On May 14, at a Tops grocery store in Buffalo, New York, 18-year-old Payton Gendron got out of his car and opened fire on shoppers, killing 10 and wounding three more. Gendron live-streamed his attack on Twitch, a gaming platform used for streaming and video content, and shared his neo-Nazi and accelerationist manifesto on 4Chan's "/pol" message board, instantly catching the attention of neo-Nazis and white supremacists online. The manifesto included anti-black and antisemitic content; see MEMRI DTTM report Buffalo, NY Supermarket Shooter's Manifesto Reveals Christchurch Mosque Shooter Brenton Tarrant As Primary Inspiration, Discusses Great Replacement Theory, Names 30 Jewish Members Of President Biden's Cabinet.
Gendron had taken inspiration from other mass killers, specifically drawing from Brenton Tarrant's 2019 massacre at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. Gendron, like Tarrant, wrote a rambling 180-page question-and-answer manifesto which repeatedly referenced the white supremacist "Great Replacement" theory, and even wrote neo-Nazi slogans and the names of mass shooters in white ink on his Bushmaster XM-15 rifle. Like Tarrant, Gendron is also an accelerationist and his attack was aimed at sowing chaos and fuel further violence and division.
In his manifesto, Gendron wrote that he wished to "incite violence, retaliation and further division between the European people and the replacers currently occupying European soil" and indeed to offer his fellow extremists the opportunity to "fight to protect your rights and the constitution."
Gendron's rifle was daubed with neo-Nazi slogans in a fashion similar to that of Christchurch shooter Tarrant.
Almost immediately, neo-Nazis and white supremacists took to social media to discuss the attack, share the shooter's manifesto and livestream, and spread conspiracy theories about the shooting. Many accelerationists and incels celebrated Gendron's actions, calling him a "saint" of the movement and comparing him to other mass shooters such as the 2014 Isla Vista killings perpetrator Elliot Rodger and 2015 Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof. Others began sowing doubt about the attack, claiming that it was staged or faked by authorities in order to enact draconian measures and advance the "anti-White agenda." Many accused Gendron and the attack itself of "glowing" – a term used by anti-government and neo-Nazi extremists to allege that federal agencies are involved and that a person or event is simply a trap to ensnare extremists or an attempt to enact restrictive legislation, usually gun control. Others claimed that the entire attack did not happen and that it was faked. The posts also included antisemitic content.
Still others argued that the attack was poorly planned and that Gendron had targeted the wrong population, with many extremists saying that he should have gone after high-value targets like government agents or elite individuals rather than innocent shoppers. Some neo-Nazis claimed that the attack would do their movement more harm than good, and that Gendron had wasted an opportunity to carry out a meaningful strike and had instead only further drawn federal agency attention to the white supremacist and neo-Nazi movement.
The following are some excerpts from the MEMRI DTTM report cataloging the reactions of neo-Nazis, white supremacists, anti-government extremists, and incels to the Buffalo shooting. The reactions are taken primarily from extremist-friendly platforms such as 4Chan, Gab, Telegram, and Incels.is.
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Neo-Nazis And Incels Celebrate The Attack, Call Gendron A "Saint"
On an Incels.is thread, a user shared, on May 14, the full livestreamed footage of the attack. In a follow-up post, the original poster wrote, "He spared his fellow White man, but not the White w*men," adding a sticker of Pepe the Frog giving the "okay" hand signal.
In response to another user asking "did something happen?" the user answered, "Yes bro. A living Saint declared a crusade against n**gers and shot up a supermarket. Score of 10."
Forum members continued replying to the thread on May 15. Another user wrote: "All hail St. Gendron."
In response, a user commented, "breivik... tarrant... earnest... crusius... manshaus... balliet... and now gendron."
Another user wrote: "I would only go ER [incel term referring to 2014 Isla Vista killer Elliot Rodger] in a synagogue or go all the way to (((Wall Street))) and do it there (in GTA 4)."
Another also wrote about going "ER," adding, "I would go ER everywhere with a big gathering of kikes/n**gers/spics/ethnics… tell me if I forgot something…"
A user praised Gendron, writing, "The speed, the accuracy, the execution… My only criticism of this is his poor choice of places to become a supreme gentleman, why a supermarket? A nightclub or sorority would've been much better choice."
A neo-Nazi Telegram channel posted a link to a news article about the shooting, accompanied by a still image from a video showing him being taken into custody by Buffalo police. The channel wrote "Haha dead n***ers! Press S."
An accelerationist neo-Nazi Telegram channel shared Gendron's manifesto, writing "never disavow," apparently in response to a number of channels disavowing him and his actions. The channel also posted a digitally altered still image from the livestream, showing a woman being shot in the head. Text in the image read "That's not where the cart goes."
On Telegram, a neo-Nazi channel wrote: "A white supremacist went into a store and shot all the n***ers* he saw. Let's give him a round of applause!" The channel then posted an image of the Gendron alongside a message reading "Introducing, Mr. Based and Redpilled."
A neo-Nazi Telegram channel posted on May 15 a video of the attack edited alongside clips from the 2019 Christchurch mosque shooting, highlighting the similarities between the attacks. At the end, the video included images of Brenton Tarrant and Gendron, and the text "Hail Saint Brenton Tarrant – Hail Saint Payton Gendron."
A neo-Nazi Telegram channels shared, on May 15, an edited screenshot from the video of the attack showing a woman being shot outside the supermarket. On the image it says, "Here is your reparations!" – a reference to the phrase "Here's your reparations" written on the gunman's rifle.
A neo-Nazi Telegram channel shared on May 15 a post with an image of Gendron in a bulletproof vest with a sonnenrad patch. A comment posted with the image reads: "Saint Payton Gendron was only 15yo on Tarrant's Big Day. This had to have been brewing in the back of his mind since. Maybe not 'I'm gonna do this,' but at least, 'this is the answer.' How many other teenage anons like Gendron are there? Daydreaming of their own attacks someday, brainstorming targets, biding their time til they're old enough to buy a rifle. There's no telling how many others Tarrant inspired, but it fills me with hope for the future. HAIL SAINT GENDRON. HAIL SAINT TARRANT. HAIL THE SAINTS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. HAIL HOLY TERROR.
White Supremacists And Anti-Government Extremists Claim Attack Was Staged, Call It A 'FedOp' And Claim It 'Glows'
A white supremacist Gab user posted on May 14, sharing a status from another user that claimed that the shooter's manifesto "was literally copy pasted from the Christ Church shooting." The user went on to say, "Sloppy job Mossad." The user called the shooting a "FAKE hoax (just like Christchurch in New Zealand) – a DHS drill gone live. 100% staged theatrical production."
A white supremacist Telegram channel posted an image showing a line from Gendron's manifesto in which he stated that his name is Payton Gendron. Below the image was another image of an index of "Jewish and Crypto-Jewish Surnames," with an arrow pointing at the entry for "Gendron." The channel wrote "Buffalo Shooter is Jewish."
A neo-Nazi group posted on May 14 to its Telegram channel a message questioning the timing of the shooting and linking it to the DHS's new disinformation initiative. The channel wrote: "Anyone else find it curious that the Biden admin announced the Ministry of Truth, 2 weeks later there is a shooting by a 'white supremacist' which was live streamed, then the Governor of NY has a press conference to call for social media platforms to be more closely monitored? See where this is going?"
Neo-Nazi Telegram channel, "Beserker Kvlt," posted on May 14 saying "Not gonna lie, and I hate saying this, but this shit glows hard as fuck."
Extremists Online Claim Gendron Should Have Targeted Higher Value Targets
In a neo-Nazi chat on Telegram, users claimed that Gendron had done more to harm the neo-Nazi cause than to benefit it. One user wrote that "Feds wanted these pointless attacks, it legitimises the system." Another agreed, saying "Imagine if that guy actually went higher up the food chain that random innocents. That would be truly frightening and effective and I don't condone it. Instead he wasted his life and the system gets a clear example of the caricature they need. That doesn't create sympathy."
Other users reiterated the point, with one of them saying that a shooting like Gendron's "pushes the system to become aggressive." However, the user went on to excuse Gendron's actions, saying that he didn't "think that's the intention" and that "The kid went nuts and wanted to kill. People go nuts sometimes. Even us humans. Lol." Another user argued that the attack "turns the public completely against us. I don't want to fedpost at all, but if your target is random brown people, I can only assume said person doesn't understand how power structures work."
A group member also claimed that the attack would damage public opinion regarding the movement, saying: "You dont reverse public opinion by becoming the caricature the feds need you to be, a murdering ghoul."
A white supremacist Telegram channel wrote on May 14 that "Killing innocent white bystanders isn't going to help anyone."
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