Some thoughts

I was reading over Eric's journal, and it struck me that even though this guy talked about nothing else beside killing everyone, I personally find E & D to be completely non-threatening guys. It's weird. Does anyone else feel that way about them?

The Brown family were obviously scared of Eric for a while, and the whole Columbine attack is living proof that E/D were dangerous individuals. But I'm not scared of them at all, even though they wanted to kill the whole world, including me.

It's not just because they're both dead now either.

I feel like E/D's whole life was dedicated to putting on a show for other people. They didn't fantasize about murder and torture because they were sadists, but because they were showing off their toughness to the world. They were so desperate for approval from others that they were willing to give everyone what they wanted to see the most -a mass-murder carnival at their school.

They did it all for the fans.

Sorry if that sounds stupid. I was just sharing some thoughts that are going through my head, which you probably weren't interested in hearing anyway.  

Also, I wonder if E/D brought those knives with them on the big day in case someone tried to tackle them. Guns aren't that great for close combat. A lot of shooters get tackled down when they reload, so maybe E/D figured that some knives would come in handy if things got up close and personal.

No I don't think it sounds stupid. I understand where you are coming from. E/D even mentioned in the basement tapes they were proving themselves. Eric's website rants were very threatening and alaraming but I wouldn't be afraid to hang out with them. I wish I could have hung out with them or at least know them.

I've seen people talk about how scary they are during the Hitmen for Hire rants. I think they're hilarious when they're screaming at the camera. I don't find E&D to be threatening at all. And I'm not sure why the Browns were so scared of Eric, and why they didn't discuss their fears with their good friends the Klebolds.

Hell, there's a lot of things I'm not sure of.

CatherineM813 wrote:

No I don't think it sounds stupid. I understand where you are coming from. E/D even mentioned in the basement tapes they were proving themselves. Eric's website rants were very threatening and alaraming but I wouldn't be afraid to hang out with them. I wish I could have hung out with them or at least know them.

Thanks. Did either E or D ever get into any physical fights with others? I don't remember reading about any. Apart from the whole mass murder event, they seem... gentle. Really. I think that many people who've posted on this board are or have been more violent than E/D were in their day-to-day life.

Wideawake wrote:

I've seen people talk about how scary they are during the Hitmen for Hire rants. I think they're hilarious when they're screaming at the camera. I don't find E&D to be threatening at all. And I'm not sure why the Browns were so scared of Eric, and why they didn't discuss their fears with their good friends the Klebolds.

Hell, there's a lot of things I'm not sure of.

Yeah, I think a lot of E/D's stuff is hilarious too. It's so theatrical. They were willing to shoot anything that moved, so that should make them frightening. But they seem a hell of lot less frightening than say, a serial killer. And it's not just because they were shooters. Anders Behring Breivik  and Seung-Hui Cho both give me the creeps, but not E/D, even though I can easily see myself as one of their victims.

I also wonder why the Browns didn't tell the Klebolds about Eric's webpages and other stuff. However, I do believe that Eric was capable of killing Brook's family in the manner he described and that they had good reason to fear him.

StinkyOldGrapes wrote:

I was reading over Eric's journal, and it struck me that even though this guy talked about nothing else beside killing everyone, I personally find E & D to be completely non-threatening guys. It's weird. Does anyone else feel that way about them?

I think that being a individual who takes interest in Eric and Dylan, we don't exactly fear them because we see past magazine covers and the 9 o'clock news coverage. We've seen that they had friends, and they were fairly normal kids. But most people have just seen their faces with murderer written across their picture, and if you're not interested in columbine, then that's a hard image to look past, and it's pretty scary at first glance.

Columboner wrote:

StinkyOldGrapes wrote:

I was reading over Eric's journal, and it struck me that even though this guy talked about nothing else beside killing everyone, I personally find E & D to be completely non-threatening guys. It's weird. Does anyone else feel that way about them?

I think that being a individual who takes interest in Eric and Dylan, we don't exactly fear them because we see past magazine covers and the 9 o'clock news coverage. We've seen that they had friends, and they were fairly normal kids. But most people have just seen their faces with murderer written across their picture, and if you're not interested in columbine, then that's a hard image to look past, and it's pretty scary at first glance.

It's just that someone once said to me, How can you say anything nice about them? If you went to that school, they were well-prepared to blow you up just like everyone else.

And it's true. These guys would have killed me and not given a shit.

But at the same time, Eric is half my size, and I would have found it amusing to have a friend who ranted all the time about wiping out the town.

StinkyOldGrapes wrote:

It's just that someone once said to me, How can you say anything nice about them? If you went to that school, they were well-prepared to blow you up just like everyone else.

And it's true. These guys would have killed me and not given a shit.

But at the same time, Eric is half my size, and I would have found it amusing to have a friend who ranted all the time about wiping out the town.

Well I guess to explain how I feel I would use the example of Brooks Brown, he's admitted that he misses them as friends. (or Dylan at least.)
So it's like I feel like sympathize with them, because I see them as people I want to be friends with. I'm kinda on the verge of sounding crazy here haha.

Columboner wrote:

Well I guess to explain how I feel I would use the example of Brooks Brown, he's admitted that he misses them as friends. (or Dylan at least.)
So it's like I feel like sympathize with them, because I see them as people I want to be friends with. I'm kinda on the verge of sounding crazy here haha.

I think most people on this board see E/D as people they could possibly have been friends with, so you're definitely not crazy. Or, if you are, at least take comfort that it's an insanity other people share.  

The first time I saw Eric ranting in the Hitmen for Hire video, I was disturbed. But that was when all I'd read was the Wikipedia entry so he was basically just "mass murdering teen" to me at that point.

Now knowing a lot more about the pair of them, no, I don't think they are frightening or intimidating in the slightest. Maybe if I was at school with Dylan, and walked past him in the hall, I may have been intimidated by him from his sheer height and dress (fear of the "unknown" and all that), but, and I may be alone here, Dylan just seems to have a sensitive aura that would make it difficult even then to find him threatening. He was lanky, he was awkward. I don't find those things a worry.

Also, a lot of the stuff they wrote, liked and said was just so desperately filmic. When half the crap Eric wrote in his journal and people's yearbooks wasn't even his own original thought, how can you possibly find that disturbing. This is a kid who created half his "badass" personality from a host of popular films, music and the like of the time. I know Eric said he felt like during the run up to the massacre he felt like he was in a movie, but that's because the pair of them tried so hard to contrive their lives into movie scripts. They shoehorned experiences into their day to day lives as "proof" the massacre was meant to happen. Eric, spouting KMFDM lyrics, then thinking to himself "oooh, I'm the only one who understands the reference, go me!", telling someone it's "only a flesh wound" in the library, copying a scene from Reservoir Dogs in Radioactive Clothing (the boot closing part)...I don't find two teenage boys who were trying so hard to be "cool", constructing their personalities from mainstream media's idea of superior masculinity, threatening. I find them both sympathetic losers.

O/T: When it comes to 'signs', I had one where I feel Eric would approve. I went with some people from work to a shooting range a couple of months ago, and the only date that was suitable for all of us was, of course, April 20th. The shotguns we used were double barrelled, 12 gauge. The hunter who was taking us out on the range had a beautiful dog with him, so I asked what his name was. The dog's name was Dylan. Think my face was like this -  

Kinney wrote:

Also, a lot of the stuff they wrote, liked and said was just so desperately filmic. When half the crap Eric wrote in his journal and people's yearbooks wasn't even his own original thought, how can you possibly find that disturbing. This is a kid who created half his "badass" personality from a host of popular films, music and the like of the time. I know Eric said he felt like during the run up to the massacre he felt like he was in a movie, but that's because the pair of them tried so hard to contrive their lives into movie scripts. They shoehorned experiences into their day to day lives as "proof" the massacre was meant to happen. Eric, spouting KMFDM lyrics, then thinking to himself "oooh, I'm the only one who understands the reference, go me!", telling someone it's "only a flesh wound" in the library, copying a scene from Reservoir Dogs in Radioactive Clothing (the boot closing part)...I don't find two teenage boys who were trying so hard to be "cool", constructing their personalities from mainstream media's idea of superior masculinity, threatening. I find them both sympathetic losers.

I second this. When Eric rants about making killing easier by seeing everyone as a demon from Doom, I chuckled. They built their entire identity out of movies, games, music. But then again, so did I as a teenager. Dune 2 was my closer to me than my own family for years, and I was attempting to recreate my own school in Duke Nukem 3D long before I heard the rumor that E/D might have done their school in Doom.

Quote :

O/T: When it comes to 'signs', I had one where I feel Eric would approve. I went with some people from work to a shooting range a couple of months ago, and the only date that was suitable for all of us was, of course, April 20th. The shotguns we used were double barrelled, 12 gauge. The hunter who was taking us out on the range had a beautiful dog with him, so I asked what his name was. The dog's name was Dylan. Think my face was like this -  

Yep. Eric would say you're destined to kill mankind.

Hmm, I think the only time I would've found them intimidating would be during the massacre. Gun-toting yelling killers are not really my cup of tea and they would definitely have freaked me out a lot. (Honestly, though, who wouldn't be freaked out during such an ordeal?) The 911-tape is the only time where I find them both threatening enough to be scary.

Pre-4/20, though? No. I'm about 5'9" height-wise, so Dylan's height doesn't intimidate me all that much. I would've been able to stare Eric straight in the eye (or maybe have to look slightly downward) if I was having any type of conversation with him, so that's not very intimidating either. I dated dudes who had Dylan's style of dress, sorta, so that wouldn't faze me much. Plus, Dylan had this whole awkward teenager phase going on where he didn't know what to do with all those long limbs of his. I would've found that pretty endearing. He just seems like a nice but shy kid I would have tried to befriend, you know? I don't think I could've been friends with Eric for very long, though. I have a feeling we would've argued all the damn time about everything. We did share a similar sense of humour and a (mild) feeling of exasperation where the human race is concerned, though, so maybe I'm wrong. My bet is that he could actually be a really decent person once you got under his skin a little and didn't exclude him from shit or made him feel bad about himself. Intimidating, though? Nah.  He tried so hard to be the big bad in every inch of material we have of him that I find it amusing and slightly endearing more than anything else.

It's quite ironic really, how this kid who hated organised religion and blasted others who believed came to think that he was getting "signs" to commit a massacre. That it was fate. Not merely a ton of coincidences. It's just such a spiritual way to believe.

ETA: I'm 5'8, so it's not like Dylan would have seemed all that huge to me, but I can imagine at school when I was a lot more sensitive finding him quite a presence. But Eric? Nah. Pretty sure he was skinnier than me too, the bastard

I think a lot of teenagers in the 90s hated organized religion, but held "spiritual" type beliefs. The apocalypse was a common theme in movies and games, which, of course, has its roots in the biblical Armageddon.

I guess it's still true today, but then again I don't hate organised religion or am quite as vitriolic towards those who do, unlike Eric. I do have spiritual beliefs though.