Why people fear and hate "columbiners"

PaintItBlack wrote:

I think that most people would dismiss most Columbiners, or people who marry prisoners or anyone that is friendly towards "bad" people as leaving the world a better place if they were gone. I know people have wished death on us often enough.

People fear those that question their beliefs, especially their core beliefs. The columbine killers were from a well-off good white neighbourhood. They had what most people consider a "bright future" before them (especially Dylan with his family and his college).

But then said two people question the core belief that such a life in such a society is good. Eric is particularly blunt and articulate about it - he calls this a society of "robots" who are conditioned to do "routine shit" all their lives and mindlessly "hop onto the boat and headdown the stream of life" with other such robots.

Then E&D not just question these beliefs in word, they make the ultimate gesture of killing other people and then commiting suicide as opposed to participating in this system in on way or another.

And then there are "columbiners". People who look at the case, "rake the mud", "gaze into the abyss" and overal remind people that the easy answers - Manson, DOOM etc are all wrong. That Columbine was in essence dealing with core beliefs regarding life and society.

People don't like thiose who question their beliefs and often fear those who gaze into the abyss. I experienced both of these reactions when it comes to my movie.

I think the term "Columbiner" has no real meaning. To some "Columbiner's" are those tumblr fans who fantasize in many ways of E&D. Others think that the term "Columbiner" is anyone who has an interest in Columbine. I think we label things without realizing, and these labels we put on things become the cover of that subject. Like for many things labels create stereotypes, an unfortunately we as so called Columbiner's are often stereotyped.

I think people may hate Columbiner's because its the unknown and opposite of the norm which people are always cautious of. People are also afraid of the unknown.

But Sabratha you sum it up very nicely. Its very true how Eric saw the world, and in many way we are mindless robots.

Columbine still is a touchy subject for many Americans. Possibly even more than 9/11, which is surprising. Columbine really scared America. We still haven't recovered, I don't think. Every time there is a school shooting, people immediately think of Columbine, and almost all other mass shooters have had some sort of obsession with it and listed Eric and Dylan as who they were trying to emulate. For that reason, I think most people are made uncomfortable by those who take an interest in it, because it's such a dark, touchy subject for most people. Most people like to pretend that tragedies like this never happen, and they never have a solid answer when something as senseless as Columbine happens.

To quote Dylan Klebold: "People are afraid of what they don't understand."

I think Americans have a problem separating violence and mental illness. Both boys had obvious problems that were for the most part unaddressed (mostly Dylan's depression). Its easier to say they were monsters than to accept that their acts were preventable. Not only that, but accepting they had problems would imply that others out there could be like them. We know that true thanks to Aurora and V-tech. To think that your child/friend/co-worker/neighbor might be capable of this is more than most want to accept. What makes it worse is that people who have these thoughts may be scared to seek help for fear of trouble. We have to accept that violence is part of nature and that it is normal to have those feelings so people will seek help to prevent this type of thing.

Nirvana92 wrote:

I think Americans have a problem separating violence and mental illness. Both boys had obvious problems that were for the most part unaddressed (mostly Dylan's depression). Its easier to say they were monsters than to accept that their acts were preventable. Not only that, but accepting they had problems would imply that others out there could be like them. We know that true thanks to Aurora and V-tech. To think that your child/friend/co-worker/neighbor might be capable of this is more than most want to accept. What makes it worse is that people who have these thoughts may be scared to seek help for fear of trouble. We have to accept that violence is part of nature and that it is normal to have those feelings so people will seek help to prevent this type of thing.

I couldn't have worded it better. I think that American society's refusal to accept part of the blame and look for ways
to help people who suffer from mental illness is a huge part of why school shootings and other related mass murders continue to happen.

The stigma related to mental illness in America is ridiculous. If I began to suspect that I was seriously mentally ill, I don't know that I would seek help because people don't see mental illness as a true illness. We (as a country) see them as moments of weakness rather than chronic ailments that have no cure. In recent years, it seems that we are beginning to shift to a different view on mental illness to the point of almost glorifying it. Everybody I know is on something for depression/anxiety and very proud of it.

But to return to the topic - I personally don't tell people I'm a "columbiner". And I am using the term columbiner here to refer generally to anyone who has a particular interest in Columbine and spends time reading/researching the event. There are people in my life that know about my interest, but the couple of times I have come right out and talked about it, I have gotten weird looks and very little understanding. Why? Because it's "weird". We hate weird.

I haven't discussed being a "Columbiner" with anyone in fear I might be labelled a weirdo. Btw I don't even like using the term Columbiner.
I am fairly new to all this, I knew about Eric and Dylan for a few years now (mostly on Tumblr) but always skipped over it. I have an interest in Criminal Psychology.. and Eric and Dylan are very interesting to study.

Regardless of Dylan and Eric, I was judged ALL the time for finding serial killers fascinating. Society can't accept people like us.

Nessie91 wrote:

I haven't discussed being a "Columbiner" with anyone in fear I might be labelled a weirdo. Btw I don't even like using the term Columbiner.
I am fairly new to all this, I knew about Eric and Dylan for a few years now (mostly on Tumblr) but always skipped over it. I have an interest in Criminal Psychology.. and Eric and Dylan are very interesting to study.

Regardless of Dylan and Eric, I was judged ALL the time for finding serial killers fascinating. Society can't accept people like us.

Hey it's their loss! At least we have an open mind and aren't scared to be intrested in such events!
I speak about it quiet openly and I don't give a damn what people think about my little "obsession" if they don't like it it's their problem

I neither fear not hate 'Columbiners'. I just think they're idiots, but that is their right. The case of this tragedy is interesting to study, as are many things, but being a fan of them and what they did is ridiculous.

Yeah, probably should have defined what Imeant by "columbiner", since its an ambiguous and loaded word. I meant it in a wide sense, including people who research this without glorifying the killers.

GDP1195 wrote:

Columbine still is a touchy subject for many Americans. Possibly even more than 9/11, which is surprising. Columbine really scared America. We still haven't recovered, I don't think. Every time there is a school shooting, people immediately think of Columbine, and almost all other mass shooters have had some sort of obsession with it and listed Eric and Dylan as who they were trying to emulate. For that reason, I think most people are made uncomfortable by those who take an interest in it, because it's such a dark, touchy subject for most people. Most people like to pretend that tragedies like this never happen, and they never have a solid answer when something as senseless as Columbine happens.

To quote Dylan Klebold: "People are afraid of what they don't understand."

It's not hard for me to understand why (white) Americans find Columbine scarier than 9/11.

The 9/11 guys were dark-skinned foreigners. They were strangers - other people's kids, from lands most folks couldn't find on a map.

The NBK guys were our sons. Not *my* son or *your* son, but two all-American white boys from the suburbs.

They look normal enough in their yearbook pictures. This makes it even worse - you think, "How could two such decent-seeming guys have ended up doing something like that?" And then, if you have kids, you think, "Could my boy(s) end up like them?"

Let's face it - looks count for a lot. Eric and Dylan are some of the more attractive school shooters we've seen. (Note that I'm not calling them attractive - I'm saying that they're more attractive than most of the school shooters we've heard about.)

When you look at Lanza's picture, do you say to yourself, "My God, he looks like the boy next door! How could he have done such a thing?" I don't think so - something was wrong with that kid, and anyone with a working pair of eyes can see it. Same thing with James Holmes, and that guy who shot Gabrielle Giffords, and Cho, and most of the other shooters whose deeds have become infamous.

Oh, well if you meant those who just have an interest in researching the case, I haven't encountered any hate or fear directed toward my interest. Although it's one of many interests I have. Maybe if it was my sole hobby and I was consumed by it, then maybe I would encounter these feelings from others, it is a morbid subject after all. I am open with others on my fascination with the case though and the men and women in my life are fine with it. I don't think it is right for someone to respond to one's researching of Columbine with fear or hate though, as a matter of record.

I have not told anybody i am interested to this subject and i do not see a reason why should i tell anybody .It is just my current interest and it will go away like any other interest of mine.
I think the people find strange the fact that someone has an interest to such morbid and bizarre event like Columbine , they probably think we want to do the same thing /crime as D&E did. That gives them the chills .

LPorter101 wrote:

GDP1195 wrote:

Columbine still is a touchy subject for many Americans. Possibly even more than 9/11, which is surprising. Columbine really scared America. We still haven't recovered, I don't think. Every time there is a school shooting, people immediately think of Columbine, and almost all other mass shooters have had some sort of obsession with it and listed Eric and Dylan as who they were trying to emulate. For that reason, I think most people are made uncomfortable by those who take an interest in it, because it's such a dark, touchy subject for most people. Most people like to pretend that tragedies like this never happen, and they never have a solid answer when something as senseless as Columbine happens.

To quote Dylan Klebold: "People are afraid of what they don't understand."

It's not hard for me to understand why (white) Americans find Columbine scarier than 9/11.

The 9/11 guys were dark-skinned foreigners. They were strangers - other people's kids, from lands most folks couldn't find on a map.

The NBK guys were our sons. Not *my* son or *your* son, but two all-American white boys from the suburbs.

They look normal enough in their yearbook pictures. This makes it even worse - you think, "How could two such decent-seeming guys have ended up doing something like that?" And then, if you have kids, you think, "Could my boy(s) end up like them?"

Let's face it - looks count for a lot. Eric and Dylan are some of the more attractive school shooters we've seen. (Note that I'm not calling them attractive - I'm saying that they're more attractive than most of the school shooters we've heard about.)

When you look at Lanza's picture, do you say to yourself, "My God, he looks like the boy next door! How could he have done such a thing?" I don't think so - something was wrong with that kid, and anyone with a working pair of eyes can see it. Same thing with James Holmes, and that guy who shot Gabrielle Giffords, and Cho, and most of the other shooters whose deeds have become infamous.

The thing that scares people about Columbine is that Eric and Dylan were just generic white kids. Looking at the yearbook photos which most people recognize them by, they don't stand out in any way. They weren't particularly good looking, but they weren't horribly ugly or deformed either. They were white. They weren't overweight, nor do they have the "crazy" look in their eyes that other shooters like Loughner and Holmes clearly had. After the horrible, terrifying shit that people were hearing about on the day of the massacre, people must have been dying to see the faces of the shooters, basically picturing some goth kid in a trenchcoat with makeup and satan tattoos. But then the pictures of the gunmen flashed onscreen and people couldn't believe their eyes: that the gunmen were two generic, normal looking white boys who could have been any of their sons.

How do other high profile mass shooters measure up?

Cho was foreign. He was ugly as shit. He wasn't white. He came off as another crazy lunatic doing something crazy and horrible. I remember V-tech being a HUGE event back in '07 but it remains notorious IMO just because of the appalling body count. Few people know anything about Cho ther than the fact that he was the crazy lunatic who shot up V-tech. He has not created or maintained nearly the amount of interest E+D have. I must admit I know little about Cho.

Elliot Rodger's spree was immediately tied into feminism and misogyny by the media, which I think distorted the public's view of him and the tragedy. Elliot Rodger hated women, yes, but he hated men, too, and the entire world. He believed that everyone having a better life than him deserved to die, because he deserved it more than them. But instead of becoming a story of a lost young man who unleashed his hatred out on the world, his story became a rallying cry for tumblr feminists to dispouge just how much they hated cis white men. And thus, besides pissing off a few tumblr feminists, Elliot Rodger had little lasting impact on the country. I think him whining and bitching in his videos were more famous than the actual event itself.

Adam Lanza is in the same breed as Cho. Obvious mental disorder, doesn't come across at all as a typical American kid. Looks weird in his pictures. Sandy Hook IMO is the most appalling mass shooting of all time. If Adam Lanza had shot up a shopping mall or something, he'd probably be forgotten already. Just another crazy in peoples' eyes.

Jared Loughner is another crazy. Same with James Holmes. After V-tech I think the public became de-sensitized to mass shootings since they were happening more often and high body counts no longer had the shock value anymore.

Those are all the ones I can think of for now. But it's obvious that what scared Americans most about columbine is that the killers seemed so damn generic and normal. Half of America wants to believe they were these weirdo goths, the other half read Dave Cullen's book and believe his E+D caricatures. They refuse to accept that normal American boys with normal American lives did such a horrible thing.

I can only imagine that its a bit like what Sabratha says.

People fear what they do not understand. But I also think that theres an element thats videly ignored. I dont agree, but I understand Where its coming from.

For example, most in the TCC are merely fascinated with crime as far as my experience goes. Yet, there are certain people that have emulated or tried to emulate Columbine or other mass shootings, and there are some that glorify mass murderers.

Plus, too many survivors or people that are left behind have experienced hate mail. This makes it easy to understand why. But I dont think that Columbiners should be shunned; they need help. Nor should they be lumped in with the whole TCC, and theres a difference between being fascinated with a crime and hybristophilia.

For the record, most Columbiners are not dangerous. But they need help, and a few handful can become quite dangerous. I think the latter is the reason why people dislike Columbiners.

I am not so much interested in the cruel shit that they did that day. I am more fascinated how both of them seemed so normal, even close to the shooting itself. I just had my 41st Birthday (Old as fuck, I know) which means that I was pretty much the same age at the same time. Living through the 90's was a total fuckin trip in itself. The videos we do have of them, goofing around, having fun and making effort for school, filming/editing Hitmen For Hire etc... The video of Dylan taking part with his teacher & peers. It's more baffling to me. An absolute mystery. A riddle that nobody knows the answer to, but should.

The fact there was 2 kids that trusted each other to that extent, in and amongst all the paranoia and bullshitting that went on at High School. I just can't fathom it. It almost haunts me.

One day it's really simple for me, just 2 evil murderous bastards that had the desire to kill, be cruel and couldn't wait to do it...No Mystery!

Then the other, watching Dylan being interviewed in the library itself, shy, gentle....My brain cannot compute the same person doing what he did.

Eric the same. The story account from Susan who went over to watch a movie with him described him as being a really sweet guy. How you go from that to blowing girls heads off with a shotgun just doesn't add up. It's like mathematics that don't work.

Then the ultimate kick in the balls, they went there to ultimately die themselves. So strongly that they put one through their own heads. Am I on the same planet? Someone wake me up kinda thing.

Those thoughts are what I believe make up a Columbiner.

Some silly 11 year old tit on 4chan, wearing a Natural Selection T Shirt is just a fuckin idiot, has just hit puberty and is confused. No doubt they will grow up one day and look back at how cringe it was.

Sorry for ranting on. Love this forum, Peace

I believe that sadly they are also a product of a society that bullies them at the same time that we have been fed this narrative that bullying causes school shootings. Im not saying that bullying has nothing to do with it. But the whole idea of school shooters taking revenge against their bullies/they finally snapped isnt true.