Elliot Rodger

Elliot Rodger (July 24, 1991 – May 23, 2014) was an American spree killer, perpetrator of the 2014 Isla Vista killings.

Quotes

Bodybuilding.com, PUAhate and ForeverAlone posts

Shoes won’t help you get white girls. White girls are disgusted by you, silly little Asian.
- As quoted in Josh Glasstetter, "Elliot Rodger, Isla Vista Shooting Suspect, Posted Racist Messages on Misogynistic Website", Hatewatch (May 24, 2014)

Full Asian men are disgustingly ugly and white girls would never go for you. You’re just butthurt that you were born as an asian piece of shit, so you lash out by linking these fake pictures. You even admit that you wish you were half white. You’ll never be half-white and you’ll never fulfill your dream of marrying a white woman. I suggest you jump off a bridge.
- As quoted in Josh Glasstetter, "Elliot Rodger, Isla Vista Shooting Suspect, Posted Racist Messages on Misogynistic Website", Hatewatch (May 24, 2014)

Men shouldn't have to look and act like big, animalistic beasts to get women. The fact that women still prioritize brute strength just shows that their minds haven't fully evolved.
- As quoted in Nicky Woolf, "'PUAhate' and 'ForeverAlone': inside Elliot Rodger's online life", The Guardian (May 30, 2014)

Women are not drawn to indicators of evolutionary fitness. If they were, they'd be all over me.
- As quoted in Nicky Woolf, "'PUAhate' and 'ForeverAlone': inside Elliot Rodger's online life", The Guardian (May 30, 2014)

Never insult the style of Elliot Rodger. I’m the most stylish person in the world. Just look at my profile pic. That’s just one of my fabulous outfits. The sweater I’m wearing in the picture is $500 from Neiman Marcus.
- As quoted in Nicky Woolf, "'PUAhate' and 'ForeverAlone': inside Elliot Rodger's online life", The Guardian (May 30, 2014)

If we can’t solve our problems we must DESTROY our problems... One day incels will realise their true strength and numbers and will overthrow this oppressive feminist system. Start envisioning a world where WOMEN FEAR YOU.
- As quoted in Rhys Blakely, "‘I will be a god. I will slaughter you like animals’", The Australian (July 19, 2014)

My Twisted World (2014)

Thoughts at 14

The boys in my grade talked about sex a lot. Some of them even told me that they had sex with their girlfriends. This was the most devastating and traumatizing thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Boys having sex at my age of Fourteen? I couldn’t fathom it. How is it that they were able to have such intimate and pleasurable experiences with girls while I could only fantasize about it? I frequently started asking myself. This was an all-boys school… How in the hell were those boys even able to meet girls to have sex with? I wondered. I hoped they were lying. I hoped against all hope. [...] and one of my obnoxious classmates named Jesse was bragging about having sex with his girlfriend. I defiantly told him that I didn’t believe him, so he played a voice recording of what sounded like him and his girlfriend having sex. I could hear a girl saying his name over and over again while she panted franticly. He grinned at me smugly. I felt so inferior to him, and I hated him.

Thoughts at 17

I began to have fantasies of becoming very powerful and stopping everyone from having sex. I wanted to take their sex away from them, just like they took it away from me. I saw sex as an evil and barbaric act, all because I was unable to have it. This was the major turning point. My anger made me stronger inside. This was when I formed my ideas that sex should be outlawed. It is the only way to make the world a fair and just place. If I can’t have it, I will destroy it. That’s the conclusion I came to, right then and there.

I spent more time studying the world, seeing the world for the horrible, unfair place it is. I then had the revelation that just because I was condemned to suffer a life of loneliness and rejection, doesn’t mean I am insignificant. I have an exceptionally high level of intelligence. I see the world differently than anyone else. Because of all of the injustices I went through and the worldview I developed because of them, I must be destined for greatness. I must be destined to change the world, to shape it into an image that suits me!

Thoughts at 18

Hope

That [Lottery] ticket, of course, didn’t win. And neither would any of the tickets I buy after it, but they would give me hope.

"Maybe if I built muscles, girls will be attracted to me", I hopefully proclaimed to myself.

Forgiveness

What was seen can never be unseen, and I will never forget it, nor will I forgive it.

Thoughts at 19

Understanding of Relationships

He was my comrade in virginity, for he too didn’t get any attention from girls, and I’m sure he suffered from it, but not as much as I did. I was very perplexed as to why he didn’t feel any anger towards girls for denying him sex.

Quitting World of Warcraft

But that was only a small part of the reason why I quit. The main reason was the disturbing new player-base. The game got bigger with every new expansion that was released, and as it got bigger, it brought in a vast amount of new players. I noticed that more and more “normal” people who had active and pleasurable social lives were starting to play the game, as the new changes catered to such a crowd. WoW no longer became a sanctuary where I could hide from the evils of the world, because the evils of the world had now followed me there. I saw people bragging online about their sexual experiences with girls... and they used the term “virgin” as an insult to people who were more immersed in the game than them. The insult stung, because it was true. Us virgins did tend to get more immersed in such things, because our real lives were lacking. I couldn’t stand to play WoW knowing that my enemies, the people I hate and envy so much for having sexual lives, were now playing the same game as me. There was no point anymore. I realized what a terrible mistake I made to turn my back on the world again. The world is brutal, and I need to fight for my place in it. My life was at a crucial turning point, and I couldn’t waste any more precious time.

Compliments

A few family friends complimented my appearance, and that made me feel a bit better about myself. It is so peculiar how a simple smile or a compliment can completely change how I feel about the world for a few moments.

Longing

I excused myself as soon as I finished eating, and boy did I stuff myself on that meal. I then walked outside onto the beach. The wine had long since gone to my head, making me feel a sense of dizzy invigoration. I started walking along the shore, taking in the magnificence of the gentle, moonlit ocean. It was so... romantic. I kept walking and walking with no destination in mind. The romance of it all filled me with despair and longing. I wanted a girlfriend to experience that moment with me, but no girl wanted to be my girlfriend. The only thing I could do was imagine how heavenly it would be to have a beautiful girl by my side. It is such a shameful tragedy.
- I ended up walking for two hours, and at the end of it I was crying to myself because I felt so sad.

I did, however, pass by one young girl, and she was like a goddess who came down from heaven. She was walking alone, in her bathing suit, with her luscious blonde hair blowing in the wind. I couldn’t help but slyly admire her beauty as we passed by each other. I was scared. I was scared that she might view me as nothing but an inferior insect who’s presence ruins her atmosphere. Her beauty was intoxicating! And then, just as we passed each other, she actually looked at me. She looked at me and smiled. Most girls never even deigned to look at me, and this one actually looked at me and smiled. I had never felt so euphoric in my life. One smile. One smile was all it took to brighten my entire day. The power that beautiful women have is unbelievable. They can temporarily turn a desperate boy’s whole world around just by smiling.

19-22, UC Santa Barbara

Racial Superiority

How could an inferior, ugly black boy be able to get a white girl and not me? I am beautiful, and I am half white myself. I am descended from British aristocracy. He is descended from slaves. I deserve it more.

Alcohol

In that college town, everyone went out with at least a little alcohol in their system. I wasn’t an alcoholic, but drinking alcohol always helped me with being more confident and sociable. On weekend nights, I took a few shots from my vodka bottle and set out on walks around the town, desperately hoping that I would stumble across some opportunity to make friends. I often ended up sitting alone at some café, hoping girls would talk to me before I sobered up. No girl ever did. I then went back home to lie in my bed alone.

Permavirgin

I eventually grew to hate him after I heard him having sex with my sister. I arrived at the house one day, my mother being at work, and heard the sounds of Samuel plunging his penis into my sister’s vagina through her closed room door, along with my sister’s moans. I stood there and listened to it all. So my sister, who was four years younger than me, managed to lose her virginity before I did.

Only documented approach of a woman in autobiography

One time, as I was walking across the huge bridge that connected the two campuses, I passed by a girl I thought was pretty and said “Hi” as we neared each other. She kept on walking and didn’t even have the grace to respond to me. How dare she! That foul bitch. I felt so humiliated that I went to one of the school bathrooms, locked myself in a toilet stall, and cried for an hour.

Inceldom

I spent the rest of the night pondering over what was in store for me at that point in life. I was no longer a teenager, and I’ll never be able to experience having sex as a teenager.

On the second day, they started inviting their equally rowdy friends into my apartment, and we exchanged more small talk. To my indignant surprise, they asked me the question I always dreaded answering: “Are you a virgin?” I admitted that I was a virgin. I always admitted the truth about this. It was my life struggle, and I couldn’t lie about such a thing.

It was that pathetic feeling of not having a hot girlfriend on my arm while some other boys in the theatre did. What I truly wanted... what I truly NEEDED, was a girlfriend. I needed a girl’s love. I needed to feel worthy as a male. For so long I have felt worthless, and it’s all girls’ fault. No girl wanted to be my girlfriend.

A man having a beautiful girl by his side shows the world that he is worth something, because obviously that beautiful girl sees some sort of worth in him

Perspective on incelness

As the phrase that I had coined goes: If I cannot join them, I will rise above them; and if I cannot rise above them, I will destroy them.

I have always had a penchant for luxury, opulence, and prestige

The Spring of 2013 was also the time when I came across the website PUAHate.com. It is a forum full of men who are starved of sex, just like me ... though unlike me they would be too cowardly to act on it.

In late June, my mother moved out of the Summit Town Homes and bought a house in West Hills. It was the first time my mother bought a house, as she had only rented in the past. The house had recently undergone a renovation, so it was practically brand new. The house had a swimming pool and was located in a nice enough area, though I would have still preferred it if my mother had gotten married to a wealthy man and moved into a mansion. I still continued to pester her to do this, and she still stubbornly refused. I will always resent my mother for refusing to do this. If not for her sake, she should have done it for mine. Joining a family of great wealth would have truly saved my life. I would have a high enough status to attract beautiful girlfriends and live above all of my enemies. All of my horrific troubles would have been eased instantly. It is very selfish of my mother to not consider this.

I have lived such an unnatural life, devoid of love, sex, and pleasure.

Building to Violence

I had never been a violent person in nature, but after building up so much hatred over the years, I realized that I wouldn’t hesitate to kill or even torture my hated enemies if I was given the opportunity.

I ordered my coffee and sat down on one of their chairs to relax. A few moments later, when I looked up from my drink, I saw a young couple standing in line. The two of them were kissing passionately. The boy looked like an obnoxious punk; he was tall and wore baggy pants. The girl was a pretty blonde! They looked like they were in the throes of passionate sexual attraction to each other, rubbing their bodies together and tongue kissing in front of everyone. I was absolutely livid with envious hatred. When they left the store I followed them to their car and splashed my coffee all over them.

A tall, blonde, jock-type guy walked into one of the restaurants, and at his side was one of the sexiest girls I had ever seen... I followed them in my car for a few minutes, and when they entered a less inhabited area I opened my window and splashed my iced tea all over them.

I walked into the range, rented a handgun from the ugly old redneck cashier, and started to practice shooting at paper targets. As I fired my first few rounds, I felt so sick to the stomach. I questioned my whole life, and I looked at the gun in front of me and asked myself “What am I doing here? How could things have led to this?” I couldn’t believe my life was actually turning out this way. There I was, practicing shooting with real guns because I had a plan to carry out a massacre. Why did things have to be this way, I silently questioned myself as I looked at the handgun I was holding in front of me. I paid my fee and left the range within minutes, feeling as if I was going to be sick. I spent the rest of the waiting period at the Coffee Bean in Oxnard, where I sat by myself feeling absolutely disgusted. My whole world was twisted.

My first act of preparation was the purchase my first handgun. I did this quickly and hastily, at a local gun shop called Goleta Gun and Supply. I had already done some research on handguns, and I decided to purchase the Glock 34 semiautomatic pistol, an efficient and highly accurate weapon. I signed all of the papers and was told that my pickup day was in mid-December. That fell in nicely, because that was when I was planning on staying in Santa Barbara till. After I picked up the handgun, I brought it back to my room and felt a new sense of power. I was now armed. Who’s the alpha male now, bitches?

I concluded that women are flawed. There is something mentally wrong with the way their brains are wired, as if they haven’t evolved from animal-like thinking. They are incapable of reason or thinking rationally. They are like animals, completely controlled by their primal, depraved emotions and impulses. That is why they are attracted to barbaric, wild, beast-like men. They are beasts themselves. Beasts should not be able to have any rights in a civilized society. If their wickedness is not contained, the whole of humanity will be held back from advancement to a more civilized state. Women should not have the right to choose who to mate with. That choice should be made for them by civilized men of intelligence. If women had the freedom to choose which men to mate with, like they do today, they would breed with stupid, degenerate men, which would only produce stupid, degenerate offspring. This in turn would hinder the advancement of humanity. Not only hinder it, but devolve humanity completely. Women are like a plague that must be quarantined. When I came to this brilliant, pefect revelation, I felt like everything was now clear to me, in a bitter, twisted way. I am one of the few people on ^[sic] this world who has the intelligence to see this. I am like a god, and my purpose is to exact ultimate Retribution on all of the impurities I see in the world.

I came across this Asian guy who was talking to a white girl. The sight of that filled me with rage. I always felt as if white girls thought less of me because I was half-Asian, but then I see this white girl at the party talking to a full-blooded Asian. I never had that kind of attention from a white girl! And white girls are the only girls I’m attracted to, especially the blondes. How could an ugly Asian attract the attention of a white girl, while a beautiful Eurasian like myself never had any attention from them? I thought with rage. I glared at them for a bit, and then decided I had been insulted enough. I angrily walked toward them and bumped the Asian guy aside, trying to act cocky and arrogant to both the boy and the girl. My drunken state got the better of me, and I almost fell over to the floor after a few minutes of this. They said something along the lines that I was very drunk and that I needed to get some water, so I angrily left them and went out to the front yard, where the main partying happened. Rage fumed inside me as I realized that I just walked away from that confrontation, so I rushed back into the house and spitefully insulted the Asian before walking outside again.

Final Days

I needed two working handguns at the same time, as that was how I planned to commit suicide; with two simultaneous shots to the head.

Coupled with my hate-fueled eagerness to carry out my act of revenge, there was also an extreme sense of fear inside me. Part of me still didn’t want to do it. It will mean my death, and I have always been afraid of death.

How dare those girls give their love and sex to those other men and not me, I constantly think when I see young couples. There is nowhere in the world I can go anymore. There is no more life to live. The Day of Retribution is all I have. It is the final solution to all of the injustices of this twisted world. By doing this, I will set right all of the wrongs I’ve had to face in my sorry excuse of a life.

I am not part of the human race. Humanity has rejected me. The females of the human species have never wanted to mate with me, so how could I possibly consider myself part of humanity? Humanity has never accepted me among them, and now I know why. I am more than human. I am superior to them all. I am Elliot Rodger... Magnificent, glorious, supreme, eminent... Divine! I am the closest thing there is to a living god. Humanity is a disgusting, depraved, and evil species. It is my purpose to punish them all. I will purify the world of everything that is wrong with it. On the Day of Retribution, I will truly be a powerful god, punishing everyone I deem to be impure and depraved.

Only hint of empathy for another person in autobiography

Alas, there was no way I could carry out my plans if I had a cold. Everything had to be perfect. In addition, I found out that father had arrived home two days earlier than he originally said he would, so if I had indeed went forth with my plans, I would have had to kill my father, which I wouldn’t be mentally prepared for.

"Epilogue"

And that is how my tragic life ends. Who would have thought my life will turn out this way? I didn’t. There was a time when I thought this world was a good and happy place. As a child, my whole world was innocent. It wasn’t until I went through puberty and started desiring girls that my whole life turned into a living hell. I desired girls, but girls never desired me back. There is something very wrong with that. It is an injustice that cannot go unpunished. There is no way I could live a happy life with such a scenario...
... 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.

Pastimes

My initially happy interest in the game Warcraft 3 had an ominous tone to it. This was the beginning of a long relationship with the Warcraft franchise. In less than a year from that point, they would release their ultimate game, World of Warcraft, a game that I would find sanctuary in for most of my teenage years.

[13 years old] After almost a month went by after getting World of Warcraft, I was finally able to play it. I made a WoW account with my father, and then I created my first character, a night elf druid. It really blew my mind. My first experience with WoW was like stepping into another world of excitement and adventure. It was a video game world, but they made it so realistic that it was like living another life, a more exciting life. My life was getting more and more depressing at that point, and WoW would fill in the void. It felt refreshing and relieving. I was only able to play it for a few hours for my first session. It was all I would think about when I wasn’t able to play it.

It was too much for me to handle, and I stopped caring about my life and my future. I even stopped caring about what people thought of me. I hid myself away in the online World of Warcraft, a place where I felt comfortable and secure.

Now that I was able to play World of Warcraft at my mother’s house with no limitations, aside from school and homework, I became very addicted to the game and my character in it. It was all I cared about.

I withdrew further into the World of Warcraft, neglecting my homework and spending all of my free time playing it.

While I was playing WoW after dinner at mother’s house once, I heard my sister watching the new show Avatar: The Last Airbender on the television. I decided to check it out. I soon found myself really enjoying it. It was a magnificent story set in a fantasy world where people can control the power of the elements. Once I watched the first episode, I was hooked on the story. Prince Zuko was my favorite character; he was a banished prince who was trying to regain his rightful place in the world. I always related to him. Avatar: The Last Airbender became my favorite T.V. show.

These recent events cause me to withdraw even further away from the world. I drowned all of my misery in my online games. World of Warcraft was the only thing I had left to live for. My grades at Crespi dropped dramatically. I just didn’t care anymore. I hated that school. I didn’t think about my future. The only thing I gave any serious thought to was my WoW character. I had become very powerful in the game, and I was in one of the best guilds. With this guild, I participated in lots of five-hour raid events to collect better gear and armor for my character.

I only had to be at school for three or four hours per day, and all of the work was very easy with teachers available to help me with anything. After those short school hours, I had all the time in the world to do whatever I wanted, and I spent it playing World of Warcraft... My only social interaction was with my online friends and with James, who would occasionally come over to my house to play WoW with me.

I had heated conflicts with Soumaya during every week that I was at father’s house. All I wanted to do was play WoW, and Soumaya strictly limited my playtime. Because my new room was just across from hers, she knew what I was doing at every single second. She was breathing down my neck the whole time. She kept making me do chores around the house. I despised doing work around the house, especially since we had a nanny who was supposed to do it. If I made a scene about doing the work, she took away my laptop for a day or two. This was the most horrible thing she could do to me, to take away my only source of joy left in the world. She sometimes did it even when father was at home, and father didn’t lift a finger to stop her.

Halo 3 came out in November. I got my mother to buy it for me on the very day it was released. I had a lot of fun playing it while drinking the special mountain dew flavor that was released with the game; Mountain Dew Game Fuel, it was called. The game definitely lived up to its expectations, and to my surprise I found myself playing it more than WoW for the first couple of weeks.

Everything’s better with some wine in the belly, as a famous character from Game of Thrones would say.

I arrived at the house one day, my mother being at work, and heard the sounds of Samuel plunging his penis into my sister’s vagina through her closed room door, along with my sister’s moans. I stood there and listened to it all. So my sister, who was four years younger than me, managed to lose her virginity before I did. It reminded me of how pathetic I was, that at the age of twenty-two, I was still a virgin.

Quotes about Rodger

Everyone is focusing on Elliot’s lack of success with women, but they need to appreciate he was unable to communicate with anyone. He was so shy and painfully awkward. He had a boring personality and he didn’t talk... He would never dream of approaching a girl, he just expected them to come to him, which they didn’t. Even if any of them ever had, it wouldn’t have lasted long, because he wouldn’t chat to them... He was incredibly hard work to talk to and I would always make sure Addison was there when we met up. We really had nothing to talk about. He liked computer games and skateboarding when he was younger, but that was it.
- Philip Bloeser, as quoted in Will Payne et al, "EXCLUSIVE: 'I tried to offer him advice on talking to girls, but he wouldn't do it': Virgin killer's best friend reveals he warned his mother about disturbing Facebook post months ago", Daily Mail (May 29, 2014)

Elliot Rodger was trying to act out the role of a film star when he went on his killing spree – to make up for the fact he felt like a failure in real life. Clearly he did not feel he had the status he deserved. In his last YouTube video, which he explicitly filmed to leave a legacy, he casts himself as a movie star. In another of his clips he appears to reference the film American Psycho, and it might be that he has taken the main character, Patrick Bateman, as a role model. Bateman, played by Christian Bale, is a successful Wall Street banker who picks up women and then butchers them after sex. The irony is that Bale’s character is both sexually successful and a killer. But for Rodger, his sexual frustration was the driving force behind the anger. However, both share deep feelings of sexual desire for women and aggression towards them.
- Dr Adam Lankford, "He mimicked American psycho - he wanted to be a star: Analysis by Dr Adam Lankford", Mail Online (May 24, 2014)

I first met him when he was aged eight or nine and I could see then that there was something wrong with him. I'm not a psychologist, but looking back now he strikes me as someone who was broken from the moment of conception. It appeared to me that he had an overwhelming lack of confidence but not in a particularly endearing way. Sad, but not endearing. You were hoping that inside there was a normal kid wanting to come out - that he would overcome his shyness and bloom in some way. What became evident, only after reading the manifesto and watching that video, was that what he was actually hiding was this horribly twisted little monster.
- Dale Launer, "How I tried to help Elliot Rodger", BBC News (July 9, 2014)

When you go to sleep normally you have a nightmare and you wake up and oh, everything is OK. No, I go to sleep, I might have a nice dream, and then I wake up and slowly the truth of what happened dawns on me. And that is that my son was a mass murderer.
- Peter Rodger, as quoted in Javier Panzar, "Elliot Rodger's dad to Barbara Walters: 'My son was a mass murderer'", LA Times (June 26, 2014)

The autobiography the young man posted online that day is notable for its shallowness and its entitlement. Those are harsh words, but there’s no other way to describe his utter lack of empathy, imagination and engagement with the life of others. He’s often described as mentally ill, but he seems instead to be someone who was exceptionally susceptible to the madness of the society around him. His misogyny was our culture’s misogyny. His sad dream of becoming wealthy, admired and sexually successful was a banal, widely marketed dream. His preoccupation with brand-name products and status symbols was exactly what the advertising industry tries to inject into our minds. His fantasy of attaining power and status at the point of a gun is the fantasy sold to us by the gun lobby and the action movies in which some invulnerable superman unerringly shoots down the bad guys, a god made a god by his gun.
- Rebecca Solnit, One year after the Isla Vista massacre, a father's gun control mission is personal, The Guardian (May 23, 2015)

The kid was crazy and crazy people do crazy things, there was the opportunity to stop it, he [Mr Rodger] is just another Hollywood bullshitter. He said he was going to do all these things for mental health and I don’t get a sense he’s doing a thing... Two days before his interview, his wife [Elliot’s stepmother Soumaya Akaaboune] was advertising not only that, but his pictures on Facebook. She said something like: "Peter’s going to be interviewed by Barbara Walters and, oh by the way, here’s a link if you want to check out his photography"... I don’t think he gives a s***. Unlike me, he’s probably glad to be rid of that kid. But I had a great kid, the best daughter you could imagine, I miss her every second. His kid was a pain in the ass that he shipped off to Santa Barbara to get him out of his life. He’s probably happy... He’s never sent me a letter of condolence, he’s never sent me a card, he’s never tried to reach out to me. He gave me the creeps the moment I saw him. What does it make you think of the stereotype of Hollywood? Peter Rodger has been on TV saying he was going to do this and that, but what’s he done?
- Bob Weiss, as quoted in 'You're to blame, not your son, you're just another Hollywood bulls****er': Heartsick dad of 19-year-old murdered by virgin killer Elliott Rodger blasts Hunger Games director on anniversary of massacre, Mail Online (May 22, 2015)

External links

"My Twisted World" (autobiography)