Copy of a Copy of a Copycat Shooter

The San Diego Mosque shooting fit a familiar formula, complete with connections to O9A and Com.

Part 1 - Epilogue

“They were 764 accelerationists!”

“No, they were Russian foot soldiers set in action by Putin to accelerate the collapse of the West!”

“They were federal informants! Don’t you know that the O9A was founded by the FBI?”

The latest mass shooting occurred on May 18, 2026 at a mosque in San Diego, California. The two young perpetrators, a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old, shot and killed a security guard and two staff members outside the Islamic Center of San Diego before turning the guns on themselves. They livestreamed the attack.

The video quickly made its way to the public, along with a manifesto co-authored by the boys. Neither the video nor the manifesto showed any glimmer of originality. Their outfits, the writing on their guns, and the long diatribes in the manifesto were all carbon copies of those who came before them. The “Saints”, as Terrorgram so fondly called them.

First there was Brenton Tarrant in Christchurch, New Zealand, then Patrick Crusius in El Paso, Payton Gendron in Buffalo, and so on. Though the basic formula for these attacks remains the same, the specific aesthetics and motifs used by such notoriety-seeking shooters have evolved over time to include modern references - incel words like “Foid”, “Chad”, and “Mog”, cutesy, cartoonish drawings of the O9A character Drill Sergeant Gray, chronically online femboy lingo like “moots”, “oomf” and “groomie”. And that’s not to mention the biggest elephant in the room: The fact that the majority of modern “Nazi” mass shooters are some shade of brown.

I can’t help but wonder if Brenton Tarrant would be embarrassed to see what his movement has turned into.

I sit back in my seat, sigh, and wonder, how did we get here?

Perhaps I should be grateful for the misguided online discourse around accelerationism. After all, when I embarked on my journey to understand accelerationism back in 2022, only a handful of people in the world knew what it was, and no one had it completely figured out. Even less people knew of the secretive satanic cult called Order of Nine Angles (O9A) and its influence over the modern accelerationist landscape.

Then, in 2023, I stumbled upon an even more obscure and lesser known child exploitation cult called 764. And once again, I tried and tried to bring the group to the attention of both the public and federal authorities. I pleaded with them to investigate the group’s connection to recent mass shootings. I must have sounded insane.

Fast forward 3 years and suddenly everyone is an expert on accelerationism, O9A, 764, and the newly minted term “Nihilistic Violent Extremist”. It’s a surreal feeling. For years I fought to thrust these issues into the public spotlight, and now here they are, being widely acknowledged, albeit explained slightly wrong.

I try not to get annoyed. At least people are starting to get it. No more uphill battles when submitting tips to authorities, no more droves of people calling me crazy online. My articles about recent mass shootings have started to feel more like epilogues than exclusive, breaking stories.

I stand up from my chair, walk outside into the warm, Texas air and take a deep breath. Maybe we are going to make it, after all.

Part 2 - The Breakdown

I often walk a delicate balance when covering these types of stories. On the one hand, I don’t want to give these degenerate losers the recognition they wanted so desperately that they killed and died for it. But on the other hand, it’s important that the public has a solid understanding of the evolving accelerationist terrorism landscape.

I like to keep my logic simple. Certain elements of these cases, like names and photos, are important for identifying the threat (other details, like a boy named VAZQUEZ being implicated in a neo-Nazi terror attack, also provide insight). Analyzing the manifesto is important for understanding the motivation. Other elements, like sharing gory live-streamed footage or cringe TikTok video edits, are not.

More often than not, multimedia content created by mass shooters and other violent extremists are intended to go viral and be used in catchy music edits. They hope such content will inspire and radicalize others into committing similar attacks. The fact of the matter is that the bad actors who ultimately make and disseminate such content will do so regardless, and no amount of careful journalism will stop them. I avoid sharing it anyways, though.

An image from the San Diego mosque shooters’ manifesto.

With that said, let’s break down exactly what we’ve learned about the shooters, their online groups and likely motivations in the 48 hours since the San Diego shooting occurred.