lol@"the manosphere"

WaPo | And so, while some of Rodger’s companions on PUAhate have praised his gruesome spree — Josh Glasstetter at SPLC points out that he was almost seen as some kind of “incel revolutionary” — the rest of the manosphere has worked hard to distance themselves from him.

“Rodger pings some operational gaydars,” mocks Heartiste.

“A lot of loneyy beta males will identify with him,” Roosh followed up. (Notice that he calls Rodger a beta, despite Rodger’s videotaped insistence that he was “an alpha male.”)

Rodger blames women. Women blame misogyny. Misogynists blame feminists. This is a fascinating, weird cycle — and it actually repeats after most national tragedies  in which a man kills a woman or women. In 2009, when George Sodini killed three women at an L.A. Fitness outside of Pittsburgh, Heartiste was quick to postulate that, had Sodini “learned game,” he never would have developed negative feelings toward women or become violent.

Meanwhile, a guest blogger on Return of Kings theorized in December that 18-year-old Karl Halverson Pierson killed a girl at his school because he was “sexually frustrated.” Another post on the site, published about the same time, blamed a “lack of game” for brutal murders everywhere from Baltimore to Southern California.

But Return of Kings’ latest post really takes the cake. “No one would have died if PUAHate killer Elliot Rodger learned game,” promises the ever-aggrandizing Roosh V, who then goes on to promise that “if Rodger came to me, he would have received actionable and effective advice.” (A sampling of recent advice from the site, presented without comment: “all women are nymphomaniacs who crave rough sex”; “if your girlfriend insists on a big wedding, dump her.”)

A moment of awakening for the manosphere, this incident is not. And in some ways, that should be just as disturbing as Rodger’s videotaped rant.