LPorter's Cullen-bashing posts from 2010

Five years ago, I wrote some stuff on the old board that Dave Cullen found deeply offensive. (He thought I was making him out to be a perv.)

Someone told me how he felt. I felt bad about it, so I e-mailed him to tell him I was sorry. It was the first and only time the two of us ever made any kind of contact.

He wrote, "You people need to understand that you can reach right through my computer and *hurt* me."

I told him I would stop making fun of him. He said he would post on the board.

But he never posted, and after a while I started making fun of him again.

And here we are...

...

Here's the stuff I wrote.

[begin LPorter Cullen-bashing from 2010]

I'm working on a new book, about an author who decides to make a name for himself by writing a totally misleading account of one of the most compelling stories of our time.

It's called Blind Ambition: How a Writer Managed to Screw Up Royally and Still Make a Shitload of Money.

...

Here's an excerpt:

Evan got chicks - lots and lots of chicks. He had more chicks in his little black book than the captain of the wrestling team had pimples on his back.

But he wasn't into chicks.

And the captain of the wrestling team was. And the captain of the wrestling team had a great ass. And the tight end on the football team had an even better ass. And when the captain of the wrestling team smiled and waved at the tight end on the football team, and when the tight end on the football team ran his big, veiny hands through his waxy, strawberry-blonde hair, Evan felt very excited.

But the tight end on the football team had a girlfriend. She was blonde and she wore jangly earrings.

If Evan had been into chicks, he would have spent more time looking at the girlfriend than at her boyfriend.

But he wasn't.

So he felt like shit.

Many years later, when Evan found himself standing in front of a traumatized high school writing a story for some dippy Web site, he thought to himself, "These kids didn't have it that bad. I had it a lot worse than them. God, if the captain of the wrestling team had pushed me around - if he'd even deigned to *touch* me - I would have been in ecstasy. So they must not have been bullied. They must have been crazy. Well, maybe one was crazy, and one was emo."

When his book got published ten years later, he still felt like shit, but now he had a lot of money.

And he liked money.

...

My book is mean-spirited, isn't it? Still, I think it should be a best-seller. And it shouldn't be too hard to write.

Why bother researching when you can make stuff up, right? If I have to, I'll just go through some records and cherry-pick the evidence that supports my conclusions.

...

Hey, I just thought of a great way to counter Cullen's popularity - write really good reviews of his book, like this:

"HEY EVERYBODY I JUST RED THE GR8TEST BOK IT IS SO KEWL IT IS CALED COLUMBIEN BY DAVE CULEN AND HE IS LIKE TOTALLY GIVING THE WHOLE STOREE BEHIND THE ATAKC. AND I THINK YOU SHOULD REED THE BOK SO YOU CAN LIKE NO WAT HAPPENED THERES."

"I've just read Columbine by Dave Cullen, and I must say I am truly impressed. In fact, I was so captivated by it that I didn't even notice when my 16-year-old neighbor escaped from my basement. (Don't worry - I managed to catch her before she got too far. That's the great thing about living in rural Montana - no one can hear them scream.)"

...

Everyone "got" my point, right? I wasn't making fun of Da - uh, I mean "Evan" - per se; I was satirizing Cullen's style. It would be very easy for me to make dubious assumptions ("Evan" was a closeted gay teenager; therefore he must have lusted after the jocks in school) and mutate those assumptions into wildly off-base conclusions ("Evan" lusted after jocks at school; therefore, he idolized them; therefore, he could not bring himself to believe that the school environment had anything to do with the massacre; therefore, he came to believe that the attack was caused by factors internal to the killers; therefore, through a process of selectively confirming his innate biases, he chose to believe that Eric was psychopathic and Dylan was depressed).

And where did I get the assumption that "Evan" was lusting after jocks? I just grabbed it from this article:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Dave Cullen wrote:

"They're anti-everything," said senior Brad Johnson, a strapping 6-foot-2-inch rugby player and tight end on the football team.

I assumed that a man who would describe another man (okay, teenagers are in that gray area between "boys" and "men", but Brad *was* a senior, so he must have been close to 18 ) as "strapping" has a sexual obsession with young, firm-bodied athletes.

Those are my assumptions and I'm sticking to them. And I'm going to tell them straight to Oprah's face.

...

I'm not trying to explore Cullen's motivations, per se - although I guess we could do that if you really want to. I'm merely applying Cullen's flawed process of reasoning (make a dubious assumption + cherry-pick evidence to support that assumption = draw an off-base conclusion) to come up with a flawed analysis, which I am selling in my pretend book as a "true", myth-busting account of an author named "Evan" and his storied career.

The idea is that I could very easily write a book about Dave Cullen, using the same techniques that he used to write a book about Eric and Dylan. But my book would probably be as full of bullshit as his is, so what would be the point? (Unless I thought I could make a pile of money on it, that is.)

...

Quote:
I don't know if Cullen was ever openly gay in school, he seems to describe himself as a nerdy guy that had trouble fitting in

From the article:

Cullen, 48, is openly gay now but was in the closet at the time he went to Elk Grove High School. He said he felt like a misfit then and contemplated killing himself.

...

For the uninitiated, I should mention that there is a *ton* of gay fiction about high-school jock bullies and their victims. It's practically a cliché. Sometimes the stories are revenge fantasies where the jock bullies are sexually humiliated (with *nothing* left to the imagination); others are syrupy love stories.

...

Quote:
^I totally undestand you...this forum is about shooting and most of the time I'm laughing or giggling xD


Here's something that might make you wretch:

(LPorter 2015-12-31: The link is dead. I can't find it on archive.org.)
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Dave Cullen wrote:

I hate to shop and can't afford $70 for a pair of shorts anyway, so I only cruise by A&F stores at Christmastime, when I'm forced into the mall and seek the sublime comfort of their delicious 30-foot straightboys acting like hungry homos who've misplaced their shirts.

It's vaguely creepy to think of Dave Cullen cruising Abercrombie & Fitch, ogling the shirtless guys on the walls.

Although I have to say that ol' Davie Boy (Da Cullenator?) has good taste in men. After all, he used a picture of me:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

(Seriously ... I wouldn't kill to look like that, but I would maim.)

...

Quote:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

[a nationally prominent author]

Oh, yeah - that's what I'm talkin' about.

You know, it's a shame they had to pixellate the faces in that video of the jocks shoving Eric around - those were some mighty yummy athletes.

Especially that one in the middle ... you know, the one wearing the Columbine Football sweatshirt with the too-long sleeves.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

He was wearing sandals, showing off his big, manly feet ... oh, yeah. That's what I like. I don't like big butts; I like big feet.

I like men who wear too-long sleeves ... it makes me think about tying the sleeves to the bedpost, so they can't get away.

Those jocks think they're so tough, don't they? Well, wait until they see what I've got planned for them. They're bad boys - very bad boys who need to be punished.

Seriously, Eric and Dylan had it made - if hot steamy jocks had shoved me around back in my high-school days, I'd have spent an awful lot of time in the bathroom, alone.

Everyone laughed when I got a Wii. They never even imagined that I'd find new and interesting uses for the *controller*.

[/a nationally prominent author]

...

Quote:
Jesus Christ.



I once was lost, but now I'm found
Was blind, but now I see that Eric was a psycho and Dylan was an emo.

Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And buy Dave Cullen's book
How precious did that book appear
The Hour I First Believed (by Wally Lamb).

Seriously, this is my favorite version of "Amazing Grace" - the YouTube clip, not my perversion of the lyrics.

...

Quote:
I'll prob. lay off insulting him for his birthday and try to say some nice things about him to celebrate it.

Yeah, let's throw him some bone(r)s.

Here you go, Davy Crockett - uh, Cullen:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

"Ooh - I *do* like big butts!"

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

"How'd you know I have a *firm* appreciation of *long*, *thick* pieces of *wood?*"



"Oh, yes! Yes! Uuuggghhh! Whew!

"Uh ... maybe I should wash my hands before I check my e-mail. Yeah ... don't want the ol' keyboard feeling all sticky and smelling all funky-like."

...

Quote:
And suddenly Dave Cullen's birthday topic become a gay thread

Mr. Cullen is, by his own admission, a connoisseur of man meat.

By posting pictures of shirtless muscle jocks, I am attempting to entice him to the board.

...

Well, Dave, it is now your birthday, at least in the Eastern time zone.

I have tried my best to entice you to the board by offering you pictures of muscle jocks to drool over. In your infinite gratitude, feel free to shower me with love and admiration.

...

Everyone "got" it, right? I mean, you "got" that I was offering the pics as an insincere peace token to our Abercrombie & Fitch-cruising, shirtless model-craving Davie Boy, right?

You got that I was mocking (while simultaneously indulging) his professed absorption with hard-bodied muscle men?

I actually think this thread went horribly awry - it started out as a sarcastic joke, and mutated into an epic parade of steroid-bloated flesh. I've probably scared half the regular members away for good.

And I have only myself to blame.

...

At any rate, Dave, I make you this promise:

I shall endeavor not to criticize you today.

Peace out, hom ... -ey.

[end LPorter Cullen-bashing from 2010]

So it turns out that I *did* save an HTML file of the article where Cullen talks about going to Abercrombie & Fitch.

Here are some screenshots. Scroll down to get to the A&F part:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

The constant Cullen bashing stuff is kind of getting old now. We know he's a douche, why harp on and on about it?

x5000x wrote:

The constant Cullen bashing stuff is kind of getting old now. We know he's a douche, why harp on and on about it?

Because folks keep reading his book and saying, "Now I know everything there is to know about Columbine."

x5000x wrote:

The constant Cullen bashing stuff is kind of getting old now. We know he's a douche, why harp on and on about it?

Cullen lying about Columbine is getting old now, but he keeps harping on and on about it. I ain't saying insulting him on a forum is gonna get you anywhere, but at this same time he does need correcting.

And here's some all-new Cullen shit:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

On the tenth anniversary of Columbine, I read an excerpt from Dave Cullen's book ... and I got fucking pissed.

"Eric Harris got chicks?" I screamed. "Lots and lots of chicks? This guy is totally full of shit!"

A few months later, I joined a Columbine board and began spending almost all of my free time there. Within a year, I'd written over ten thousand - that's a one with four zeroes after it - posts. A sizable fraction of those posts were devoted to attacking Cullen and his book.

My opinion of Cullen then (and now) is that he was nothing more than a smug bullshit artist who set out to exploit a horrific tragedy for ego gratification and financial gain. His efforts were aided immeasurably by the media establishment, which (for whatever reason) anointed him as The World's Foremost Authority on Columbine(TM). He managed to convince thousands of people that big bad psycho Eric was "outscoring the football team" while sad little emo Dylan was cowering in the corner.

I used to get hung up on the whole Eric=psychopath/Dylan=depressive thing, but now I couldn't care less about picking through the psychobabble word salad to get to the nuggets of truth. Yes, the two boys were very different, but they had some key things in common. Both Eric and Dylan were "broken" people with serious mental-health issues. (Could either or both have been saved? Maybe, maybe not.) Both boys felt a profound sense of alienation from the mainstream. Both boys refused to conform to social expectations.

And, most importantly, both boys didn't give a shit about anyone but themselves. Even sweet little emo Dylan didn't care that dozens if not hundreds of people were going to die.

Ten years ago, I was mad as hell at Dave Cullen, and I wasn't going to take it anymore. I was willing to do whatever it took to discredit him. At one point, I harbored an intense hatred of the man.

Do I hate him now? Not really. It's not so much that my opinion of him has improved, but that my opinion of the world as a whole has worsened. There's so much bullshit out there, and so many bad actors with nefarious motives, that it's almost silly to single out a smarmy little prick like Cullen for special attention. He's just not that important a figure, and Columbine is just not that significant an issue.

Ten years ago, I was greatly disturbed by the thought that Cullen was "converting" so many people to his ridiculous views. But, in retrospect, I realize that the real problem is human nature. Most folks are drooling morons who are easily swayed by smooth-talking charlatans. It's appalling that someone like Cullen gets to hold the media megaphone, but that's the way it is. Smart people will approach Cullen's book with a degree of healthy skepticism and will make an effort to find out the full story; dumb people will swallow whatever bullshit they're given. Not much can be done about the latter. Like they say, you can't fix stupid.

Do I feel that my anti-Cullen crusade was a failure, or a mistake? Not really. I'd like to think that at least a few people benefited from my efforts to expose his lies. (And that is the right word for them - not misstatements, not errors, but lies.) And I do feel that fighting on the side of truth is always worthwhile, even if it's a hopeless battle.

At long last, can I find something to say about Dave Cullen that I haven't said already? Not really. I still think he's full of shit. I still don't like him. I still wish that he would show even a modicum of integrity by addressing his critics in an open, forthright manner. But I also wish that I had a billion dollars.

At any rate, I've finally managed to get all of my anti-Cullen rage out of my system. The fire has been extinguished. I don't give a shit anymore.

The game is over, Dave. I'm not claiming victory, but I'm not conceding defeat, either. Go forth and do whatever the fuck you want.

Ten years ago, I thought I would never run out of things to say about Columbine. But now I have. The twentieth anniversary of NBK is as good a time as any to put a cap on my emotional involvement with the massacre.

Part of is it that I'm now in my mid-thirties, knocking on the door of middle age. In 2009, I had a shitload of unresolved issues from my childhood and adolescence. In 2019, almost all of those fires have been extinguished. One or two are still smoldering, but they're all pretty much under control.

Some of my youthful delusions died peacefully in bed; others endured unspeakable torture before they succumbed to the merciless ravages of cold, hard truth. But nearly all of them are gone now.

A teacher at Columbine who had Dylan in one of her classes once told me that I had no real right to feel anything about Columbine, that it wasn't my tragedy. "It doesn't belong to you," she said. She was right, of course, but it really didn't matter. My feelings about Columbine have always been inextricably intertwined with my feelings about my own life. I've never been interested in *the* Columbine massacre; instead, I've been obsessed with *my* Columbine massacre. No one can take *my* Columbine away from me.

I still remember exactly where I was and what I was doing at the precise moment that I first heard about the massacre. Every time I think about Columbine, I flash back to that moment, and I remember what it was like to be a confused adolescent struggling to comprehend the full complexity of the big bad world that awaited him. The world is, to quote a Star Trek character, "wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."

But that adolescent is a stranger now. He doesn't have a whole lot in common with me anymore. The questions that kept him up at night have all been answered. The battles that he waged have long since ended. (He won some and he lost some. His batting average wasn't too shabby.) The burdens that weighed down his soul have been lifted, for the most part.

At some point, you do grow up, at least to some extent. And then you realize that the things you cared about when you were in middle school or high school just aren't that important to you anymore. After a while you start to wonder why you ever cared about them at all.

Columbine used to be something that I really cared about. Now it is something that I used to care about. That's a big difference.

Recently, I had a conversation with an older guy I know. I told him about my belief that, in many key ways, I've already hit all of the emotional extremes that I'll ever experience. I'll never again be quite as happy as I was when I reached the peak of my highest mountaintop, and I'll never again be quite as sad as I was when I was pounded into the dirt of my deepest valley. I've settled into a kind of emotional equilibrium.

He laughed and said, "You're so naive. By the time you're my age, you'll have seen and done so much more that you'll marvel at the fact that you were ever dumb enough to say such a thing."

I don't know if he's right or wrong, but at this stage I have a hard time imagining that there's really anything new coming down the pike. Over the last ten years, I've known triumph and tragedy, profit and loss, hope and fear, joy and despair, victory and defeat, sweet dreams and bitter nightmares. In some endeavors, I've succeeded beyond my wildest dreams; in others, I've failed miserably. Ultimately, I'm left feeling a little happy, a little sad, a little satisfied, a little bewildered, and a little numb.

I've slayed all of my demons (and some of my angels, too). I'm like a blood-soaked soldier at the end of a great battle, smoking a cigarette while surveying a vast landscape full of dead bodies. Of the slain, some I mourn; some I scorn; all of them, I leave behind without any regrets. The past is dead and the future is unknowable. In the present, I can merely bide my time and prepare for whatever lies ahead.

I would like to believe that, given enough time, Eric and Dylan would have figured out some way to slay their demons, as well. But we'll never know.

What the teacher said to you is something I grapple with too. Especially living so close now.

I think Devon feels similarly but I’ve met people who understand how it effected so many people especially people our age. My friend who is a survivor and I have had this discussion before. I definitely keep many of the feelings to myself though but in general she’s never made me feel like I don’t have a right to feel the way I do. I’m not Discounting the feelings that people have now who are younger and are learning about what happened. However I think if you were maybe 14-18 during that time I think it was really a turning point in our childhoods. For many of us it was. And then we went through 9/11 so soon after.

LPorter101 wrote:

A teacher at Columbine who had Dylan in one of her classes once told me that I had no real right to feel anything about Columbine, that it wasn't my tragedy. "It doesn't belong to you," she said.

I completely disagree with this. If what she was trying to communicate was that people outside of the Columbine community could never truly understand what members within it felt, I'd agree. But to say that only those people within the community have a right to feel anything about the tragedy is ludicrous.

The Columbine attack was huge- it changed so much. It changed how safe/ not safe kids felt in their own schools, it changed how parents felt about sending their kids to schools, it changed how schools in the entire country handled school security. It's ripple effect was enormous because if it could happen there, it could happen anywhere. If it could happen with kids like Eric and Dylan, who don't seem a lot different than "Rob and Tom" at someone else's school, then it could happen to any kid, to kids we know, maybe to us. Of course, people outside of Littleton can feel that kind of shift; of course they may mourn, be angry, be scared, etc. It is strange that she feels otherwise.

LPorter101 wrote:

Ten years ago, I was mad as hell at Dave Cullen, and I wasn't going to take it anymore. I was willing to do whatever it took to discredit him. At one point, harbored an intense hatred of the man.

I have a few problems with Dave Cullen's book, of course, but I don't think it's worth the time and effort trying to destroy his credibility by trolling him online. In fact, I think you could best convert that intense hatred and anger into something meaningful and productive.

LPorter101 wrote:

Ten years ago, I was greatly disturbed by the thought that Cullen was "converting" so many people to his ridiculous views. But, in retrospect, I realize that the real problem is human nature. Most folks are drooling morons who are easily swayed by smooth-talking charlatans.

No, not really. There are many, many thoughtful people on Amazon who have pointed out Columbine's flaws. If people wanted to find out what happened at Columbine, there's a wealth of material out there. Because I can't persuade everyone, I do the best I can. As the adage goes, "you can lead a horse to the water, but you can't make him drink."

LPorter101 wrote:

Do I feel that my anti-Cullen crusade was a failure, or a mistake? Not really.

I don't really see why Cullen's book offends your sensibilities so much that you feel a need to harass him online. I get that Cullen's book got the national spotlight while so many other Columbine-related books didn't; I get that Cullen's book became a New York Times' Best Seller; I get that Cullen embellished the truth; I get it. But I think you should keep the commentary on topic and not veer off into ad-hominem attacks, which have nothing to do with Columbine.

jada887 wrote:

LPorter101 wrote:

Ten years ago, I was mad as hell at Dave Cullen, and I wasn't going to take it anymore. I was willing to do whatever it took to discredit him. At one point, harbored an intense hatred of the man.

I have a few problems with Dave Cullen's book, of course, but I don't think it's worth the time and effort trying to destroy his credibility by trolling him online. In fact, I think you could best convert that intense hatred and anger into something meaningful and productive.

LPorter101 wrote:

Ten years ago, I was greatly disturbed by the thought that Cullen was "converting" so many people to his ridiculous views. But, in retrospect, I realize that the real problem is human nature. Most folks are drooling morons who are easily swayed by smooth-talking charlatans.

No, not really. There are many, many thoughtful people on Amazon who have pointed out Columbine's flaws. If people wanted to find out what happened at Columbine, there's a wealth of material out there. Because I can't persuade everyone, I do the best I can. As the adage goes, "you can lead a horse to the water, but you can't make him drink."

LPorter101 wrote:

Do I feel that my anti-Cullen crusade was a failure, or a mistake? Not really.

I don't really see why Cullen's book offends your sensibilities so much that you feel a need to harass him online. I get that Cullen's book got the national spotlight while so many other Columbine-related books didn't; I get that Cullen's book became a New York Times' Best Seller; I get that Cullen embellished the truth; I get it. But I think you should keep the commentary on topic and not veer off into ad-hominem attacks, which have nothing to do with Columbine.

Your opinion has been noted.

I don't apologize for going after Cullen. No one asked him to promote himself to every single TV station, newspaper, and magazine in America as The Only Guy in the World Who Knows the Real Truth About Columbine. No one asked him to go to schools all over the country to lecture about his book as if he's the definitive authority on the subject. His media-whoring makes Brooks Brown look like J.D. Salinger.

As a general rule, I find smug, arrogant people very offensive. And I find Dave Cullen extremely smug and arrogant. But the thing that really ticks me off about him is just how much of a passive-aggressive weasel he is. He refuses to engage his critics directly, preferring instead to make snippy insults in media interviews. (He once described this board as a bastion of "groupthink," as if we're all just a bunch of automatons marching in lockstep.)

Ironically, I would respect him more if he would come out and tell me to go fuck myself because I'm full of shit. (That's would what I would do.) If I were in his position, I would have no reservations about telling people exactly where they could stuff their criticism. After all, what fun is life without a little ego-death?

For better or for worse, I try to own up to my mistakes and my failures. Cullen has never shown any ability or willingness to make any kind of public statement about the many shortcomings in his book.

But, as I said, there are bigger fish to fry.

LPorter101 wrote:

Ten years ago, I thought I would never run out of things to say about Columbine. But now I have. The twentieth anniversary of NBK is as good a time as any to put a cap on my emotional involvement with the massacre.

Part of is it that I'm now in my mid-thirties, knocking on the door of middle age. In 2009, I had a shitload of unresolved issues from my childhood and adolescence. In 2019, almost all of those fires have been extinguished. One or two are still smoldering, but they're all pretty much under control.

Some of my youthful delusions died peacefully in bed; others endured unspeakable torture before they succumbed to the merciless ravages of cold, hard truth. But nearly all of them are gone now.

A teacher at Columbine who had Dylan in one of her classes once told me that I had no real right to feel anything about Columbine, that it wasn't my tragedy. "It doesn't belong to you," she said. She was right, of course, but it really didn't matter. My feelings about Columbine have always been inextricably intertwined with my feelings about my own life. I've never been interested in *the* Columbine massacre; instead, I've been obsessed with *my* Columbine massacre. No one can take *my* Columbine away from me.

I still remember exactly where I was and what I was doing at the precise moment that I first heard about the massacre. Every time I think about Columbine, I flash back to that moment, and I remember what it was like to be a confused adolescent struggling to comprehend the full complexity of the big bad world that awaited him. The world is, to quote a Star Trek character, "wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."

But that adolescent is a stranger now. He doesn't have a whole lot in common with me anymore. The questions that kept him up at night have all been answered. The battles that he waged have long since ended. (He won some and he lost some. His batting average wasn't too shabby.) The burdens that weighed down his soul have been lifted, for the most part.

At some point, you do grow up, at least to some extent. And then you realize that the things you cared about when you were in middle school or high school just aren't that important to you anymore. After a while you start to wonder why you ever cared about them at all.

Columbine used to be something that I really cared about. Now it is something that I used to care about. That's a big difference.

Recently, I had a conversation with an older guy I know. I told him about my belief that, in many key ways, I've already hit all of the emotional extremes that I'll ever experience. I'll never again be quite as happy as I was when I reached the peak of my highest mountaintop, and I'll never again be quite as sad as I was when I was pounded into the dirt of my deepest valley. I've settled into a kind of emotional equilibrium.

He laughed and said, "You're so naive. By the time you're my age, you'll have seen and done so much more that you'll marvel at the fact that you were ever dumb enough to say such a thing."

I don't know if he's right or wrong, but at this stage I have a hard time imagining that there's really anything new coming down the pike. Over the last ten years, I've known triumph and tragedy, profit and loss, hope and fear, joy and despair, victory and defeat, sweet dreams and bitter nightmares. In some endeavors, I've succeeded beyond my wildest dreams; in others, I've failed miserably. Ultimately, I'm left feeling a little happy, a little sad, a little satisfied, a little bewildered, and a little numb.

I've slayed all of my demons (and some of my angels, too). I'm like a blood-soaked soldier at the end of a great battle, smoking a cigarette while surveying a vast landscape full of dead bodies. Of the slain, some I mourn; some I scorn; all of them, I leave behind without any regrets. The past is dead and the future is unknowable. In the present, I can merely bide my time and prepare for whatever lies ahead.

I would like to believe that, given enough time, Eric and Dylan would have figured out some way to slay their demons, as well. But we'll never know.

I am glad you have come to a point of peace in your life. I hope to continue to see you on the boards from time to time

Me too, it’s not quite the same without you [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Screw Cullen, i'm glad you made fun of him and hurt is little feelings. Fuck him and everything he is apart of

LPorter101 wrote:

Your opinion has been noted.

I don't apologize for going after Cullen. No one asked him to promote himself to every single TV station, newspaper, and magazine in America as The Only Guy in the World Who Knows the Real Truth About Columbine. No one asked him to go to schools all over the country to lecture about his book as if he's the definitive authority on the subject. His media-whoring makes Brooks Brown look like J.D. Salinger.

Well, I think in order to be on a TV station, or be interviewed for a magazine, either the station's producer, or the journalist conducting the interview, has to invite the subject. Because Columbine became a New York Times' best seller, the producers must have thought him noteworthy enough to invite for an interview. That's what usually happens when someone publishes a best seller.

LPorter101 wrote:

As a general rule, I find smug, arrogant people very offensive. And I find Dave Cullen extremely smug and arrogant. But the thing that really ticks me off about him is just how much of a passive-aggressive weasel he is. He refuses to engage his critics directly, preferring instead to make snippy insults in media interviews. (He once described this board as a bastion of "groupthink," as if we're all just a bunch of automatons marching in lockstep.)

Did he mention this forum specifically? If so, what interview did he do with the media that mentioned this discussion forum?

Quote :

Well, I think in order to be on a TV station, or be interviewed for a magazine, either the station's producer, or the journalist conducting the interview, has to invite the subject. Because Columbine became a New York Times' best seller, the producers must have thought him noteworthy enough to invite for an interview. That's what usually happens when someone publishes a best seller.

You don't know much about publishing or public relations, do you? The publisher arranges for publicity, not the other way around.

Cullen's publisher did a hell of a job promoting the book. And Cullen himself proved to be a first-rate hustler. I have nothing but admiration for his whoring skills.

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Did he mention this forum specifically? If so, what interview did he do with the media that mentioned this discussion forum?

It was some years ago. I'll have to look it up.

I might add that, on various occasions, various parties have sent me private messages describing various contacts they have had with Cullen and his people. (He once indicated that he had "someone" monitoring the content of this board.) I've picked up lots of interesting little bits of information over the years. I think I can say with some degree of certainty that Cullen is not particularly fond of me, and does not endorse my efforts.

Here is an excerpt from a CBC News interview with Cullen. He does not use the word "groupthink" in this particular interview (although he did in the one I was referring to), but he does indicate that, in his opinion, people who disagree with him are delusional fools clinging to the outmoded bullying narrative:
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You just heard Cara-Jade. What struck you about what she had to say?
Dave Cullen: First of all, I think it's great that you're giving her and people from that group a voice. I think that's really important, because I worry about those kids. The specific thing she said that jumped out at me, when you ask her to explain what these Columbiners are, or how they perceive themselves, she said these are people who identify with the killers and take comfort in it. The obvious question is, why do you take comfort? These are people who committed mass murder. But I think I understand why, because I've spent years with these kids online. And what's generally going on here, which is what I heard from her, is that nearly all of them have bought into this completely false narrative about the Columbine killers: that they were these loner outcasts who were miserable and hating life in high school, brutally bullied, and they struck back at the jocks who were bullying them and turned the tables on them, it was sort of a 'revenge of the nerds' fantasy. And none of that is true.

Why are these myths so persistent that an entire subculture has grown up around them?
Well, that's the fault of the media, myself included. We jumped to a lot of conclusions within in the very first day, I was astounded to see when I went back. We came up with these ideas about the killers on very little information, and once these ideas take hold, it'd kind of forever. And so, they [Columbiners], like most of the public, believe these myths.

Cara-Jade told us that she's dealing with depression and it seems there's a community of depressives among the Columbiners. What is the connection there? Were the Columbine killers known to de depressed? Why are depressed kids drawn to that phenomenon?
Right. Well, one of the killers, Dylan Klebold, was extremely depressed - suicidally depressed. There's this mistaken notion about both of them, though, about being outcasts. I think if you're an outcast in high school, you're probably going to feel depressed. So think the depression is very closley related to the fact that these kids are feeling like outcasts, they don't fit in in high school. And so they're identifying with these two kids they've been told, fit that same mold.

You have corrected the Columbine narrative, you've talked about how these killers were not who initially they were thought to have been, and you've published a book on it. What's been the reaction from the Columbiners to the work that you've done?
I lot of these kids talk online on a lot of these websites, and they have this notion going in that my book is just a bunch of lies, they constantly accuse me of being a liar. They don't want to hear it.

The Columbiners seems to enjoy or revel in images of cruelty and death. Have they ever said anything to you that's been threatening or in any way connecting you to violence?
Yes, I got one just this week. I think it said, 'This is what I picture when I imagine killing Dave Cullen,' and then had a picture of Eric Harris. I got a more explicit one a couple years ago, actually I got a couple of them in one week, describing how she wanted to kill me. I turn all of those over to the FBI. I've gotten some other threats in the past on my Youtube page about people threatening their own high school, and a couple of those turned out to be real threats.

For the record, I have never, do not, and never will condone violence against anyone. I have written thousands of words impugning Cullen's character; none of them can be construed as anything remotely resembling a threat.

A few years ago, someone once asked me to write a definitive summary of my anti-Cullen crusade. This is what I wrote. Much of it you will recognize from my earlier posts in this thread:

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Of all the things I've done and said on the SCMRPG board and its successors, the most notable, by far, has been my ongoing "crusade" against Cullen. For the past six years, I've been engaged in a "feud" with him.

Of course, the word "feud" implies some level of equality between the participants, and Cullen and I are not equals. He is a published, widely-read author who basks in the glow of near-universal praise and admiration; I'm a lowly "commenter" (or ex-moderator, if you're feeling generous) on an obscure discussion board. At one point, he was a semi-regular on CNN, renowned for his authoritative, penetrating insight into the mysterious psychology of the school shooter. My first and only job in television was reading the morning announcements in middle school, and I got that job through pure favoritism - I was the matronly librarian's fair-haired boy.

As one of Cullen's emissaries told me, "Do you think he'd waste his time dealing with the likes of you?" I don't think so - he has far more important things to do. I am not worthy of the honor of communicating directly with one of the greatest men of our time.

But, as popular as he is in the world at large, to some of us who've devoted considerable chunks of our lives to studying Columbine, Cullen is a literary piñata - always good for a whacking, the harder the better. To the extent that SCMRPG, SBB, and the current CHSMDF have served as pillars of the Columbine research community, and to the extent that I have contributed to the pervasive anti-Cullen sentiment and the general anti-Cullen consensus that has prevailed on those boards, I am partly if not primarily responsible for his low standing. And I hit way below the belt.

Cullen, through the aforementioned emissary, has expressed the view that I am a contemptible maggot, a homophobic bully, and the lowest form of scum. I would be lying if I said that I held him in higher regard than he holds me.

I can't justify all, or maybe even most, of the things I've said about him - at times, I've been exceedingly nasty. I've crossed the line into making ad hominem attacks.

One time, I made a post on the board about an article he wrote a few days after the massacre.

Keep in mind that Cullen is gay.

(Full disclosure: I've spent a good portion of my life wondering whether or not I'm totally straight. I've come to the conclusion that I'm not. But every time I've had an opportunity to do something with another guy - and, despite looking at times like a model for the "Before" category in several types of makeover ads, I've had several such opportunities, including the time that I ended up alone with a married man in a dark supply closet - my first and foremost impulse has been to run away, fast and far.)

In the article, he described an interviewee, one of the infamous Columbine jocks*, as a "strapping 6'2" rugby player." I took that line and used it to riff on his supposed perving: "Oh, my, look at all those strapping rugby players strutting so confidently through the gleaming hallways! I hope that 6'2" one grabs me and shoves me into a locker - I love S&M! I'm itchin' for a wedgie!"

(*Yes, the bullying angle was vastly overblown, but I don't discount it completely. I believe that both boys were taunted and bullied - Eric more than Dylan - and that it contributed to their sense of alienation.)

There was no excuse for my saying something like that, and eventually I found out that he was deeply offended by it. I reached out to him. He told me that, by jokingly suggesting that a grown man might lust after jocks, I was implicitly accusing all gay men of being pedophiles. (S6'2"RP was 18 - I looked it up - but I saw his point.) I apologized. He accepted the apology. (And he did confirm that, yes, S6'2"RP was his type of guy, if a little young.) He promised to post on the board. But he never did, and before long I was back to posting nasty stuff about him.

Indeed, one of the first things I wrote was, "You know, Cullen hasn't lived up to his promise to post on the board ... does anyone have any pictures of strapping 6'2" rugby players, and/or Abercrombie & Fitch models? We can use them as bait."

The A&F reference was not out of the blue - this was in December, and Cullen had posted a large picture of a shirtless muscular A&F model on his blog. He wrote a "witty" caption - something like, "If you're looking to buy me a last-minute Christmas present, anything - or anyone - from A&F will do."

Around the same time, he tweeted, "Columbine for Christmas!" and a link to the book's Amazon.com page.

A few years later, when Amazon did a Hachette job on his publisher, he started tweeting the hashtag [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. In response, I wrote on the board something like, "Columbiners of the world, unite! Join Amazon Prime! Buy a Kindle Fire! Stand tall and proud in solidarity with our Amazonian brethren against the Cullenista hordes!"

The Christmas tweet became yet another in-joke on the board - almost a year later, we were still cracking (lame) jokes like "Christ, fucking Cullenbine for Christmas?!? Cripes, I'd rather be crucified! Come on, Cullen!"

Or: "When Timmy looked in his stocking on Christmas morning, he said, "Mommy, why did Santa bring me a sack of reindeer shit?"

And his mother said, "Because you did make your bed one of the times that I asked you. If you'd been any more disobedient, Santa would have brought you Cullenbine."

"Wow," Timmy said. "I dodged a bullet there."

(This was before Sandy Hook - in December 2012 and for a long time thereafter, talking about a little kid "dodging a bullet" wouldn't have seemed funny.)

So, yes, I have written many highly-inappropriate and uncalled-for things about Dave Cullen. I can't defend those comments, at least not in good faith. They are as big an embarrassment to me, and maybe an indictment of me, as anything anyone has said on the boards.

...

But I stand by my assertion that large parts of Cullen's magnum opus, including his characterizations of Eric as a swaggering ladies' man who "got lots and lots of chicks" and Dylan as a cowering emo who lived in fear of Eric, are pure, unadulterated bullshit. And while I can't defend my nastiness, I can explain it as the natural reaction to the arrogance of someone who asserts that everyone who spoke before him got everything totally wrong.

He doesn't say, "My book tells you why Eric and Dylan tried to kill so many people"; he says, "I alone have all the answers. My book is so superior to all similar works that it invalidates everything that came before it. Mine is not merely the best book about Columbine, but the only one worth reading. Everything I say is true; my masterpiece is entirely free of error. Where others disagree, I am right and they are wrong."

Even when Cullen is called on his BS - in his book he treats as gospel the lies of a girl named Brenda Parker, who claimed to have had sex with Eric but was exposed as a fraud - he steadfastly refuses even to acknowledge his mistakes, let alone to correct them. He ignores or condemns anyone who neglects to shower him with abject praise. (But he does make a point of leaving a comment on each and every blog entry where he is praised - he must read everything that is written about him.)

Most of the "myths" that he claims exclusively to have debunked were already discredited to some extent in the months after the massacre. True, no one before him sat down and wrote an article saying, "Widespread Columbine Beliefs A, B, C, D, E, and so on are wrong or at least questionable" ... but it's not as if Cullen was the first one to say, for example, that bullying wasn't quite the proximate cause of the massacre that the media initially made it out to be. After all, if Eric and Dylan had wanted to kill a bunch of strapping 6'2" rugby players, they would have gone to the locker room, not the library.

So I apologize for my methods, but not for my intentions. I truly believe that Dave Cullen has done great violence to the public's understanding of Columbine. It's as if someone arrogantly maintained that Adam Lanza wasn't really a recluse because he had a best friend with whom he occasionally went to the mall. Such a statement would be about as far from the truth as Cullen's assertion that Eric Harris was one of the more popular kids at Columbine. Harris languished near the bottom of the totem pole - above the "untouchables," such as the 300-pound acne-ridden geeks and the Down's-syndrome kids, but below almost all of the other seniors in the social hierarchy. He deeply resented his lack of status. "Wounded narcissist" or not, he felt that the other kids neither respected him nor validated his worth.

And he felt the stings of constant rejection. He was not so ugly and weird that he could not get a girl to look at him, but he never could establish a meaningful relationship with any female. (Yes, he did feel entitled to female affection. Both boys did.) It must have galled Eric that a boy as ugly as Dylan had a friend - Robyn Anderson - who practically begged him to go to the prom with her. (Harris begged several girls for a date; all turned him down. He sarcastically "thanked" them on the basement tapes - "That made me feel real good, bitches.") Even Brooks Brown, who like Dylan maintained a notoriously low level of personal hygiene, had a girlfriend for a while. (They broke up before the prom.)

Eric's height probably had something to do with it. Klebold was 6'3" and Brown is 6'5; Harris was 5'8", and a scrawny, shrunken-chested 5'8" at that. (Dylan was even skinnier for his height, especially at the end, but he looked so much more imposing. In all of the videos the two boys made together, Dylan towers over his friend.) Most of his male friends and acquaintances were well over six feet tall. Among the outcasts, he was the runt.

And his relative standing at home was no better. Both his father (the stern, distant Air Force officer) and his brother (the handsome, confident football player and straight-A student with an attractive girlfriend) were far more impressive exemplars of masculine strength than he could ever hope to be.

Cullen completely dismisses as "hyperbole" or "pretending" some of the things that Eric wrote about himself in his journal. He once accused me of "cherry-picking irrelevant quotes" - quotes such as these:

"Everyone is always making fun of me because of how I look, how fucking weak I am and shit, well I will get you all back: ultimate fucking revenge here. you people could have shown more respect, treated me better, asked for knowledge or guidence more, treated me more like senior and maybe I wouldn't have been as ready to tear your fucking heads off. Then again, I have always hated how I looked, I make fun of people who look like me, sometimes without even thinking sometimes just because I want to rip on myself. Thats where a lot of my hate grows from. The fact that I have practically no selfesteem, especially concerning girls and looks and such. therefore people make fun of me .. constantly..therefore I get no respect and therefore I get fucking PISSED...."

"I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things. And no don't fucking say, "well thats your fault" because it isnt, you people had my phone #, and I asked and all, but no. no no dont let the weird looking Eric KID come along, ohh fucking nooo."

As Westword reporter Alan Prendergast wrote, "That is how the journal ends - not with the howl of the wolf-god, but the whine of the pathetic geek who can't land a prom date. And decides everybody deserves to die."

So suffice it to say that I don't buy Cullen's assertion that Eric was the ultra-confident Übermensch of Columbine. And I believe that Dylan was far more disturbed than Cullen cares to admit. Eric's writings are supremely angry - there are parts where his rage boils over into descriptions of brutal cannibalistic sex fantasies. But some of Dylan's writings are so disjointed and bizarre that I am inclined to agree with Peter Langman's view that he was possibly borderline schizophrenic.

LPorter101 wrote:

You don't know much about publishing or public relations, do you? The publisher arranges for publicity, not the other way around.

Yikes. Why the hostility, man? I don't see a problem with Cullen and his publisher promoting his book, as I have a friend who is doing the same with her book (she's sent her published book to everyone she knows, even to syndicated radio stations). It's difficult to promote your book these days, with self-published authors, and publishing houses out there competing for the same dwindling number of readers. That's how you play the game, it seems. If Cullen and his publisher hustled to promote his book, I wouldn't blame him. I would have done the same for my published work. Although I haven't a published book to my name, I have struggled to find a professor to sponsor my PhD thesis in child psychology, so I know what that's like. I know how difficult it is to find a book publisher, let alone a literary agent, these days would will want to take on new, fresh-faced, wet-behind-the-ears writers. It's a tough business to get started, and it's even tougher to make ends meet.

LPorter101 wrote:

Cullen's publisher did a hell of a job promoting the book.

That's what a good publisher does. I don't begrudge him fame, nor the book's notoriety. His book is not going to change what's true and what's false about Columbine.

Cullen was one of the biggest trolls in the True Crime group. But hopefully, he isn't that stupid to unironically believe the stuff he wrote in his book.

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Yikes. Why the hostility, man? I don't see a problem with Cullen and his publisher promoting his book, as I have a friend who is doing the same with her book (she's sent her published book to everyone she knows, even to syndicated radio stations). It's difficult to promote your book these days, with self-published authors, and publishing houses out there competing for the same dwindling number of readers. That's how you play the game, it seems. If Cullen and his publisher hustled to promote his book, I wouldn't blame him. I would have done the same for my published work. Although I haven't a published book to my name, I have struggled to find a professor to sponsor my PhD thesis in child psychology, so I know what that's like. I know how difficult it is to find a book publisher, let alone a literary agent, these days would will want to take on new, fresh-faced, wet-behind-the-ears writers. It's a tough business to get started, and it's even tougher to make ends meet.

Yes, it is.

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That's what a good publisher does. I don't begrudge him fame, nor the book's notoriety.

Nor do I. Scamming the rubes for profit is the American way, so why not?

A 30-day supply of Truvada costs $2,000. And money doesn't grow on trees.

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I thought about changing my sig to "Have you ever seen a dog strapping a condom on his dick?" ... but I didn't.

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His book is not going to change what's true and what's false about Columbine.

Yes, this is true. But it's equally true that shouting "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater doesn't change the fact that there is or is not an actual fire burning in that particular building. It just changes the public perception.

LPorter101 wrote:

Nor do I. Scamming the rubes for profit is the American way, so why not?

A purchase is a willing exchange between a seller and a buyer. The seller is rewarded for his product with profits, while the buyer gets to enjoy the product. You don't make a profit unless someone agrees to give you their hard-earned cash. That's not the American way of profit; that is how capitalism works. Would you like to run a business without turning a profit?

LPorter101 wrote:

A 30-day supply of Truvada costs $2,000. And money doesn't grow on trees.

Yes, that's true. That's why businesses stop producing essential goods when production costs exceed profits. That's why your favorite baker can't survive on good-will and charity to pay his bills.

LPorter101 wrote:

Yes, this is true. But it's equally true that shouting "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater doesn't change the fact that there is or is not an actual fire burning in that particular building. It just changes the public perception.

No, it doesn't change the a priori knowledge of the fact, but the intention of the fire shouter is important. The concept you are referring to comes the infamous Justice Holmes opinion, where he stated that dangerous and false claims outweigh first amendment protections because these claims are intended to cause a panic that would kill innocent people. Did Dave Cullen's book present a clear and present danger to the public? No, I don't believe so. I believe he embellished the truth to fit his thesis, but his intentions were to counter-argue media narratives. If it changes public perception, that's because the book was intended to persuade, at least that is what I got from the book.