earlier in the day that the shooter was a a regular 4channer and active Youtuber known as “the eggman.” Obviously they were wrong.
This is beyond fucked up. In this archived thread from 4chan’s /r9k/ board, the apparent shooter at Umpqua Community College told fellow channers yesterday of his plans to shoot up a school today. He didn’t specify which school, mentioning only that it was in the “northwest.” /r9k/ is a board heavily populated by so-called “incels,” and the media is reporting that the apparent shooter regularly posted bitter complaints about his lack of success with women,
UPDATE 2: There is a lot of confusing and contradictory information out there, and the IDing of the killer has actually raised more questions than it’s resolved. An apparent Myspace page for Harper-Mercer suggests that he was obsessed both with guns and with the IRA.
There have also been reports that he was targeting Christians. According to the New York Post, a “woman who claimed to have a grandmother inside a writing class in Snyder Hall, where a portion the massacre unfolded” reported that
“The shooter was lining people up and asking if they were Christian,” she wrote. “If they said yes, then they were shot in the head. If they said no, or didn’t answer, they were shot in the legs.
So was he — as an apparent supporter of the IRA — targeting Protestants? The Daiy Beast, for its part, says the shooter “hated religion.” Chuck C. Johnson of GotNews says he’s “confirmed” that the shooter was a Muslim.
Is the Myspace page really his? Is the report from the alleged granddaughter bullshit? Was the 4chan posting yesterday actually from him, or a comment from a troll that just happened to have been posted the day before a school shooting in the northwest?
I don’t know. But I still recommend that you read the rest of this post, if only to see the comments from the other 4channers.
Screenshots below:
Here’s his first comment warning fellow channers not to go to school today if they live in the northwest.
He then said he’d post again shortly before he started to shoot. (I don’t know if he did.)
Because 4chan is a fucking cesspool, other channers offered him advice:
Another anon suggested that indiscriminate killing wasn’t the solution, seeming to imply that more targeted killing was?
Others put forth their ideas of what sorts of people might be considered appropriate targets:
More encouragement. Note the reference to Elliot Rodger, the Santa Barbara “incel” killer.
A few others urged the OP to NOT carry out his plans.
After reports of the shooting hit the news, anons reacted with amazement:
Amazement and enthusiasm:
In case you’re wondering, “kek” is the equivalent of “lol.”
More excitement:
There’s much more of this in the thread.
Naturally, someone claims that the shooting could have been averted if only the shooter could have found a girlfriend.
Yes that’s right: he thinks the shooter was himself a victim, presumably of the entire female gender.
There’s a lot more in the thread but honestly I can’t stomach it right now.
Note: This post has been updated numerous times.
oh my god oh my god
I can’t comprehend what is happening in the world
We seem to have lost our humanity, that’s what’s happening
what does “beta” uprising mean. What does the beta mean? does it refer to beta males and all that crap?
Why don’t cops ever hang around and read these types of blogs?
I remember telling someone when I started watching the MRA movement and all it’s forms that in all likelihood we are going to see all kinds of shootings
Are these different posters?
Like, agreeing with him and suggesting how he might kill more people? Bluddybluddyhail.
What is the definition of a terrorist conspiracy? Of grooming someone to commit terrorism? Is this not it?
Do the police know about this 4chan thing David? Can they trace these people, does anyone know?
What or who is this “chad” they keep referencing?
Further down the thread you’ve got folks posting “you made us proud”…. Arggghhh.
I really hope they get traced and brought to justice.
You know what stinks about this? When it happens now, I no longer ask what pushed the man over the edge. Now I ask myself, “Is he out to shoot a bunch of black people, a bunch of women, or a bunch of Muslim people?”
firechild: I think “Chad” is a term for football-player-type males who they see as unfairly successful with women compared to them. (The fact that their “Chad” hasn’t encouraged anyone to kill people doesn’t register in their minds)
“What or who is this “chad” they keep referencing?”
Chad Thundercock (I kid you not), the platonic ideal of a real alpha male in Red Pill philosophy. He who has sex with all the women in the world and leaves none for the lesser “beta” males.
It just gets dumber from there.
Reblogged this on The Monster's Ink and commented:
WHY CAN’T THEY JUST USE THE FIRST BULLET ON THEMSELVES?
Notable – but not surprising – that the primary encouragements for not doing this is because it’ll make white people look bad or will lend weight to the “libcuck” argument. Nothing about taking lives.
Surely those contributors are guilty of incitement? I know that shooter brought it up, but then had LOADS of encouragement.
Of course after the fact they will all cry ‘I never thought he was serious’.
Beyond sick .
Those comments feel like they think it’s all a game to me. Like they’ve literally dehumanized anyone besides themselves and laugh when people die.
It makes me sick to my stomach.
Yeah, I can clear up a few things here.
“Chad” refers to what they think as brainless jocks who are more successful than them with women and are therefore enemies.
4chan has existed for almost a decade now. The authorities for sure know about it, but they can’t do much. The big part about that site is that the thread turnover is extremely fast and everyone is, by default, “Anonymous.” Threats like thus are posted on 4chan almost weekly. It’d be impossible to determine what was a legitimate threat and what was just anons being godawful.
Law enforcement needs to start collecting IP addresses and charge the advice givers with being an accessory. We’ll see how funny they think that is.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: these idiots are going to crush Internet freedom faster than any imaginary liberal authoritarian boogeyman they’ll come up with.
What the fuck
I live in Oregon so I’ve been following this all afternoon wondering why it happened. I read on another site that the shooter posted warnings on social media but this is the first I’ve seen screenshots… I… almost want to pretend like these aren’t real.
The fuck the fuck
What is wrong with people
I just can’t. I just can’t express myself here. The only way I can express myself in this is through gif form and that is inappropriate. The only way I can express it is through dramatic writing, so excuse me.
There must be consequences. Real consequence. They must all suffer the consequences for their actions. If they had suffer such consequences before, they wouldn’t be acting like this. They would be acting like decent human beings instead of filth. They have never suffered the consequences of their actions but they will this time. They must. They have to. There must be justice.
They are all accessories to murder. Arrest them all. One million years dungeon. All of them. All of 4Chan, forever. Then burn the servers. Burn all the servers. And piss on its ashes.
Such filth should not exist, should have never existed.
I weep for humanity.
I live in Canada and I called the police there and they know about this message board.
What is wrong with people indeed. Twitter reaction from a right-winger. Trigger warning for assholery. https://twitter.com/RWSurferGirl/status/649683864089038848
Holy fucking cow…….4chan really is full of the dregs of the human race. Absolute scum. Shit like this has happened before, giving coordinates to dead bodies of murdered schoolchildren and recipes for acids that cause internal bleeding. Really, just the lowest forms of life dwell in that cesspool.
http://www.nytimes.com/live/shooting-at-umpqua-community-college/?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
NYT Feed pertaining to the story. It’s got a lot of Tweets from Umpqua Students and LE at the scene.
That cesspool excuse of a site needs taken down. Quickly.
What Paradpxical said, it really is just a game to them. That’s why they rejoice every time they drive someone to suicide, it’s no different than gunning down NPCs in a computer game.
When your message boards are a place where mass murderers find acceptance, there’s no coming back from that.
It was inevitable that something like this would happen on 4chan.
It’s clear that the police know about this thread, as does the media. On CNN they are talking about this thread — in a vague way, without saying where it’s from — but the few details that they are giving make it clear they’re looking at the same thread.
THERE’S MORE THAN ONE OUT THERE?
WHO WAS THE ONES ENCOURAGING HIM? AND WHAT WAS THE EARLY GIFT
4chan is by far one of the worst things to come out of technology. All these people who encouraged him… who cheered, they need a reality check and I’m okay if that check involves a jail term.
I know fuck-all about 4chan, but I wonder if “beta uprising” has anything to do with the tumblr shit they started last night. They invaded a bunch of popular tags to post rape and gore.
Ofc not saying this is even REMOTELY equivalent to actual people losing their actual lives. But just the imaginary war that 4chan seems to think it is waging against the world is obviously toxic and now, we can see, deadly.
I can’t even imagine thinking I’m in some war against the whole world like these fuckers do. Do they have any empathy at all??
Even though I don’t believe in God I’ll be saying some mental prayers to the families. Knowing this was only 2 hours away from me makes me terrified to even set foot on my campus, especially since we have a lot of extremists in this city.
I can’t even imagine losing your loved ones over something so fucking stupidly unimaginable. The shooter is dead, right? May he rot in hell.
those assholes actually believe that if he had a gf this would have been averted, they care nothing about those “girlfriends” as actual people or the fact that no person with a hint of empathy in their body would think killing people is a justified response to not being serviced by women.
Rest in peace.
re: 4Chan: It’s been around for quite awhile and intentionally obfuscates the identities of its posters.
“Taking it down” would accomplish nothing – other Chans would pop up in its place (in fact, have done so when 4Chan’s been judged too tame).
And, besides, playing site whack-a-mole wouldn’t do anything to address the real problem(s) – those eager to dehumanize/”other” people to this extent and the degree to which this tendency can be fed in anonymous echochambers.
I mean my bf teases me for my hot-headedness and says I have a “fite me” attitude, but STILL. I can’t even wrap my mind around being this angry that I would pretend I’m in a fake war OR TO CONSIDER A SHOOTER A HERO WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT THE FUCK. I can’t imagine being as angry as these people are, even though I’m the angriest person I know irl.
Sorry for posting so much and I’m sure most of this sounds like word vomit, but I just don’t understand this shit one iota.
“Don’t go to school tomorrow.”
“Are you going to shoot people? Do it! Do it do it do it! Here’s how you can maximize the damage, so do it! Take vengence!”
*one shooting later*
“Well, we all know it was women that drove him to this.”
*spit*
All these damned teenage edgelords sorta making it hard to pick a side anymore. Don’t ya think? Who’s roleplaying and who’s a psychopath? Doesn’t really seem to abide by anyone’s politics.
No wonder my 85 year old folks decided that evil simply is the internet.
But if everyone was heavily armed this wouldn’t have happened! We just need to all have assault rifles, ready to kill each other at a moment’s notice. That’s what will solve this!
What a bunch of sick fucks. I feel ill.
For the inevitable moment when the manosphere, and the “Red Pill” people in particular try to distance themselves from this shooting.
The 4chan thread in question had people invoking terms like “betas” and “chad” that are extensively used within the manosphere and the “redpill”. These people were, in general encouraging the shooting.
Due to the anonymous nature of 4chan it’s impossible to know if the same people who were posting before the shooting were the people posting afterwards. But even then one of the people celebrating the shooting was talking about a “beta uprising” – more manosphere terminology.
This shooting is the consequences of the manosphere in general and the “Red Pill” people in particular telling men, especially young men, that the world is owed to them, that they “deserve” dates and “deserve” beautiful women.
I think that’s about as long as I can take forming coherent thoughts here.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have step away from my computer.
Fuck these entitled little shits. I just can’t say anything more than that on this part of things.
****
On the broader topic of the shooting, there’s a bunch of folks going around claiming the school was a ‘gun-free zone’ and crowing about how useless the designation is. The problem with that is that there’s no evidence to support the claim–in fact, in Oregon, the state Supreme Court had ruled against the state university system on the issue (2011), and an attempt to change the law failed, so it should have been impossible for the college to have such a thing.
http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2011/11/oregon_university_system_will_1.html
If you see someone claiming otherwise by citing a wayback machine copy of the school’s website, point out that that page includes the phrase, “except as expressly permitted by state law”–so again, per the article I linked, not gun-free, there’s just a prohibition against illegal gun ownership.
God damn it don’t mess with football you fucking fucks.
Ah, found the clarification on the ‘gun-free’ thing. Basically, since Oregon law allows for concealed-carry (the go-to panacea for gun fetishists), it’s allowed on campuses. Only drawing the weapon in a non-defense situation is prohibited.
“Shooter is deceased” according to Sheriff Dept tweet.
@freemage
Cool, thanks for the info. Even I didn’t know that. Will be handy to know considering my family is ALREADY going in to the whole “If there were MORE GUNS then this wouldn’t have happened/that Campus rule was stupid, HARGLE BARGLE” tail-spin. =/
God, those people. How do they not care that they assisted a murderer, that they’re acoomplices? How do they dehumanize others so easily? How do they think like they do? It’s almost too befuddling to muster anger at them. Almost.
And the cherry on top of this shit-cake is that these people are only saying this because they know they won’t have to deal with consequences.
>> This shooting is the consequences of the manosphere in general and the “Red Pill” people in particular telling men, especially young men, that the world is owed to them, that they “deserve” dates and “deserve” beautiful women.
Or maybe it was the guns? First thing’s first. Well all despise bro dudes and gaters. But perhaps our first obligation to the *kids* and their families is to get the f#cking guns out of the picture, and then go from there? What ya think?
Jezzebelle,
Both/And. As long as people have guns they will find reasons to use them and as long as people hate women they will find ways to hurt them.