Random Acts Of Violence - Continued
Posted by Skrud at Thursday, September 14th 2006 at 1:04pm
I started writing this as a comment to Heather’s most recent post, if i go stark-raving mad but decided I’d post it here instead.
Heather wrote:
Okay…onwards to the actual point. After the shooting yesterday, the media has decided to find out about the shooter by accessing some of the stuff he posted online (you can access the CBC online article here):
In his profile on vampirefreaks.com, a website devoted to Goth culture, Gill called himself “Trench,” and wrote: “You will come to know him as the Angel of Death.”
“Work sucks … School sucks … Life sucks … What else can I say?” he wrote. “Metal and Goth kick ass. Life is like a video game, you gotta die sometime.”
Now, quite obviously the guy was disturbed…i mean, he went on a shooting rampage, but this isn’t the first time that someone’s livejournal, wordpress, xanga or whatever other interface writings have been used to corroborate the media’s depiction of a killer. I wonder about this as a techinque…i can definitely see the sensational appeal, but how much does the average individual’s blog reflect their true thoughts?
The problem with the blog quotes that the media reported on is quite simply that they aren’t necessarily distinguishable from what any angsty teen would post on the internet. I’m pretty sure I used to write the same way when I was 16 and morbidly depressed. I wouldn’t be surprised if I found an uncannily similar anecdote buried whatever I used to scribble on in high school.
The only thing that makes it creepy is the fact that this guy did turn out to be a psycho killer. If he never went to Dawson yesterday and still wrote all that stuff, nobody would think anything of it. The posts are given “retroactive” creepiness.
Maybe the real warning sign was the fact that he was 25 years old and still writing like that.
And the worst part is that this kind of incident only provokes stereotypes related to gamers, music fans, goths and various other subcultures.
Maybe potential murderous rampagers are metal fans, but according to a study conducted recently, so are IT workers. So if you’re a metalhead, you might be a serial killer – but you might just be a computer programmer. Can you tell the difference?
It’s important that the media and general public in general realize that while violent games and movies and music might appeal to psychotic killer types, they also appeal to perfectly normal human beings who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Saying that someone went and shot up a school because he was influenced by some videogame is like saying he did it because he wears clothes. The “influence” was surely already there long before he picked up a controller.
When something like this happens, one of the first things that the media, the experts, etc. will try to do is find out what may have caused this behaviour.
The problem is that the media has this bad habit of oversimplifying and putting different types of people in separate boxes.
So, the guy’s taste in video games, movies and music is then pointed out in the unfortunate exercise of blame-finding and finger-pointing that ensues.
And like you said, violent games or heavy metal music may have an influence, but that doesn’t mean that everyone who likes them will go on a shooting spree. It’s just that some people are already pretty messed up to begin with.
All the media did was sensationalize his life. They did exactly what he wanted. He was a nobody before and they should have left it that way. By giving him all this air time all they are doing is making some other depressed kid more likely to do the same, go out in a kill himself is a glorious case of copicide
They’ve got it all wrong. His profile makes it perfectly clear why he went on the shooting spree.
His favourite beer is bleue dry.
don’t forget about the “cheesy poufs” too. Definite warning sign of a serial killer.
As for the Programmer Vs. Serial Killer quiz, I scored an 8/10. not bad for someone who doesn’t know much about programming.