On January 22, Solomon Henderson, a 17-year-old student at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tennessee, livestreamed as he opened fire in the school cafeteria, killing one girl and leaving two students injured before taking his own life. Outlets soon began reporting on a leaked publication of a hateful manifesto titled “The West Has Fallen – Billions Must Die – Accelerate.”
An analysis of the manifesto conducted by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) reveals how this shooting is steeped in hateful and violent ideologies such as accelerationism, antisemitism, inceldom, and extreme racism. Social media accounts referenced in the manifesto further reveal how Henderson was able to access “inspirational” material on mainstream and fringe platforms.
The manifesto itself demonstrates Henderson’s path to radicalization and is rife with anti-Black racism, antisemitism, misogyny, and allusions to misanthropism (i.e., the hatred of all people). On the manifesto’s cover is a face superimposed on an image of the Black Sun, which is a Nazi symbol made popular by Heinrich Himmler.
The manifesto’s cover has the image of a Black Sun, a Nazi symbol.
Racism and Accelerationism
Henderson refers to himself as a “nig***cell,” which he describes as meaning “involuntary ni****,” suggesting a self-hatred of his own identity as a Black person, as he goes on to say “I’m ashamed to be black. I feel like shit being ni****.” The term “ni****rcell” is seemingly derived from the incel movement, meaning “involuntary celibate,” a term to describe a sub-section of online misogynists who hate women because of their perceived difficulty in finding a partner. He self-identifies as a “Groyper Incel,” referencing Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes’ misogynistic and far-right movement.
Henderson claims “the west has fallen,” and believes “billions must die,” advocating to “accelerate” so exactly that happens. He goes on to say “this book is dedicated to Accelerationism,” a violent ideology encouraged by those like the Christchurch, New Zealand, shooter, who murdered 51 Muslims during two consecutive mass shootings in 2017, which entails, in his words, “burn[ing] this entire world to the ground and rebuild from the beginning.” Henderson claims that the “west” is facing “total societal failure,” and that violence is the only effective solution to halt “the west’s continued descent into decadence.” Henderson explains why he liked the “siege mask,” an image associated with the Satanic neo-Nazi Order of Nine Angles (O9A) group from the U.K. and the violent neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division, as “funny and aesthetic.” He quotes a motto used by the Atomwaffen Division, an accelerationist proponent, “Race War Now!”
Henderson claims “it’s pointless to defend [Black people], help them or marry them,” a belief, according to the manifesto, justified by arguing that being Black is a “mindset” which involves “stealing for little to no reason” and “provoking unnecessary violence,” particularly “black on black violence,” which is a racist idea used by white supremacists to paint Black people as inherently violent. Henderson also invokes the false stereotype that Black people compose 13 percent of the population but commit 52 percent of crime (another racist idea known as 13/52) in the United States. He attempts to justify the murder of any race, describing himself as a believer in misanthropy (i.e., the hatred of all people), but specifically Black people when he says “total ni**** death” (“TND”, a common racist phrase) He also includes white people, as he assumed everyone in his school were “ni**** lovers, wiggers (i.e., white ni****s) and Jewish.”
Regarding religion, while explicitly claiming he’s not a Nazi, Henderson dedicates sections of the manifesto to criticising Jews, often referred to as “k***s,” for “poisoning [Black] culture” through the proliferation of rap music, and having an “obsession with circumcising kids,” believing the Jewish ceremony to be perverse. On the other hand, he believes Christianity “did a lot when coming (sic) to preserving European/Western culture and defended it from Islamification.” The term “Islamification” likely bears the same meaning as “Islamization,” a term used by far-right anti-Muslim groups to signify a supposed (erroneous) claim that Muslims are taking over a country, changing cultural norms, and imposing Sharia law.
This is a core aspect of those who believe in the white nationalist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. Henderson does not expand on his thoughts on Islam, other than posting a picture of the Christchurch, N.Z., mosque shooter, whose manifesto was titled “The Great Replacement,” and a video hosted online of the shooter’s livestream, in which he murdered 51 Muslims during two consecutive mass shootings. Henderson captioned the video “best 16:55 of pure gameplay,” comparing the mass shooting footage to watching someone play a video game.
Online and Gaming Influences
Henderson appears entrenched in online “meme” (i.e., jokes) culture, especially the unmoderated 4chan forums rife with hatred and bigotry, which he claims he first heard of at nine years old, but does not use the forum as much anymore. He used terms such as “our guys,” which signifies that a user adheres to a community’s core beliefs and values, taking “pills” to “accept” the world around you, a reference to The Matrix trilogy, where the terms “blue pill” and “red pill” originate, and commonly used by white supremacists to denote their beliefs, and using online terms like “-maxxing,” which means working or doing something at its maximum level. He also makes references to “A10,” a term that became popular with the surge of “Aryan Classic” memes, which signifies someone being a true Aryan. Henderson, when talking about his “thoughts on black people,” invokes a copypasta (i.e., a block of text circulated online through the copy and paste functions) which references several ways that Black people should be killed, including “roundhouse kick a ni**** into the concrete,” “exterminate ni****s in the gas chamber,” and “stab[bing] pregnant black baby ni****s.”
Henderson makes references to “the sharty,” which is slang for soyjack.party, an online forum board similar to 4chan based on the “Soyjack” meme. The “Soyjack,” short for “Soyboy Wojacks,” is a variation of a simple, black-outlined cartoon meant to depict certain emotions, of which the “soyboy” is used in a derogatory way to position an “opponent” as an effeminate male. He supposedly found his way into the forums in 2022 and 2023, when joining “Jackbox Raids” organized by users in the soyjack online community to harass video game streamers on the platform Twitch. Jackbox is an online multiplayer video game commonly used by streamers (i.e., people who broadcast gaming online), which allows for viewers to participate in games with them. “Raids” are when a group of users all coordinate to join a stream at the same time, and can be used as a way to harass a streamer or provide them positive encouragement (in the case of soyjack.party’s users, raids were a means of harassment).
When discussing his particular online influences, Henderson credits far-right political commentator Candace Owens [who] “has influenced me above all each time she spoke I was stunned by her insights and her own views helped push me further and further into the belief of violence over the Jewish Question.” The Jewish Question is a term used by antisemites and white nationalists to imply that the existence of a Jewish population within their national territory is a “question” that needs addressing, usually through genocide. He also names Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, leading GamerGate (i.e., an online movement harassing women in gaming circles) figure Ethan Ralph, popular Twitch streamers favoured by centrist and left-wing audiences Destiny and Hasan Piker, and others such as Mr. Beast, CobsonTalks, Wayne Lambright, and iDubbbz. Henderson names several mass shooters, referred to as “saints,” as inspiration in the “paying tributes” section, including the Christchurch shooter, Buffalo mass shooter, and the Kerch Polytechnic College Shooter. He wrote the Christchurch shooter’s name on his weaponry along with “GROYPER,” “NICK FUENTES,” the Boston Marathon bomber’s name, the London, Ontario attacker’s name, who killed four Muslims, and “gnome hunter,” which references hunting Jews.
Henderson outlines several video game-related influences In the manifesto, including use of terminology and specific video games. He refers to himself as an “Efrikan,” which is a fictional location in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. He makes it clear that in order to effectively commit an attack, someone must “get really lean if you want to look good,” so that they don’t become “a retard with [a] bunch of weapons but is too fat to use them.” Achieving a “lean” body is provided as a method to commit a mass shooting, called “your Day of action,” at “an easier difficulty,” which refers to choices within video games to play the game at varying difficulties. In video games involving gunplay, playing at a harder difficulty usually means it’s easier to die and harder to kill others. He also makes recommendations for future school shooters, which will avoid “leading to a lesser high score.”
Another gaming-related influence for Henderson was from Ruben Sim, credited for “pushing [him] down the alt right pipeline,” who received a ban on the video game Roblox for posting pictures of Adolf Hitler along with other forms of harassment. He settled a lawsuit with the company after being accused of posting a message on Twitter suggesting a terrorist attack would happen at the Roblox Developers Conference held in San Francisco in October 2021, leading to the event being delayed. Henderson cites video games, music, literature, and cinema as the media that “taught violence and extremism.” He also specifically names Counterstrike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), Manhunt, Cry Out Of Fear, Postal, Doom, Skylanders, MegaChud, Hearts of Iron IV, and a school shooter simulator called Morimiya Middle School Shooter as games that “mentally prepared me for murder.” Henderson credits subgenres of music called Incelcore and Shootercore, along with Kanye West, as influencing his use of violence.
Warning Signs of Violent Extremism on Social Media
Henderson’s manifesto included a wide range of social media profiles, many of which exhibit troublesome warning signs for violence, idolize other mass shooters, and proliferate hateful ideologies including white supremacism and Inceldom. His profile on Kick, a loosely moderated Australian video streaming platform, where he allegedly streamed the shooting, features the “TND” slogan and more references to soyjack culture such as being a “gem,” which signifies being a “high quality” “jakker” (short for soyjakker, which means someone who participates in soyjack culture). His username, “HonoraryYakubian” references the Nation of Islam’s (a Black nationalist movement) belief that Yakub, a Black scientist, created white people 6,000 years ago and allowed them to rule until the early 1900s. It now exists as online terminology meant to be derogatory towards white people.
His Steam profile, on the video gaming vendor owned by Valve Corporation, has an avatar that includes an image of the Kerch Polytechnic College shooter, who killed 20 people and wounded another 67 in 2018.
A screenshot of Henderson’s Steam profile, featuring an image of the Kerch Polytechnic College shooter. (Source: Steam)
Henderson listed a YouTube channel called “Elliot Cobson” in his manifesto, which called for “Total Human Death” and made references to being a Groyper. He listed another called Saint BAPA, which he listed as his personal vlog channel. There was only one short video available.
Henderson had an account on Pinterest, a photo-sharing social media platform, under the username “aryanchudcel88.” 88 is a numerological identifier of HH, or “Heil Hitler,” commonly used by people ascribing to white supremacist or neo-Nazi ideology. “Chud,” in meme culture, denotes someone who is not socially accepted and unpleasant to be around, a common self-belief for those in incel circles. There were several signs on Henderson’s profile that he idolized people who committed mass casualty attacks and prominent white supremacist figures. Within his saved images were the dog tags used by the Christchurch shooter, pictures of the Incel Isla Vista shooter, the Boston Marathon bomber, the Unabomber, armed men wearing the siege mask and wearing a shirt that says “misanthrope” and “kill them all,” Adolf Hitler, and armed men with symbols of the Ukrainian Azov Assault Brigade, which for years accepted neo-Nazi recruits.
Photo of Elliot Rodger, who killed six and injured another 14 during a misogynistic terror attack in Isla Vista, California in 2014, saved onto Henderson’s Pintrest page
Dog tags bearing Nazi imagery belonging to the Christchurch shooter, who murdered 51 Muslims at two Mosques in 2017, saved onto Henderson’s Pintrest page
A framed photo of Adolf Hitler posing with two children, saved onto Henderson’s Pintrest profile
An image of a man with a flag bearing the symbol of the Azov Assault Brigade, a neo-Nazi unit based in Ukraine, saved onto Henderson’s Pintrest page
Image of a man wearing a siege mask and a shirt that says “misanthrope” and “kill ‘em all” saved onto Henderson’s Pintrest page
Image of the Unabomber saved onto Henderson’s Pintrest page
Henderson linked to several Twitter accounts, some of which were suspended, while others demonstrated his affinity for Nick Fuentes and Nazi imagery. On one account, he posted a clip from Fuentes’ “America First” livestream and reposted a tweet featuring an edited image of a Nazi officer with a “Chad” face. A “Chad” face is a mainstream meme that first gained online popularity in Incel culture, referring to a facial recreation of what an attractive, sexually active man would look like. The Incel vehicle-ramming attacker in Toronto, Canada, called for the overthrow of “Chads” in a Facebook post before committing the attack in 2018.
Henderson shared a BlueSky account, a platform with a similar interface to Twitter, called “VictimofMKU,” seemingly referring to MKUltra, which was a CIA program attempting “to produce a perfect truth drug for use in interrogating suspected Soviet spies during the Cold War, and generally to explore any other possibilities of mind control.” He also called himself a “Mkultra CIA ni***r” in the manifesto. On this account, he posted several messages which foretold a penchant for violence, and in one case, a sign that he would commit an act of violence, apparently referring to the day of the shooting as “zero day.” He shared one post from another account captioned “If your solutions to the world around you aren’t fire and fury I have no clue how you’ve managed to ignore the vile system you’ve lived under your entire life” and featured an image of the Uvalde, Texas shooter, who killed 21 people in May 2024.
Henderson had two accounts on Soundcloud, a platform for sharing audio content such as music and podcasts. In the manifesto, he claimed to be inspired by Incelcore and Shootercore music. One account, called “HopelessMisanthrope,” had a bio that called himself a “wiggercel,” “certified saint,” and used the TND slogan. He posted a compilation titled “Scenecore” under the #incelcore hashtag and included what seems to be an image of him wearing a siege mask.
He also followed reposted music by accounts called “school shooter,” with made songs called “Better Off Dead.”
—————————————————————————————————————————–
Appendix
- O9A: Reference to the satanic, neo-Nazi group Order of Nine Angles (O9A), which organizes online and plans violent attacks in the real world.
- 13/52: White supremacist code for the false belief that Black people commit a disproportionate amount of crime in the United States. The “13” is a reference to the percentage of Black people in the U.S. population, while “52” is a reference to the alleged percentage of all murders committed by Black people.
- 88: International shorthand text for “HH” or “Heil Hitler,” a term that was originally used by the Germans and other Nazis in World War II as a show of support for Hitler and the Third Reich. The initials are commonly used online, where it can also be found in numeric form as “8” stands in for “H,” the eighth letter of the alphabet.
- Accelerationism: Belief held by certain extremists that promoting societal collapse will hasten the founding of a white supremacist society.
- “Black pill, red pill”: A pop-culture reference, originating from The Matrix, that refers to a certain point in the radicalization process.
- Chad: A reference to the perceived opponent of the Incels, meaning a charismatic, masculine man who, according to the incels, has success in attracting women.
- Efrikan: A fictional location in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.
- Gazi Kodzo: Former leader of the Black Hammer Party, a black nationalist party known for its extreme antisemitism and advocacy for violence.
- Great Replacement: A white supremacist conspiracy theory alleging that political elites are secretly engineering a “replacement” of the native white population with non-white immigrants (see GPAHE’s Great Replacement page here).
- Groyper: An online follower of the white supremacist influencer Nick Fuentes, and his America First movement (See GPAHE’s previous reporting on the Groypers here).
- Incel: “Involuntary celibates,” a term to describe a sub-section of online misogynists who hate women because of their perceived difficulty in finding a partner.
- Incelcore: A genre of music popular amongst Incels.
- Islamification/Islamization: term used by far-right anti-Muslim groups to signify a supposed (erroneous) claim that Muslims are taking-over a country, changing cultural norms, and imposing Sharia law.
- Jewish Question (JQ): term used by antisemites and white nationalists to imply that the existence of a Jewish population within their national territory is a “question” that needs addressing through violence or genocide.
- -maxxing: A suffix used by online communities, often by incels and users on 4chan, to express that they are “maxing out” a certain activity in order to improve a certain aspect of themselves. It is often used to describe pseudo-scientific self-improvement activities such as “looksmaxxing”
- No Lives Matter (NLM): A violent slogan used by neo-Nazi and accelerationist groups online, which distorts and demeans the racial justice slogan, Black Lives Matter.
- “Our guys”: Expression originating on the unregulated platform 4chan that generally signifies that a user adheres to a community’s white supremacist or accelerationist core beliefs and values.
- /Pol/: A channel on the unregulated social media platform 4chan where racist and other bigoted communities gather.
- Race War Now!: Slogan used by white supremacists to incite violence against Jews and other minority groups online.
- “..Roundhouse kick a n***** into the concrete”: A commonly-shared “copy-pasta” with a racist and violent message.
- Saints/Martyrs: Reference to previous mass shooters who accelerationist communities celebrate online.
- Sonnenrad: Nazi symbol known for being displayed after a renovation at the hands of Nazi SS leader Heinrich Himmler in a floor mosaic in Germany’s Wewelsburg Castle. It is frequently used by neo-Nazis in the modern day, although it is also used in non-racist religious communities as well.
- Soyjack: A 4chan meme intended to portray an individual as “weak,” or a “cuck.” The name is a combination of the words “wojak,” a meme of an emotional cartoon character, and “soy,” commonly used to demean non-right-wingers.
- Terrorgram: An online group of neo-Nazis, considered to be terrorists by the U.S. Department of State, that conducts violent attacks on perceived adversaries.
- TND: A reference to a violent, racist slogan “Total N***** Death” used online in bigoted communities on 4chan.
- White Boy Summer (WBS): A slogan co-opted from a song created by American actor Chet Hanks in the summer of 2021 by white supremacists in order to celebrate the “white race” (See GPAHE’s previous reporting on the WBS meme here)
- Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG): an antisemitic belief that Jews secretly control the governments of countries in the West, commonly adhered to by neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
Influences mentioned in the Manifesto
- Abundant Life Christian School shooter: A school shooting that took place on December 16, 2024, by a radicalized fifteen-year-old girl, which resulted in the deaths of three people and six injuries.
- Apalachee High School shooter: A school shooting September 4, 2024, in Barrow County, Georgia, which resulted in the deaths of four people and nine injuries.
- Bratislava shooter: A white supremacist shooting which took place on October 12, 2022 in front of a gay bar in Bratislava, Slovakia, and resulted in the deaths of two people and one injury.
- Buffalo shooter: A mass shooting at a grocery story conducted by a white supremacist on May 14, 2022, in Buffalo, N.Y., resulting in the deaths of ten people and three injuries.
- Christchurch shooter: A mass shooting on March 15, 2019 by a white supremacist who killed 51 and injured 89 at a mosque and an Islamic center in Christchurch, New Zealand.
- El Paso shooter: A mass shooting carried out by a white supremacist at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on August 3, 2019, which resulted in the deaths of 23 people and 22 injuries.
- Eskişehir attacker: An August 12, 2024, knife attack in the garden of the Tepebaşı Mosque in Eskişehir, Turkey, by a right-wing extremist inspired by the “Terrorgram collective.”
- Kerch shooter: A school shooting that occurred on October 17, 2018, at the Kerch Polytechnic College in occupied Crimea by a right-wing extremist, which resulted in the deaths of 21 people and 67 injuries.
- “Kolovrat”: A prominent Russian neo-Nazi leader who led a number of extremist groups such as “Schultz-88,” “Mad Dog,” and “Combat Terrorist Organization” in the early 2000s and organized a series of murders.
- Lviv shooter: A neo-Nazi who murdered the hardline politician Iryna Farion from the ultra-nationalist Svoboda party in Ukraine.
- Oklahoma City Bombing: Orchestrated by anti-government extremist Timothy McVeigh on April 19, 1995, at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, resulting in the deaths of 168 people, and more than 700 injuries.
- Perry High School shooter: A January 4, 2024, school shooting in Perry, Iowa, which resulted in the deaths of three people and six injuries.
- Tesak: A prominent neo-Nazi activist in Russia known for his participation in the armed wings of neo-Nazi parties in the early 2000s, and allegations of murders of minorities in the country.
