What made Eric/Dylan such outcasts?

First non-intro post, apologies if my questions are dumb or have been discussed ad nauseum...

I was in HS several years before Columbine. My HS was pretty diverse, though we certainly had cliques, etc. so perhaps I can't relate totally to the late 90s Columbine experience.

From just an appearance standpoint, Eric and Dylan do not look like that alone would be worthy of derision. Granted, that should not be a criteria for derision, but I hope you get what I mean. I get that sports wasn't their thing, but didn't one or both like pro baseball if that was a link? Lots of people are quirky I think in my mind, but that doesn't always relegate them to apparent unpopularity, does it?

Maybe I put too much stock in a statement that they were at the very bottom of the so-called social ladder.

Was Columbine the HS different than most HS?

I don't believe they were outcasts. The 11k gives the names of 27 people who are associates or close enough to be friends. They had lots of extracurricular activities, like bowling, video production, etc. Also work friends that they really liked.

Dylan I think had more friends than Eric. Dylan had close friends outside of Eric. He was getting phone calls the night before the massacre from people wanting to chat about fantasy baseball or just talk. Eric did not have close friends outside of Dylan but he did have lots of acquaintances.

You can watch all the videos and see them hanging out with all kinds of people.

They were not at the bottom. They were near the bottom among the seniors, but they were not beneath everyone in the school. But that's not saying a whole lot - the kids beneath them tended to be the ones who are at the bottom in any social group, such as the "special" kids with mental disabilities.

Columbine was (and is) in an upper-middle-class area with a lot of fundamentalist Christians. It had a fairly strong academic program, but the community and the administration put *a lot* of emphasis on athletics. So many folks have said that, "If you weren't a jock of some kind, you were a nobody at that school."

It has been said that the principal, Mr. DeAngelis (or "Mr. D," as he's known), would go around high-fiving all of the jocks and reliving his own glory years as a star baseball player. The administration, from the top on down, not only tolerated but condoned and even encouraged the worst of the jock misbehavior.

For more about the social atmosphere at the school, read Comprehending Columbine by Ralph Larkin. (Read it only for the stuff about the social atmosphere - when it comes to discussing the boys' psychology, Larkin is at least as bad as Cullen.)

Also read about Rocky Hoffschneider, the state-champion wrestler and football player who was at the top of one of Eric's "shit lists" of folks he hated:
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Rocky and most of his friends were on steroids ... almost all of his gang were known for doing hard drugs.

Rocky's right-hand man, Jason Brown, became a heroin addict over, among other things, the guilt he felt for having treated other kids so badly:
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The bullying was at its worst in the 1997/98 school year - Hoffschneider's senior year and Harris and Klebold's junior year. That was the same year that they began planning for NBK.

Dylan told his mother that the worst day of his life was the day that Rocky and his buddies squirted ketchup all over Eric and Dylan in the cafeteria. They were not allowed to go home to change their clothes, so they sat in class drenched in ketchup for the rest of the day.

Rocky and his friends all wore white hats. Even after he graduated, white hats were a "thing" with the jocks.

When Dylan stormed into the library, the first thing he yelled was, "Everyone with white hats stand up! This is for all the shit you given us for the past four years!"

I am not saying that bullying caused NBK. I do believe that Eric and Dylan felt profoundly alienated from the mainstream society at Columbine and that they deeply resented their lack of status. Whatever bullying they had to deal with - Eric more than Dylan - drove those feelings.

Also, I am not saying that Eric and Dylan were not mentally ill - lots of kids are bullied badly, and few of them kill anyone. But they had a bad time at Columbine, and the worst of it happened at the time when they were least able to cope with it.

(Each school has its own social dynamics. My school was in an upper-middle-class area, as well, but the student body was disproportionately Jewish and thus the social atmosphere had a different vibe.)

Dylan was a scary, creepy-looking kid - tall and skinny, with a jagged frame. He laughed a lot, but he lost his temper a lot, as well. He also drank a lot.

Sadly, he did not bathe a lot. (Neither did Brooks Brown. Eric took care of himself, but many if not most of his friends did not. This was one of the reasons why they were so strongly disliked.) He smelled bad and his unwashed hair was greasy and stringy. He didn't take school seriously, so he didn't fit in with the shallow, status-conscious, Abercrombie-wearing kids who made up most of the student body.

Eric was short and skinny, but not as skinny as Dylan. (At the end, Dylan was skin and bones - he was 6'3" and weighed about 120 pounds. Eric was 5'8" and weighed about 140 pounds.)

But his chest was shrunken in - he had a condition called pectus excavatum. Other boys teased him about it.

Eric Harris wrote:

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

He was not physically imposing and was easily intimidated.

Look at his body language in this clip. At the beginning, when he's walking through the hallway, talking to Mike Vendegia (the guy in the white shirt), he looks relaxed. But then he sees the jocks walking toward him - making a "wall" to show that they own the hallway:
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Mike sees them first, and you can see that he tenses up right away ... then Eric sees them, and he tenses up. They stop talking and look straight ahead, steeling themselves for a confrontation.

As Eric walks near them, he bows his head and cowers like a little dog.

(Note that one of the jocks is flipping off the camera - the jocks know these boys, and the boys know them, and the hate is mutual. But one side is stronger than the other.)

Eric was not all that bad-looking, but he was awkward and didn't know how to deal with girls. They said that he was "nice, but weird." He came across as desperate.

Some girls made a fool out of him. One time, he asked someone for a date, and she humiliated him in front of a classroom full of kids.

Cullen says that "dates weren't a problem" - and it is true that Eric did have a few dates over the years. But he lacked confidence. He didn't know what he was doing, and he never got as far as second base. It ate away at him.

He couldn't get a prom date. It wasn't for lack of trying - he asked at least five or six girls, but they all turned him down. His mother told her hairdresser that he was deeply unhappy over the rejections - he was moping around the house. His friends said the same thing.

On prom night - three days before NBK - Dylan went to the dance and partied. Eric got one of his coworkers to come to his house and watch a movie. He sent strong signals that he wanted sex, or even a kiss, but she kept her legs locked at the knee. After the movie ended, he asked her to go with him to the after-prom party, where he was to meet up with Dylan, but she said it was late and she had to go home.

Lots of guys know what it's like to have blue balls. But Eric's were never anything but blue.

And ERIC NEVER HAD SEX WITH BRENDA PARKER. SHE TOLD THE COPS THAT SHE MADE IT UP. Why Cullen keeps lying about this, I'll never know.

Even his friends mocked his lack of finesse with the ladies:
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He died a virgin.

In his writings, he sometimes veered from whiny-geek mode to badass-murderer and then back to whiny-geek:

Eric Harris wrote:

why the fuck cant I get any? I mean, I'm nice and considerate and all that shit, but noooo. I think I try to hard. but I kinda need to considering NBK is closing in. The amount of dramatic irony and foreshadowing is fucking amazing. Everything I see and I hear I incorporate into NBK somehow. Either bombs, clocks, guns, napalm, killing people, any and everything finds some tie to me. feels like a Goddamn movie sometimes. I wanna try to put some mines and trip bombs around this town too maybe. Get a few extra flags on the scoreboard. 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.

On the basement tapes, he listed five girls who "never even called him back," and said, "You know who you are. Thanks. You made me feel good. Think about that for a while, fucking bitches."

He was bitter and angry and held on to grudges. In fact, at the time of the shooting, he and Mike were no longer friends - Mike had done something to piss him off.

I could go on.

Wow thanks for all of the info to chew on! I am on my tablet, with which I suck at typing, so forgive me for not replying in kind at this point.

Cullen was my primary source and looks like there are lots of questionable content to his book. I was unaware of the Brenda Parker lie, etc. So I feel I am getting a reeducation here.

The wall of jock thing bugged me. The first thought was there was no reason for them to go to their left ( cameraman's right) as their right was spacious and free of traffic. Obviously it was a power move. It may still happen in schools, but you find the same lack of respect for people that shun sidewalks for the street.

This isn't massacre level infractions, though I may be hard pressed to find a justifiable reason anyway. At any rate you get to peek behind the curtain a bit.

I read some of the Rocky stuff. What a piece of work. I was not bullied that I recall and cannot imagine someone like that targeting you.

Thanks again

HuskerStorm wrote:

Wow thanks for all of the info to chew on!  I am on my tablet, with which I suck at typing, so forgive me for not replying in kind at this point.

You're forgiven.

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Cullen was my primary source and looks like there are lots of questionable content to his book.  I was unaware of the Brenda Parker lie, etc.  So I feel I am getting a reeducation here.

Call me Chairman Mao...

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The wall of jock thing bugged me.  The first thought was there was no reason for them to go to their left ( cameraman's right) as their right was spacious and free of traffic.  Obviously it was a power move.  It may still happen in schools, but you find the same lack of respect for people that shun sidewalks for the street.

Yes.

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This isn't massacre level infractions, though I may be hard pressed to find a justifiable reason anyway.  At any rate you get to peek behind the curtain a bit.

Yes.

There are lots of stories. Jason Secor, who worked with them at Blackjack Pizza, said this:

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The "jocks" did indeed torment those two...on more occasions then most anybody knew or would admit. They threw rocks and bottles at them etc. Aside from the mental and emotional abuse as well. While there is absolutely no excuse for what transpired, they became a product of their environment.

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Anyways, they didn't mention ketchup and tampons specifically, they were repeatedly hurt and upset by things at school, But whenever I tried to inquire, they would clam up and refer to them as "faggots", which is what they pretty much called everything they didnt like. I do know this though, one day they both came to work out of breath and upset. I asked why. They said that a bunch of jocks were throwing rocks and bottles at them. We ran out back to nobody there. This happened more than once

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As for chasing the jocks away, it was like I said. They were all pissed and winded one day and came running into the store. Asked what was wrong, to which they replied "nothing, just some faggots". Of course i prodded further, and said what about these "faggots"? They replied "some faggots are fucking with us" Of course now I was curious, and being the smart ass I am, I teased them to lighten em up a bit and tell me what was going on. I said "so a bunch of faggots are picking on ya and your all upset?". They said "some faggot jocks were throwing rocks and bottles at us". I said "where?? Out back here??" reb said "just now out back." I said "let's go get em!" we ran out back and looked around, but no one was there. Then apparently they decided I deserved a bullet in the head, little pricks. Anyways, that's almost verbatim, and happened a couple times similarly. I was 26 and full of bravado then so forgive my aggressiveness, hopefully I have matured a bit.

But there was more going on in Eric's head than a bruised ego. Kid had ... issues.

So did Dylan. Some of his writings border on schizophrenic.

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I read some of the Rocky stuff.  What a piece of work.  I was not bullied that I recall and cannot imagine someone like that targeting you.

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Everyone at the school knew who he was. Aside from his friends, nearly everyone hated him.

He was a "rich kid" whose daddy got him a Hummer for his birthday. Right away, he totaled the Hummer while driving drunk. The next day, his daddy got him a new one.

Eric wrote about the Hummer crash:

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---LIARS!!! OH GAWWWWWWD I HATE LIARS. And living in this fucking neighborhood there is thousands of them!! Why the fuck must people lie so damn much! Especially about stupid things! Like "Yeah, I just bought 5 cases of M-80's in Oklahoma for about $5. And they are legal there and everything. Yeah my parents buy most of my guns, every once in a while ill use my 4,000 dollar paycheck and buy a shotgun or 2. And my brand new hummer just broke down on the highway when i was going 250mph. Stupid cars."

Even the other star football players hated him:
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Being that I was two years younger than Rocky, I most certainly was not one of his friends. In fact, I can recall a moment when my father picked me up from school as an underclassman and he happened to wave and say hello to Rocky. I was furious because I thought he was the scum of the earth. This may have been because he spit in my helmet weekly or made me push a dime down the halls during passing period as a freshman or choked me out whenever he could get his hands on me. Bottom line, I was NOT a friend of his.

Again, I'm not saying that bullying or Rocky caused NBK ... I call it a "perfect storm." There are lots of things we don't know about Eric and Dylan's home life.

Eric's older brother Kevin was the perfect kid - football player, straight-A student, handsome, confident, popular. Kevin and Eric got along well. Dylan's older brother Byron was something of a jock, but he ended up becoming an addict. In fact, Dylan's dad said that Dylan was "the easy one." But Byron and Dylan fought all the time. Dylan said that his brother "ripped on" him a lot.

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Thanks again

You're welcome.

I agree with LPorter in that E&D weren't at the bottom the pile, but they were pretty low.

Its the differences that made them unpopular, outcasts, hated by jocks.

Their clothes for one, trench coats in particular weren't exactly the hottest trend at Columbine. As LPorter said, they were both skinny and gangly. They had little interest in sport, apart from soccer, and Columbine was ruled by the jocks. Therefore they were straight away dumped under all the athletic kids in the popularity order. Music tastes and film tastes, hobbies, everything that was different about them, compared to what the jocks and popular kids had in common is what caused their unpopularity and problems.

Eric dated many girls in high school.  A real outcast has never been on a date. Eric and Dylan had lots of friends.  Look at the Rampart Range video.  Eric and Dylan are hanging out with several other people.  Look at the other videos that they made (Radioactive Clothing , Hitmen for Hire).  There are several other people that worked with them on these home made movies.  If these other people worked with them on these home made movies made fun fun, wouldn't it be fair to say that these other people were friends with Dylan and Eric? Look at the video where Eric is hanging out in the cafeteria.  Eric is not sitting by himself at the corner of a lunch table. Didn't Dylan go with Robyn Anderson to the prom?  Wasn't Dylan friends with Devon Adams?   If Eric and Dylan had so many friends, just how were they outcasts?  The answer is: They weren't.

I was a real outcast in high school. A real outcast doesn't have any friends.  A real outcast sits alone in the cafeteria at lunch time.

Personally, I think it is wrong to say that they were anywhere near the bottom of any totem pole.

A high school is not one totem pole, it is many.  There are different groups of kids with different hierarchies.

Eric and Dylan were very well liked by their friends. Eric went on many dates with girls.  A good-looking girl asked Dylan to the prom where he partied all night.  

They were not loners or outcasts at all.

lasttrain wrote:

Personally, I think it is wrong to say that they were anywhere near the bottom of any totem pole.

A high school is not one totem pole, it is many.  There are different groups of kids with different hierarchies.

Eric and Dylan were very well liked by their friends. Eric went on many dates with girls.  A good-looking girl asked Dylan to the prom where he partied all night.  

They were not loners or outcasts at all.

Yes there are different groups of kids, but some groups are above the others. You surely cannot deny that groups like the jocks and popular girls were much higher on the highschool pecking/popular order than E&D.

eli27 wrote:

lasttrain wrote:

Personally, I think it is wrong to say that they were anywhere near the bottom of any totem pole.

A high school is not one totem pole, it is many.  There are different groups of kids with different hierarchies.

Eric and Dylan were very well liked by their friends. Eric went on many dates with girls.  A good-looking girl asked Dylan to the prom where he partied all night.  

They were not loners or outcasts at all.

Yes there are different groups of kids, but some groups are above the others. You surely cannot deny that groups like the jocks and popular girls were much higher on the highschool pecking/popular order than E&D.

Higher according to who? Eric and Dylan did not want to be part of that group. Surely you are not arguing that not belonging to a group they didn't want to belong to caused them to commit homicide.

For me,E&D didn't want to kill Rocky.They wanted to BE him,and that's why they were not satisfied with the groups of 'friends' they had.And the fact that they would never live a high school jock experience on life made them more upset over the bullying episodes.

lasttrain wrote:

Personally, I think it is wrong to say that they were anywhere near the bottom of any totem pole.

A high school is not one totem pole, it is many.  There are different groups of kids with different hierarchies.

Eric and Dylan were very well liked by their friends. Eric went on many dates with girls.  A good-looking girl asked Dylan to the prom where he partied all night.  

They were not loners or outcasts at all.

I don't really agree with your use of the word outcast.

I would say among their friends and associates, they weren't outcasts or loners. Sure
But compared to the rest of the student population they were outcasts
Most of the other students thought they were weirdos and strange
They weren't immediately accepted by their peers, like I'm sure they desired

To be an outcast doesn't mean you have ZERO friends
It means to be rejected by society or by the group at large
And Dylan and Eric were/felt rejected by Columbine
Therefore they were indeed outcasts in my opinion

lasttrain wrote:

eli27 wrote:

lasttrain wrote:

Personally, I think it is wrong to say that they were anywhere near the bottom of any totem pole.

A high school is not one totem pole, it is many.  There are different groups of kids with different hierarchies.

Eric and Dylan were very well liked by their friends. Eric went on many dates with girls.  A good-looking girl asked Dylan to the prom where he partied all night.  

They were not loners or outcasts at all.

Yes there are different groups of kids, but some groups are above the others. You surely cannot deny that groups like the jocks and popular girls were much higher on the highschool pecking/popular order than E&D.

Higher according to who?  Eric and Dylan did not want to be part of that group.  Surely you are not arguing that not belonging to a group they didn't want to belong to caused them to commit homicide.

Lasttrain, do not put words in my mouth. I do not need you to infer that I am arguing something that I have never said, and do not even agree with. At what point do I mention anything being a motive for anyone to comit any event in my post? Never. At what point do I ever give an opinion as to what I think Dylan or Eric think about anything? Never. If you would do your research (that doesn't include reading Cullen) and look at my other posts, rather than pulling ideas out of thin air, you would see that I do not think that at all. I quite clearly and simply stated only the fact that the jocks and the popular girls were at the top of the pile in Columbine, which I'm sure many users would agree with me on.

eli27 wrote:

lasttrain wrote:

eli27 wrote:

lasttrain wrote:

Personally, I think it is wrong to say that they were anywhere near the bottom of any totem pole.

A high school is not one totem pole, it is many.  There are different groups of kids with different hierarchies.

Eric and Dylan were very well liked by their friends. Eric went on many dates with girls.  A good-looking girl asked Dylan to the prom where he partied all night.  

They were not loners or outcasts at all.

Yes there are different groups of kids, but some groups are above the others. You surely cannot deny that groups like the jocks and popular girls were much higher on the highschool pecking/popular order than E&D.

Higher according to who?  Eric and Dylan did not want to be part of that group.  Surely you are not arguing that not belonging to a group they didn't want to belong to caused them to commit homicide.

Lasttrain, do not put words in my mouth. I do not need you to infer that I am arguing something that I have never said, and do not even agree with. At what point do I mention anything being a motive for anyone to comit any event in my post? Never. At what point do I ever give an opinion as to what I think Dylan or Eric think about anything? Never. If you would do your research (that doesn't include reading Cullen) and look at my other posts, rather than pulling ideas out of thin air, you would see that I do not think that at all. I quite clearly and simply stated only the fact that the jocks and the popular girls were at the top of the pile in Columbine, which I'm sure many users would agree with me on.

I can't speak for all schools, but at my high school there was definitely a pecking order. The cool kids on top and the losers on bottom.
Sure, no one sits down and says "this kid is cool, this kid is a weirdo" It's an unspoken thing but that doesn't mean it isn't real or
that people don't view you a certain way because of your social standing at school. To say they committed murder because they
weren't jocks is ludicrous and just plain stupid. And that's obviously not what eli27 was saying. I believe the lack of social standing
and respect that Eric and Dylan had at Columbine was a factor, but not the sole reason or cause of 4/20

browneyes11 wrote:

eli27 wrote:

lasttrain wrote:

eli27 wrote:

lasttrain wrote:

Personally, I think it is wrong to say that they were anywhere near the bottom of any totem pole.

A high school is not one totem pole, it is many.  There are different groups of kids with different hierarchies.

Eric and Dylan were very well liked by their friends. Eric went on many dates with girls.  A good-looking girl asked Dylan to the prom where he partied all night.  

They were not loners or outcasts at all.

Yes there are different groups of kids, but some groups are above the others. You surely cannot deny that groups like the jocks and popular girls were much higher on the highschool pecking/popular order than E&D.

Higher according to who?  Eric and Dylan did not want to be part of that group.  Surely you are not arguing that not belonging to a group they didn't want to belong to caused them to commit homicide.

Lasttrain, do not put words in my mouth. I do not need you to infer that I am arguing something that I have never said, and do not even agree with. At what point do I mention anything being a motive for anyone to comit any event in my post? Never. At what point do I ever give an opinion as to what I think Dylan or Eric think about anything? Never. If you would do your research (that doesn't include reading Cullen) and look at my other posts, rather than pulling ideas out of thin air, you would see that I do not think that at all. I quite clearly and simply stated only the fact that the jocks and the popular girls were at the top of the pile in Columbine, which I'm sure many users would agree with me on.

I can't speak for all schools, but at my high school there was definitely a pecking order. The cool kids on top and the losers on bottom.
Sure, no one sits down and says "this kid is cool, this kid is a weirdo" It's an unspoken thing but that doesn't mean it isn't real or
that people don't view you a certain way because of your social standing at school. To say they committed murder because they
weren't jocks is ludicrous and just plain stupid. And that's obviously not what eli27 was saying. I believe the lack of social standing
and respect that Eric and Dylan had at Columbine was a factor, but not the sole reason or cause of 4/20

Thank you browneyes, and it was the same way in my school. Although being English, it was the rugby players who were at the top, as well as the popular girls. The two groups passed each other around, dating for a few weeks before moving onto another in one of the two groups. They also (mainly the girls though) bitched about, bullied, and ridiculed those who were weirder and and less popular (including myself at somepoints unfortunately) for no particular reason except because they could. I am also in complete agreeance that the lack of repsect and social standing E&D had was definately a contributing factor of NBK, but - and thank you for backing me up on this - I definately do not think it to be the sole reason. After all, I do not think it possible to put Columbine down to one single motive, as E&D both had their separate reasons. Ontop of this, their anger and hatred went a lot deeper (particularly for Eric) than being unpopular at school.

Thank you for the comments/discussion thus far!

I went to HS from 1991 to 1994 so I predated them by a few years. I don't see any similarities with my personal experiences and what I have read about them. I do think that I was comparable in stature to Eric, though. I was probably not quite as thin and did not have pectus excavtum, but I did have scoliosis -- much less pronounced, but we always had one scoliosis test it seemed Jr High until whenever I stopped doing gym, and I became the de facto poster child for abnormal spinal curvatures I guess! (I don't recall that ever being an issue beyond that though.) I probably only had slightly more success than Eric in terms of girls. I was a nice guy, I was treated nicely, but ultimately most didn't share the same interest in me (I think I laid it on thick and heavy back in the day).

My HS was effectively an inner city computer magnet, so it was very diverse racially (mostly a white/black population though) and socioeconomically. There were definitely cliques, but it sounds like it may have been a little less streamlined than what Columbine seems to be described as.

As a result, it may be unfair of me to try to force comparisons with the shooters' experiences, but that is what is so fascinating about some of these tragedies. On the one had, I can look at it from a standpoint of my own HS experience. In addition, I can look at it as a parent of relatively soon to be HS students. Or even from the historical event perspective.

I am often curious how I might have fared at Columbine or the boys in some other school. I do agree that, from everything I've read, their social status/bullying is likely not the lone cause of the shooting.

HuskerStorm wrote:

First non-intro post, apologies if my questions are dumb or have been discussed ad nauseum...

I was in HS several years before Columbine.  My HS was pretty diverse, though we certainly had cliques, etc. so perhaps I can't relate totally to the late 90s Columbine experience.

From just an appearance standpoint, Eric and Dylan do not look like that alone would be worthy of derision.  Granted, that should not be a criteria for derision, but I hope you get what I mean.   I get that sports wasn't their thing, but didn't one or both like pro baseball if that was a link?   Lots of people are quirky I think in my mind, but that doesn't always relegate them to apparent unpopularity, does it?

Maybe I put too much stock in a statement that they were at the very bottom of the so-called social ladder.  

Was Columbine the HS different than most HS?  

I can't believe I am saying this but I agree with lasttrain...for once.

Brooks Brown over exaggerated. They were not in the "bottom of the entire school" or the "bottom of the senior class". No idea why he said that...I guess to sound more overdramatic.

They had friends. They weren't loners. They had a group of good friends. They weren't really outcasts IMO. Want to know an outcast? Elliot Rodger. Seung Hui Cho. Those were outcasts.

Brooks Brown was the same level right? Maybe the statement gave him that overdramatic moment while still trying to relate to the shared experiences, but maintaining some superiority over the two.

HuskerStorm, let me tell you why I think bullying was not a cause of the shooting.

First of all, Eric and Dylan did not target bullies. Yes, they made comments about jocks, but also blacks, Christians, and everyone else. They wanted to blow up the whole cafeteria and even stated that their own friends would die. When this plan failed, they went into the library and shot randomly under tables.  Is that targeting bullies?

Second, there is no evidence that Eric and Dylan were singled out for bullying by Rocky Hoffschneider. Eric mentioned Rocky in his diary, but only to complain that Rocky said he could drive his car 250 mph. Nothing about Rocky bullying him.

Finally, there is good reason to doubt the ketchup incident. What are the sources for it?  The only eyewitness is Chad Laughlin, who told Alan Pendergrast that he just "caught the tail end" of it. After Dylan died someone relayed it to Sue Klebold, who put it together with her memory of seeing ketchup on his shirt. But what does this prove? Not much. In fact, I have never found an eyewitness account that places Eric and Dylan together in the cafeteria having ketchup thrown at them. Not in 11,000 pages of interviews with other students about them, where the interviewer specifically asked if they were bullied. And there is certainly no evidence that Rocky did it.

And anyway this incident, if it even happened, cannot explain their desire to kill several hundred fellow students. If people tried to blow up a school because someone threw ketchup on them then no high schools in the US would be standing.

lasttrain, did you even read what I wrote?

LPorter101 wrote:

I am not saying that bullying caused NBK. I do believe that Eric and Dylan felt profoundly alienated from the mainstream society at Columbine and that they deeply resented their lack of status. Whatever bullying they had to deal with - Eric more than Dylan - drove those feelings.

Also, I am not saying that Eric and Dylan were not mentally ill - lots of kids are bullied badly, and few of them kill anyone. But they had a bad time at Columbine, and the worst of it happened at the time when they were least able to cope with it.

lol wrote:

They had friends. They weren't loners. They had a group of good friends. They weren't really outcasts IMO. Want to know an outcast? Elliot Rodger. Seung Hui Cho. Those were outcasts.

Well, yeah. They did have friends. (Dylan had more friends than Eric.) But they were still low-status.

They felt that they stood far apart from the great bulk of the kids at the school.

LPorter101 wrote:

lol wrote:

They had friends. They weren't loners. They had a group of good friends. They weren't really outcasts IMO. Want to know an outcast? Elliot Rodger. Seung Hui Cho. Those were outcasts.

Well, yeah. They did have friends. (Dylan had more friends than Eric.) But they were still low-status.

They felt that they stood far apart from the great bulk of the kids at the school.

You might as well say that about every single kid in Columbine High School during those years who weren't popular.

lol wrote:

LPorter101 wrote:

lol wrote:

They had friends. They weren't loners. They had a group of good friends. They weren't really outcasts IMO. Want to know an outcast? Elliot Rodger. Seung Hui Cho. Those were outcasts.

Well, yeah. They did have friends. (Dylan had more friends than Eric.) But they were still low-status.

They felt that they stood far apart from the great bulk of the kids at the school.

You might as well say that about every single kid in Columbine High School during those years who weren't popular.

I'm not sure I see your point [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I'm sure there were a lot of students at Columbine who felt they were in low social status.
And there probably were a lot of kids that had it a lot worse than E/D.
Columbine sounds like it was a really shitty school to attend.

The whole "bullying" topic is a microscopic factor of NBK.
The bigger factor is not how everyone perceived Eric and Dylan,
it was how Eric and Dylan perceived others and how they perceived themselves
They both felt like outcasts and they both write about it in their journals.
Whether others perceived them as outcasts is unimportant. How they perceived themselves is important.

I think a lot of their hatred and rage came from feelings or rejection and envy. They wanted what they couldn't have.
For Dylan that was love. For Eric that was respect. It wasn't just about getting revenge on jocks.
They knew it was a possibility that their friends might die during NBK, but they did it anyway. Why?
I think it was more about getting revenge on the world at large. And since they couldn't take out the world
They settled for just Columbine High School.

lol wrote:

LPorter101 wrote:

lol wrote:

They had friends. They weren't loners. They had a group of good friends. They weren't really outcasts IMO. Want to know an outcast? Elliot Rodger. Seung Hui Cho. Those were outcasts.

Well, yeah. They did have friends. (Dylan had more friends than Eric.) But they were still low-status.

They felt that they stood far apart from the great bulk of the kids at the school.

You might as well say that about every single kid in Columbine High School during those years who weren't popular.

How many kids hated the school enough to want to blow it up? More than two, maybe, but not all that many.

Recipe for an outcast:

-anti social
-physically unappealing
-lack of leadership or athleticism

In American high schools being attractive, athletic or sociable=popular
E&D just didn't have those qualities, add anti social behaviors & you get "outcast".

Fatheroftwo wrote:

Recipe for an outcast:

-anti social
-physically unappealing
-lack of leadership or athleticism

In American high schools being attractive, athletic or sociable=popular
E&D just didn't have those qualities, add anti social behaviors & you get "outcast".

Yes.

Let's say that there are six tiers:

Popular
Somewhat-popular
High-middle
Low-middle
Somewhat-outcast
Outcast

The outcast kids are the ones who are so ugly, awkward, weird, and/or abnormal that they stand out. The popular kids are the ones who are so much "better" than everyone else - "better" by the standards that most folks adhere to - that they stand out.

At Columbine, the popular kids were the star football players, the cheerleaders, and their hangers-on. This was not a monolithic group. Rocky Hoffschneider was a popular kid, but so was Landon Jones, who hated his guts. (Landon was two years younger than Rocky.)

Most "jocks" were popular or somewhat-popular. There were some athletes who were at lower levels, but they were not the stars on the teams that everyone cared about.

(The mathlete kid I talked about some time back would not have been popular - he was a swimmer, but he was an overweight, bespectacled math geek.)

The TCM kids who graduated in '98 were in the somewhat-outcast tier. (The true outcasts were kids like Kyle Velasquez.)

Most kids in any school are in the middle, either low or high. At some schools, the jocks might not be as high on the totem pole as they were at Columbine, but they are almost always in the upper tiers.

Eric and Dylan were no higher than low-middle. I'd rank them as somewhat-outcast. Both boys resented their lack of status.

Quote :

I'm not sure I see your point [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I'm sure there were a lot of students at Columbine who felt they were in low social status.
And there probably were a lot of kids that had it a lot worse than E/D.
Columbine sounds like it was a really shitty school to attend.

The whole "bullying" topic is a microscopic factor of NBK.
The bigger factor is not how everyone perceived Eric and Dylan,
it was how Eric and Dylan perceived others and how they perceived themselves
They both felt like outcasts and they both write about it in their journals.
Whether others perceived them as outcasts is unimportant. How they perceived themselves is important.

I think a lot of their hatred and rage came from feelings or rejection and envy. They wanted what they couldn't have.
For Dylan that was love. For Eric that was respect. It wasn't just about getting revenge on jocks.
They knew it was a possibility that their friends might die during NBK, but they did it anyway. Why?
I think it was more about getting revenge on the world at large. And since they couldn't take out the world
They settled for just Columbine High School.

Yes, this is true.

Eric and Dylan both felt that they were at the bottom.

A Rocky Mountain News reporter who watched the basement tapes wrote:

Quote :

They recall how it's always been: the geeks who always got picked on. You name the grade. How girls would never call them back. Even as a senior, a punk freshman "ripped," or picked on him, Dylan Klebold recalled. The freshman didn't get in trouble; he did. It would never stop. Unless he made it stop.

"Only four or five people here didn't rip on me - four or five out of the whole state of Colorado!'' Eric Harris moaned to his pal. If he were just able to get in small fistfights, like he used to, Harris says. Now, he'd get suspended, his parents sued. Now, he says, pointing his shotgun "Arlene" at the screen, he has no choice.

(CULLEN NEVER SAW THE BASEMENT TAPES. He knows as much about them as I do.)

Now, you might say, "Well, the boys weren't at the bottom; they were in the middle, or maybe even higher." But they felt like dog shit on the sidewalk. They felt that the other kids didn't respect them.

I believe that they were objectively low on the totem pole, that they were not delusional in thinking that most kids at the school didn't hold them in high regard.

CaptainMidnight wrote:

For me,E&D didn't want to kill Rocky.They wanted to BE him,and that's why they were not satisfied with the groups of 'friends' they had.And the fact that they would never live a high school jock experience on life made them more upset over the bullying episodes.

This is another good point.

I doubt they wanted to be wrestlers - Eric doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who'd get off on rubbing his face in another guy's armpit. But they wanted the respect and the pussy that the guys at the top got. They wanted status and power.

- Their clothes, all German things and stuff
- Their taste in music
- Dylan was very tall and skinny
- Eric was short and skinny and had pectus excavatum
- They said very stupid things. Eric said stuff like "These bitches should learn to stay in their places" in school.

lol wrote:

They had friends. They weren't loners. They had a group of good friends. They weren't really outcasts IMO. Want to know an outcast? Elliot Rodger. Seung Hui Cho. Those were outcasts.

I wouldn't say that they were complete outcasts or loners, but they were certainly near the bottom of the popularity order at Columbine. Yes they did have a few friends, but these friends were also near the bottom. I wouldn't go as far as to say that they had a 'group of good friends' though. And irrelevant to whether they were really outcasts or not, as browneyes said, they felt that they were. That's what really matters.

I think it's a little bit of column A and B with regards to social stature and their number of friends. Jeff Cass' book mentions that a lot of their friends saw Dylan and Eric voluntarily recede into a their own world. I think, from the number of friends and their social activities, they were active teenagers right in the middle of the pecking order.

They didn't see it this way, for whatever reason. Their perception of this circumstance is what caused NBK.

I tend to take what Brooks says with a grain of salt. In his book, his Reddit AMA as well as other postings he recycles the same few events over and over again. I truly respect that he gave his insight to how toxic Columbine was, but I don't think he is an authority on E/D lives. I feel that he tends to project his own life and experiences onto them. I think he may have been at the bottom of the school pecking order, but that's just my opinion.

Lastly, Columbine was/is(?) a grotesque personification of American High schools. Most schools in other areas of the United States are not this bad when it comes to the rampant ego stroking of their athletics department. Most, sadly, do not have nearly as much money as Columbine either. When a school is affluent and has a tendency to place higher value in physical prowess, you will create some very strong social groups with very strong feelings against one another.

TL,DR: They were not as low on the list as Brooks says, but their perception of their place on the list was what made Columbine happen.

Some unnamed people allegedly threw ketchup at Dylan, and even though only one eyewitness "caught the tail end of it" we are supposed to believe that this is what made both Dylan and Eric want to kill everyone in the whole school?

If this event was so spectacular how come no one but Laughlin saw any part of it? And even Laughlin didn't see it.

I take Eric and Dylan at their word when they say they wanted to kill everyone because they hate them. Not because they were bullied. Not because video games made them do it. But because they had extreme, crazy rage that only exists in mentally disturbed people.

I mean killing 500 people is not a normal way to respond to ketchup on your shirt--even if this did happen.

lasttrain wrote:

Some unnamed people allegedly threw ketchup at Dylan, and even though only one eyewitness "caught the tail end of it" we are supposed to believe that this is what made both Dylan and Eric want to kill everyone in the whole school?

If this event was so spectacular how come no one but Laughlin saw any part of it?  And even Laughlin didn't see it.

I take Eric and Dylan at their word when they say they wanted to kill everyone because they hate them. Not because they were bullied.  Not because video games made them do it.  But because they had extreme, crazy rage that only exists in mentally disturbed people.  

I mean killing 500 people is not a normal way to respond to ketchup on your shirt--even if this did happen.

Who said that the ketchup incident was the cause for 4/20?

It wasn't ONE event that caused 4/20, It was a lot of different things combining together to create the perfect storm.
You can take them at their word if you want but you need to ask yourself, why? Why did they hate everyone?
That kind of rage didn't just appear out of nowhere. It was built up in them. How? Why?
The answer to that will tell you why they wanted to kill 500 people
You won't find the answer in one single instance.

browneyes11 wrote:

lasttrain wrote:

Some unnamed people allegedly threw ketchup at Dylan, and even though only one eyewitness "caught the tail end of it" we are supposed to believe that this is what made both Dylan and Eric want to kill everyone in the whole school?

If this event was so spectacular how come no one but Laughlin saw any part of it?  And even Laughlin didn't see it.

I take Eric and Dylan at their word when they say they wanted to kill everyone because they hate them. Not because they were bullied.  Not because video games made them do it.  But because they had extreme, crazy rage that only exists in mentally disturbed people.  

I mean killing 500 people is not a normal way to respond to ketchup on your shirt--even if this did happen.

Who said that the ketchup incident was the cause for 4/20?

It wasn't ONE event that caused 4/20, It was a lot of different things combining together to create the perfect storm.
You can take them at their word if you want but you need to ask yourself, why? Why did they hate everyone?
That kind of rage didn't just appear out of nowhere. It was built up in them. How? Why?
The answer to that will tell you why they wanted to kill 500 people
You won't find the answer in one single instance.

Exactly. Ontop of that, they both had their own motives for the massacre, so how can you say that one single event caused it lasttrain? Dylan's unrequited love and Eric's hatred for society, among other factors that caused the massacre, were not caused by 'kechup on their shirts'.

A response to bullying would be to attack the people who bullied you. Eric and Dylan did not do that.

Eric and Dylan tried to kill the whole school; they did it after all the alleged bullies had graduated; they planted a bomb in an area they thought would kill their own friends.

When that failed, they shot people they had never met; they shot randomly under tables; they let go the one student they encountered (Evan Todd) who actually did have a white hat.

Eric said nothing about bullying in his journal and neither did Dylan. Instead they talked about what a thrill it would be to blow up the school.

Everyone: listen to what Eric and Dylan are telling you. They are the most honest criminals of the 1990s. Read the journals. They explain it. It was not about bullying.

They hated the jocks yes, but they also hated the other people who teased them, the bystanders, and the school as a whole. Columbine school was an experience that they hated, and because of that they hated all of the people in it, as well as the building itself and what it represented (ergo the shooting and bombing the building).

Quote :

Eric and Dylan tried to kill the whole school; they did it after all the alleged bullies had graduated; they planted a bomb in an area they thought would kill their own friends.  

Yes in an area that they thought would kill their own friends, but also in an area that they thought would kill everyone else as well. As I said before, they learnt to hate the whole school, not just the jocks. They were going to commit suicide anyway afterwards, so killing friends would have been a small sacrifice to them. Ontop of that, they were looking for the thrill of killing, so the more the merrier.

Quote :

When that failed, they shot people they had never met; they shot randomly under tables; they let go the one student they encountered (Evan Todd) who actually did have a white hat.

They did not only shoot people they had never met. Evan Todd was more about showing that they had power over life and death, that they were godlike. They had already scarred him for life, now to let him live would do as much to show how powerful they were as killing him. Quite a few of the victims were shot for reasons. Daniel they did not know and had no good reason to kill, which does anger me, but he probably would not have died had he not fought back. That is why they killed him. After making racial comments, it is clear, at least partly, as to why they killed Isaiah, who was also popular and previously a sportsman. There are more whom they had 'reasons' to kill, but I will leave it at two for now.

Quote :

Eric said nothing about bullying in his journal and neither did Dylan.  Instead they talked about what a thrill it would be to blow up the school.

Yes the thrill was part of it, but you would be mistaken, especially after reading their journals, if you did not realise that there is much more to it than that. For Eric, the hatred went beyond the school and extended towards the whole of society and the way it worked. The school for him was a good representative of this society that he hated.

Quote :

Everyone: listen to what Eric and Dylan are telling you.  They are the most honest criminals of the 1990s.  Read the journals.  They explain it.  It was not about bullying.

It was partly about bullying. It was about hatred, unrequited love, the thrill of killing, regaining their (or at least Eric's) battered egos, payback for their shitty school experience, anger at teasing, anger at jocks, anger at society. Among other things.

LPorter, you always emphasize that the people beneath Eric and Dylan in status tend to be people with mental disabilities like Kyle Velasquez.  But I assure you that there were students at Columbine beneath Eric and Dylan in status that did not have mental disabilities.  I assure you there were students at Columbine who did not have mental disabilities who had no friends at the school. When you emphasize that the students beneath Eric and Dylan in status tend to have mental disabilities, you make it sound as if Eric and Dylan were lower in status than they were, IMO.

Edit: I just had to edit this to add that I know that you did not say that all the students beneath Eric and Dylan in status had mental disabilities.

I agree. From the looks of it, they were well liked within their own social groups. I don't think they were all that low.

They did, however, voluntarily isolate themselves after the van break in. That was a gradual change that took place over many months.

Quote :

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - [Around 00:16] As Eric walks near them, he bows his head and cowers like a little dog.

Say what you will about Eric's reaction to the wall of jocks, BUT notice that it is Eric that DOESN'T move out of the way nor does he move his arms away from his sides while walking right through them.

He takes the lead and goes straight towards them in front of Mike and he is the first to look back to see what is happening.


As far as having his head down, most people know that the top of the head is a very hard part of your body. If someone punches someone and it lands on the top of the head he can easily break his hand.

gumshoe wrote:

LPorter, you always emphasize that the people beneath Eric and Dylan in status tend to be people with mental disabilities like Kyle Velasquez.  But I assure you that there were students at Columbine beneath Eric and Dylan in status that did not have mental disabilities.  I assure you there were students at Columbine who did not have mental disabilities who had no friends at the school. When you emphasize that the students beneath Eric and Dylan in status tend to have mental disabilities, you make it sound as if Eric and Dylan were lower in status than they were, IMO.

Edit: I just had to edit this to add that I know that you did not say that all the students beneath Eric and Dylan in status had mental disabilities.

Yes, that is true.

On a scale of 0 (pond scum) to 10 (homecoming royalty), where did Eric and Dylan rank? Among the seniors, maybe two or three.

LPorter, I agree with your ranking of 2 or 3.

I was a 0 when I was in high school, so I am confident that Eric and Dylan would have ranked higher than I did, and they probably would have been higher status than you, also.

Part of it with Dylan is that by most people's and overall societal standards, he was ugly and creepy looking - tall and skinny, big nose, long chin, etc. The matted dirty hair when it needed washed didn't help; neither did his generally substandard hygiene or general social anxiety/awkwardness. Eric was more conventionally handsome but still scrawny and awkward. So basically a lot of the same reasons people are usually not popular in high school.

WendlaBergman wrote:

Part of it with Dylan is that by most people's and overall societal standards, he was ugly and creepy looking - tall and skinny, big nose, long chin, etc. The matted dirty hair when it needed washed didn't help; neither did his generally substandard hygiene or general social anxiety/awkwardness. Eric was more conventionally handsome but still scrawny and awkward. So basically a lot of the same reasons people are usually not popular in high school.

Dylan went on a date with a few girls, and Robyn had a huge crush on him. Not exactly "ugly and creepy looking" as you would suggest. Dylan was really well liked by many people actually, way more than Eric.

Personally these 2 went out there way to be different, and there's nothing wrong with being different. Unfortunately Columbine is a big preppy type school. They were doomed from the start, especially with their poisonous mindset. All it took was a serious girlfriend to get Zack Heckler out of destruction, and being the 3rd shooter. If Eric and Dylan both had serious girlfriends they would have not committed Columbine.

lol wrote:

WendlaBergman wrote:

Part of it with Dylan is that by most people's and overall societal standards, he was ugly and creepy looking - tall and skinny, big nose, long chin, etc. The matted dirty hair when it needed washed didn't help; neither did his generally substandard hygiene or general social anxiety/awkwardness. Eric was more conventionally handsome but still scrawny and awkward. So basically a lot of the same reasons people are usually not popular in high school.

Dylan went on a date with a few girls, and Robyn had a huge crush on him. Not exactly "ugly and creepy looking" as you would suggest. Dylan was really well liked by many people actually, way more than Eric.

Personally these 2 went out there way to be different, and there's nothing wrong with being different. Unfortunately Columbine is a big preppy type school. They were doomed from the start, especially with their poisonous mindset. All it took was a serious girlfriend to get Zack Heckler out of destruction, and being the 3rd shooter. If Eric and Dylan both had serious girlfriends they would have not committed Columbine.

Oh, yeah. I know there were a lot of girls who liked Dylan or at least thought he was attractive. I'm just saying by societal standards he wasn't handsome. I honestly thiink he was absolutely drop-dead (pun intended) gorgeous, but my tastes are not most people's.

Man, it's sad to think of what could have been had they found love and gotten help.

Lots of teenage males are weird at E and D's age, some are just better at hiding it and "fitting in". E and D seemed to hit a point where they began purposefully trying to weird everyone out. I don't know whether it was just a part of playing the Reb and Vodka characters or if it was some kind of social defense mechanism. Wearing black dusters all the time and saluting Hitler aren't gonna win a person positive attention.

I think Dylan's odd tendencies were part of his mental illness. He supposedly didnt take showers much and wore the same clothes for days on end. Either he knew it was gross and was too depressed to care or he did it to keep people away from him. I don't see the latter being true aince he was obsessed with finding a girlfriend. Its common sense that ladies arent attracted to filthy guys.

E and D weren't at the very bottom of the social ladder but they were far off from the top. Eric is said to have been picked on mercilessly at times. He most definitely felt tough when he wore his duster. I think he knew how ridiculous it looked because he was very sensitive towards his looks. Not sensitive enough though because he was willing to risk looking silly as the duster gave him a level of confidence he didnt feel on his own. Both boys had such low self esteems that just being recognized as the weird kids gave them a huge ego boost. Eric specifically craved attention and NBK was his greatest "weird" act.

I have to ask if we really are sure that the reports about Dylan not cleaning himself up are really true?
I know I wasn't there to see him in person but in pictures and videos he and his hair have always looked clean to me. The only time I thought his hair looked a little dirty was in RC and even then it wasn't terrible.

We will never know unfortunately. I personally think Eric had some major mental issues and that he was able to talk Dylan into believing that they had to do what they did.

I mean, they got what they wanted didn't they? Here we are 17 years later talking about them still...and yet we can't help ourselves.

FlyerFan wrote:

We will never know unfortunately. I personally think Eric had some major mental issues and that he was able to talk Dylan into believing that they had to do what they did.

I mean, they got what they wanted didn't they? Here we are 17 years later talking about them still...and yet we can't help ourselves.

Dylan didnt need to be convinced. He wrote about a shooting spree a couple years before NBK. Dylan had serious depression and mental issues that drove him to suicide. NBK was just an excuse for him to go through with it. I hate the common belief that Dylan was a meek follower. He was better at manipulating and hiding his demons than Eric was.

Nirvana92 wrote:

FlyerFan wrote:

We will never know unfortunately. I personally think Eric had some major mental issues and that he was able to talk Dylan into believing that they had to do what they did.

I mean, they got what they wanted didn't they? Here we are 17 years later talking about them still...and yet we can't help ourselves.

Dylan didnt need to be convinced. He wrote about a shooting spree a couple years before NBK. Dylan had serious depression and mental issues that drove him to suicide. NBK was just an excuse for him to go through with it. I hate the common belief that Dylan was a meek follower. He was better at manipulating and hiding his demons than Eric was.

I don't think he was a meek follower, but I think he would not have done it by himself. Kids will do things in groups that they would never consider doing alone, especially murder. (I watch a lot of the ID channel, lol)