What if columbine was only one person? Would it still be as (in)famous?

Say Dylan and Eric never meet, but Eric comes up with the attack carries it out on his own. A similar number are killed (10-15). Would that have the same impact as it did? I think that why columbine is so infamous is because it is difficult to understand what goes in the mind of someone like this, but knowing that two people agreed to participate in something like this was unheard of. There were deadlier shootings before, like Luby's, San Ysidro and UT Austin, but the two person factor I think adds a lot to the infamy of columbine.

Maybe. Considering killing like even 10 was unheard of at the time. I think if someone else did that today with two people it would get pretty famous too. Maybe even three people. The more people the more fame.

I think it would still be infamous but it'd be thrown into the lone wolf category. It'd be the deadliest secondary school shooting still for its time. We wouldn't get weird gay fan fiction of Eric and Dylan. I think there would be less copycats as we have now because of the weird brotherhood of Eric and Dylan spreading on other outcast shooters and they'd just see Eric as one freak instead of two outcasts. Interesting question. It'd still be a big event of the 90s but I think we would just have one to blame and many wouldn't blame the media Dylan enjoyed.

weyofox wrote:

Say Dylan and Eric never meet, but Eric comes up with the attack carries it out on his own. A similar number are killed (10-15). Would that have the same impact as it did?

No it wouldn't.

Several reasons:
1. First of all, a 'lone nut' going postal was already an established American tradition dating to at least the Charles Whitman case. It just wouldn't be such 'new news'.
2. To follow up on the former point: Having two apparently intelligent and literate suburban middle and upper class white kids do this together... it really closed the door for some of the most trite and simple explanations. It also opened to door to discussions of a wider school culture, bullying, firearms etc. There was also a 'psychological mystery' now behind it.
Eric acting alone and then killing himself would have probably been chalked up to "some depressed loner who was psychotic and hallucinating, just nobody noticed the last part".
3. There would not be the basement tapes or as much written material left. I'm not sure Eric would have even written any of his 'journal' if it wasn't for Dylan and his journal. So less evidence.
4. It is Dylan who had closer connections to the now 'famous' people - Robyn Anderson, Nate Dykemann, Chris orris, Joe Stair, Becca Heins... Eric's lone shootout with teh cops would be that much less interesting without all the CHS social background that Dylan brought into the picture.
5. The banter between the two shooters in the library added to the mystery and the shock factor.
6. Eric and Dylan's personalities were different, their writings were different. This means that they appealed to a much wider 'crazy fangirl fanbase' than either of them would individually.

Probably there's more reasons. But the spree-suicide-as-a-pair is a very rare thing even in this day. That alone catapulted Columbine above any other 90s spree shooting.

FairyBarf wrote:

Maybe. Considering killing like even 10 was unheard of at the time. I think if someone else did that today with two people it would get pretty famous too. Maybe even three people. The more people the more fame.

the more ppl the more fame? 3 would be less famous because it'd be a terror attack lmao. also san ysidro, luby's, UT Austin