“All I ever wanted was to love women, and in turn to be loved by them back. Their behavior towards me has only earned my hatred, and rightfully so! I am the true victim in all of this. I am the good guy. Humanity struck at me first by condemning me to experience so much suffering. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want this. I didn’t start this war… I wasn’t the one who struck first… But I will finish it by striking back. I will punish everyone. And it will be beautiful. Finally, at long last, I can show the world my true worth.” -Elliot Rodger
Elliot Rodger considered himself to be intelligent, refined, handsome, fashionable and charming. He spent years trying to be cool so women would like him. He thought if he just wore expensive and fashionable clothing, had a better car, or if he were rich, then women would throw themselves at him. In fact, he thought himself to be “The Supreme Gentleman.”
Yet, women paid no attention to him. His only conclusion was that they were genetically flawed, and because of this they ignored him and threw themselves at men who were ignorant, savage brutes. In his mind, his lack of success with women had ruined his life. He began to psychologically deteriorate.
Rodger decided to get revenge. He spent months planning his “Day of Retribution,” an act where he would kill as many attractive women, and the type of men that they were drawn to, as he could in a savage attack. Then he acted on his plan, killing 6 people and wounding numerous others in what became known as the Isla Vista Massacre. The story does not end with Rodger however, as numerous other incels have since committed copycat attacks.
The “Supreme Gentleman” Killer by Brian Whitney is the story of Elliot Rodger and how he turned from a nice, quiet polite young man to the first self-identified incel (involuntarily celibate) killer.
FROM THE BOOK:
He lost all hope. He would be a virgin forever. He would be humiliated forever. He thought to himself women were attracted to the wrong kind of person because something was wrong with their minds. They were weak and stupid. They shouldn’t even be allowed to choose who they have sex with.
Sadly he came to believe all that was left was revenge. He felt he had no other choice really. He had thought about it for years. How lovely it would be to kill and torture happy couples, but it was just a fantasy. This was in part because Elliot still had some hope that he might someday have a happy life. Those days were gone. He believed there was nothing else.
As Elliot wrote:
It was only when I first moved to Santa Barbara that I started considering the possibility of having to carry out a violent act of revenge, as the final solution to dealing with all of the injustices I’ve had to face at the hands of women and society. I came up with a name for this after I saw all of the good looking young couples walking around my college and in the town of Isla Vista. I named it the Day of Retribution. It would be a day in which I exact my ultimate retribution and revenge on all of the hedonistic scum who enjoyed lives of pleasure that they don’t deserve. If I can’t have it, I will destroy it. I will destroy all women because I can never have them. I will make them all suffer for rejecting me. I will arm myself with deadly weapons and wage a war against all women and the men they are attracted to. And I will slaughter them like the animals they are. If they won’t accept me among them, then they are my enemies. They showed me no mercy, and in turn I will show them no mercy. The prospect will be so sweet, and justice will ultimately be served. And of course, I would have to die in the act to avoid going to prison.
For the first time, he began to think that his Day of Retribution was not only possible but perhaps something he really could do. Not only something that he could do, but that he should do. Someone had to do something drastic to change how awful the world had become. Why not him? He believed this had all been going on for way too long, and it needed to stop.
He wrote about his plans once, but then destroyed his writings as he was afraid someone might see them. He still didn’t really want to do it, but it had started to seem like it might be the only way out. What else could he possibly do? He could think of nothing.
As a Aspergian who had his own troubles for years finding a girlfriend, I found Elliot Rodger’s story alternately riveting, frightening, upsetting, and with a touch of “me on steroids.”
I could have easily fallen into that trap — I lacked self-awareness, blamed others for my own problems, an was immensely angry that I could not find a girlfriend. Only when I was diagnosed with Asperger’s and began looking back did I realize that I had missed social cues, did not recognize when women were flirting with me, and had no social skills.
In Mr. Rodger’s case, I was stunned by his theory…by the time I read about him, I was flabbergasted by his approach to finding a girlfriend. His idea was that if he won the lottery and tooled around in an expensive car, he would automatically have smokin’ hot babes who looked like Jaclyn Smith or Morgan Fairchild in their prime leaning over the car, breasts dangling.
In reality, given the money he spent on lottery tickets, I wondered why he simply didn’t take an ad on Bumble, eHarmony, or Tindr, with the usual photo, and mention that his father was a bigshot Hollywood director. He would have had answers flooding in, at least from would-be actresses hoping to land a big part in Daddy’s next movie.
Worse, he was clearly mentally ill, didn’t take his meds, and that gave him the idea that he was God in the flesh, and was supposed to kill every woman in the world. I wondered if that list included Mae Jemison, the astronaut. It was a ridiculous, ghastly, and idiotic solution to his trivial problem. Did he really think all of male humanity would join his cause to kill women? They were too busy dating, loving, and marrying them.
He was a menace to many people, and ultimately, to himself. His legacy is pain and misery.