A Growing Security Threat: Canada’s Incel-Inspired Violence and the Ecosystems Behind It
More than a decade after Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured fourteen others in Isla Vista, California, the ideology he left behind has evolved from dark internet subculture into what a new report from the NATO Association of Canada’s Centre for Disinformation Studies describes as a transnational security threat. Rodger, whose 141-page manifesto and YouTube videos fulminated against women and society, has been glorified as “The Supreme Gentleman” in incel, or “involuntary celibate,” communities. Subsequent attackers have cited him as inspiration, most recently in a June 2026 shooting in Montreal that left an innocent civilian, a police officer, and the perpetrator dead. The perpetrator, Seth Hatfield, left behind a manifesto identifying with incel ideology, echoing Rodger’s framing of violence as retribution against a rigged social order. For years, incels were dismissed as lonely young men venting online, but the report argues that many incel spaces function as self-reinforcing disinformation ecosystems. These communities selectively combine statistics, pseudoscientific claims, and narratives borrowed from multiple ideological traditions—a phenomenon described as “salad bar extremism”—to construct alternative systems of knowledge that normalize misogyny, deepen distrust of democratic institutions, and legitimize violence. Since 2014, attacks linked to incel ideology have caused approximately 90 deaths and more than 100 injuries worldwide. While individual attacks are often carried out by lone actors, the radicalization that precedes them is collective, emerging from transnational online spaces that continually reinforce and normalize extremist beliefs.
At the heart of incel ideology is a vocabulary derived from The Matrix: the “red pill,” the “blue pill,” and the “black pill.” Those who take the red pill believe they have awakened to feminism’s supposed manipulation of society and often pursue self-improvement through “looksmaxxing,” attempting to become more attractive to women in hopes of escaping inceldom. More extreme believers adopt the black pill, a fatalistic and nihilistic worldview holding that romantic and sexual success is determined entirely by physical traits such as height, race, and genetics—factors perceived to be beyond individual control. As extremism researcher Dr. Amarnath Amarasingam explains, fatalism alone does not necessarily lead to violence. The danger arises when fatalism is fused with conspiracy narratives attributing one’s circumstances to external actors. Once incels believe their situation has been “imposed on them from some sort of structure,” hatred can turn outward toward women, feminism, and the institutions perceived to enforce an unjust society. Black-pilled incels reinterpret personal rejection as evidence of a deliberately rigged system, often claiming that women are inherently hypergamous and biologically driven to pursue only the most dominant men. This narrative transforms individual grievance into collective resentment, creating an “anti-public sphere” that rejects democratic norms and gender equality. Violence becomes framed not only as revenge, but as a political act intended to force society to acknowledge their suffering. The Montreal shooter’s manifesto made this explicit, declaring that “our operations will spread our cause, which itself will eventually take power, and destroy the hypergamy state forever.”
The first major Canadian manifestation of this ideology came on April 23, 2018, when Alek Minassian drove a van onto a crowded Toronto sidewalk, killing ten people and injuring fourteen others. Shortly before the attack, Minassian posted on Facebook: “The Incel Rebellion has already begun!” During police interrogation, he described the attack as part of a rebellion against a social hierarchy dominated by “Chads” and “Stacys,” terms used in incel communities for highly desirable men and women. He deliberately chose a busy location to maximize casualties. Minassian identified Elliot Rodger as his primary inspiration, calling him the founding father of the movement and saying he was “proud of [Rodger] for his acts of bravery.” He adopted the title “Supreme Gentleman” and told police, “I feel like I accomplished my mission.” He was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years. His defence argued that autism spectrum disorder made him not criminally responsible, but the court rejected this, concluding that the attack was planned by a rational mind. The report stresses that while autism may be overrepresented in incel spaces due to social isolation, there is no evidence that autism causes extremist violence. Reducing the attack to autism would both stigmatize autistic individuals and obscure the ideological context. Online incel communities did not condemn the attack; they celebrated Minassian as a hero and saint and called for further violence, including mass rape and acid attacks, illustrating that the attack was not an isolated act of individual pathology but an expression of a collective movement.
The pattern continued on February 24, 2020, when 17-year-old Oguzhan Sert attacked a Toronto massage parlour, killing 24-year-old Ashley Arzaga and injuring another woman. Sert carried a handwritten note reading “Long live the incel rebellion” and a 17-inch sword inscribed with the words “THOT SLAYER.” During the attack, he shouted misogynistic abuse, including “You fucking whore” and “Die, die, die.” He later told police, “I wanted to kill everyone in the building” and “I am happy I got one.” Sert’s radicalization followed a familiar trajectory: he was bullied through high school, dropped out in Grade 9, withdrew into isolation, and became immersed in incel forums, YouTube content, and online gaming communities that promoted misogyny alongside broader conspiracy narratives. He publicly identified as a “proud incel” and a “Seeker of Martyrdom.” After his arrest, he said people like him deserved their own country and that he could not advocate for those rights without hurting women because “nobody would take us seriously.” The court found that Sert had shown a high degree of planning and ideological commitment, noting that he identified Minassian as an inspiration. In a landmark ruling, the court declared Sert’s attack an act of terrorism—the first time in Canada that incel-motivated violence was officially recognized as terrorism. The judge concluded that the incel movement constitutes an identifiable ideological framework capable of motivating terrorism, and that Sert intended to intimidate the public. The case underscored how online spaces, though occupied by isolated individuals, form a radicalizing ecosystem that justifies violence.
The most recent case, the June 2026 Montreal shooting, further illustrates how incel ideology adapts and hybridizes with other belief systems. The perpetrator, Seth Hatfield, a 25-year-old from Lethbridge, Alberta, opened fire in the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood, leading to an exchange of gunfire with police. The shooting resulted in the deaths of a civilian, an officer, and Hatfield himself. In a manifesto left behind, Hatfield described his actions as part of a revolution against modern capitalist society and what he called the “hypergamy state.” He drew on conspiratorial and anti-capitalist narratives, including content by Paul Joseph Watson, a former editor of Alex Jones’ Infowars. Amarasingam notes that Hatfield’s case demonstrates that the “left-right partisan binary doesn’t really work”: incel beliefs served as the “load-bearing ideology,” while his anti-capitalist and Marxist ideas provided a supporting explanation of how society had become structured. Hatfield sought to intellectualize his worldview, producing a manifesto with structured arguments and footnotes. He presented contested assumptions about human behaviour as objective scientific law, including what he called the “contradiction of the imperatives,” claiming that male and female biological imperatives are inherently incompatible. By presenting these claims as scientific truth, he transformed personal grievance into a political cause. His manifesto concluded with an ominous call: “For the first time in a very long while, the western bourgeois class will finally know true fear again” before urging readers to “go forth, and KILL THEM ALL!”
Taken together, the three Canadian cases reveal a recurring process of collective radicalization that operates through online communities rather than formal organizations. The incel movement lacks centralized leadership, but it is anchored by a shared information ecosystem in which misogyny functions as connective tissue. Provocation, harassment, and dehumanization become markers of group identity and belonging, normalizing hostility and making violence conceivable. Research shows that over 82% of discussions on incel forums contain misogynistic language, demonstrating that these worldviews are central, not peripheral, to the community. The Montreal case also shows how incel ideology can fuse with other radical ideas, creating hybrid movements that resist conventional left-right classification and pose new challenges for security institutions. Under Canadian terrorism legislation, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an act of violence was motivated by an ideological objective, but courts lack a clear definition of what constitutes an ideology, making movements like incels more difficult to classify than listed terrorist entities. NATO recognizes terrorism as one of the most significant asymmetric threats to Allied security. The report warns that if incel violence continues to be framed solely as individual pathology, democratic societies risk underestimating the evolving extremist movements that sustain it. Although only a small minority of incels commit violence, the broader threat lies in the self-reinforcing ecosystems that cultivate grievance and rationalize bloodshed. Prevention, Amarasingam argues, begins not with directly confronting ideology, but with addressing the personal vulnerabilities that make individuals susceptible to extremist worldviews. As anti-feminist movements become among the fastest-growing extremist ideologies in recent years, the report concludes that governments and security agencies must move beyond responding to individual attacks and instead confront the digital ecosystems that continue to legitimize and reproduce violence.