WHY IS COLUMBINE SO INTERESTING???

Why aren't other cases like Parkland or Sandy Hook as interesting as Columbine? I haven't been able to let Columbine go.

Columbine is boring.

I think it's because of a few various reasons, there were 2 shooters, it was the first high school shooting with more than 5 deaths, they had left behind journals and tapes, they committed suicide etc.

Gold Digger wrote:

Why aren't other cases like Parkland or Sandy Hook as interesting as Columbine? I haven't been able to let Columbine go.

Speak for yourself. I find Adam Lanza to be equally as fascinating as Eric and Dylan, though for radically different reasons.

The scale, the setting, the timing. Their journals offer enough to dissect, and their tapes not being released add an air of mystery. There are a lot of "what-ifs", like what if their original plan succeeded, what if the authorities had payed more attention, etc. The reported motive of bullying made it relatable. That there were two shooters brings all sorts of questions about their dynamic and how they were able to pull it off undetected. They had an aesthetic: the "Trench Coat Mafia", and the outfits they wore on the day. There is a lot that can be talked about which isn't the case for a lot of shootings.

I think part of it is how it seems frozen in time. There's a certain aesthetic to it, the 90s in Colorado. Pulp Fiction, KMFDM, sex, love, high school life.

Gold Digger wrote:

Why aren't other cases like Parkland or Sandy Hook as interesting as Columbine? I haven't been able to let Columbine go.

Personally, Columbine touched me on so many different levels. I have a lot in common with Eric. First of all, my father was in the air force, like Eric's father, and I moved from air base to air base as a child. Like Eric, I was born near the McConnell air force base in Wichita, Kansas, but unlike Eric, my parents moved from Ogden, Utah (where I spent much of my childhood), to Tucson, Arizona (spent only three months there) to Lancaster, California (where I went to high school). Again, like Eric, I am an April baby. My mom went into labor at with me at 9:58 PM on April 9. However, I didn't come out of the womb until 12:02 AM, on April 10. So, I have that connection to Columbine! (Eric and I were born in the same hospital, and we were born three years and a day apart).

Also, Columbine got me interesting in psychology. I remember reading Brooks Brown's book, and also Mrs. Scott's book about her daughter Rachel, and becoming obsessed with this tragedy's human dimension. I wanted to pursue a career helping people handle traumatic events, so I became a clinical psychologist and a grief counselor. So, therefore, Columbine forever changed my life in ways that I never imagined. I believe that's why, even after 20 years, I am unable to let Columbine go.

I have many reasons, but to name a few:

It was shocking that two kids from a middle class religious area formed this murderous NBK style pact, and 15 total deaths was bonkers when it happened. Shootings before that always had one shooter and a relatively low kill count.

It was broadcast live on every news station into millions of homes, which to my knowledge was a first. Most other shootings had news coverage after the fact. I still remember watching Patrick Ireland climbing out of the library window live on TV.

A big portion of us here were in grade school or middle school when it happened, so we have some type of morbid nostalgia.


We also remember the aftermath. Our schools started locking all the doors and took every threat or threatening behavior very seriously, literally overnight. Even guests had to be pre-approved and staff closely monitored their every move.

It was like the high school version of 9/11 in the sense that there were drastic changes and nothing was the same after it happened. School before Columbine was drastically different post Columbine.

Lastly the fact that they left behind journals and home videos added to the allure, and made it more interesting to try and figure Eric and Dylan out.

slippy123 wrote:

I have many reasons, but to name a few:

It was shocking that two kids from a middle class religious area formed this murderous NBK style pact, and 15 total deaths was bonkers when it happened. Shootings before that always had one shooter and a relatively low kill count.

It was broadcast live on every news station into millions of homes, which to my knowledge was a first. Most other shootings had news coverage after the fact. I still remember watching Patrick Ireland climbing out of the library window live on TV.

A big portion of us here were in grade school or middle school when it happened, so we have some type of morbid nostalgia.


We also remember the aftermath. Our schools started locking all the doors and took every threat or threatening behavior very seriously, literally overnight. Even guests had to be pre-approved and staff closely monitored their every move.

It was like the high school version of 9/11 in the sense that there were drastic changes and nothing was the same after it happened. School before Columbine was drastically different post Columbine.

Lastly the fact that they left behind journals and home videos added to the allure, and made it more interesting to try and figure Eric and Dylan out.

Morbid nostalgia is a good way to put it. I read someplace that Gen X and Millennials are really the first generations to really get very nostalgic. I can't speak for all but the other day I got stuck watching late 90s early 2000s commercials on YT....

And yea it is frozen in time. There were a lot of differences back then and it wasn't all that long ago. I find the Eric In Columbine video so interesting not bc of Eric but bc of how different it seems to be. No cell phones (save the munchkin phone), kids just sitting talking to each other etc. It is like a completely different life that seems so far in the past for me. Even though I lived thru it.

Lizpuff wrote:

slippy123 wrote:

I have many reasons, but to name a few:

It was shocking that two kids from a middle class religious area formed this murderous NBK style pact, and 15 total deaths was bonkers when it happened. Shootings before that always had one shooter and a relatively low kill count.

It was broadcast live on every news station into millions of homes, which to my knowledge was a first. Most other shootings had news coverage after the fact. I still remember watching Patrick Ireland climbing out of the library window live on TV.

A big portion of us here were in grade school or middle school when it happened, so we have some type of morbid nostalgia.


We also remember the aftermath. Our schools started locking all the doors and took every threat or threatening behavior very seriously, literally overnight. Even guests had to be pre-approved and staff closely monitored their every move.

It was like the high school version of 9/11 in the sense that there were drastic changes and nothing was the same after it happened. School before Columbine was drastically different post Columbine.

Lastly the fact that they left behind journals and home videos added to the allure, and made it more interesting to try and figure Eric and Dylan out.

Morbid nostalgia is a good way to put it.  I read someplace that Gen X and Millennials are really the first generations to really get very nostalgic.  I can't speak for all but the other day I got stuck watching late 90s early 2000s commercials on YT....

And yea it is frozen in time.  There were a lot of differences back then and it wasn't all that long ago.  I find the Eric In Columbine video so interesting not bc of Eric but bc of how different it seems to be.  No cell phones (save the munchkin phone), kids just sitting talking to each other etc.  It is like a completely different life that seems so far in the past for me.  Even though I lived thru it.  

I’m feeling really nostalgic considering I was 17 when it happened and it was really a defining moment in my youth. It was the first time I ever felt the world was unsafe. Also I was someone with a lot of anger, I was bullied and no one cared and I grew up in an area much like Littleton.

Plus Eric and Dylan were so humanized and we know so much about them. They seem different than others who cake after.

I don't get the extreme Columbine fascination so many have. It does not register in my mind.

NSAhoneypot wrote:

I don't get the extreme Columbine fascination so many have. It does not register in my mind.

I think I’m into the psychology of what makes someone Do a mass shooting. I’m not so much interested in weapons etc. I was interested in the Aurora shooting because of the trial and that’s another reason I am interested in parkland and the upcoming trial whenever that will happen.

I also think it’s interesting how Eric and Dylan really curated everything for the shooting. And there was a lot of controversy surrounding it and just different things. So to me it’s interesting because it was the one I remember the most is well.

I don't care much about Columbine to be honest.

I used to be really obsessed with columbine. But after a certain point when I learned everything there is to know about it, I just lost interest. I find other mass shootings more interesting now

The whole story is just so dramatic and there are so many sides to it. It's almost like a TV drama, morbidly. Sometimes the story just gets so interesting I have to remind myself that it really happened, and people sadly lost their lives.

NSAhoneypot wrote:

I don't get the extreme Columbine fascination so many have. It does not register in my mind.

As [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] stated, I think the main interest for most people is the psychology behind what caused not one but two teenagers from middle class caring families to get to the point of killing 13 people and themselves.
Now something I never understood is the whole Columbine fan boys and fan girls. How someone could be a "fan" of mass murderers is something I'll never get.

It amazes me that these airhead "fans" don't realize that if they were in the library that day, Eric and or Dylan probably would of killed them without hesitation.

This is the video that got me into mass murder. I watched this when I was 11 back in 2012 shortly before Sandy Hook, for some reason the first 9, while they fascinated me in my 11 year old mind, Columbine truly started it off for me, I think it was because my life was mostly school, and when I saw Columbine, something psychologically clicked in me, probably something to the effect of: "Wow! this type of thing can happen in a school?" Now im 17 and I been interested in mass shootings (along with other types of crimes) for 7 years with Columbine still one of my favorite shootings and still in my mind every single day

So why I am I so fascinated with Columbine? idk, I think its a psychological thing

I don't get the Columbine hype. The Jeffco police have released so much information that it isn't even interesting anymore.

why are so many here if they dont get the hype? i find it interesting because they were more "normal" than the other autistic shooters, retards arnt all that interesting. they seemed relatable

AmericaMan wrote:

I don't get the Columbine hype. The Jeffco police have released so much information that it isn't even interesting anymore.

A lot of information has been released yes, but I bet it doesn't hold a candle to the amount of information that hasn't been released

It's all about the '90s aesthetic. Columbine marked the end of an era; the Internet / the entertainment industry/ relationships with people were forever changed after hitting that landmark, the nostalgia factor plays a huge part on being attached to that event

Broadly: In many ways, the massacre at Columbine High School changed the American landscape. In 1999, it felt like the end of an era: people just felt more connected and in touch with each other than they do now, and the world felt more secure, more peaceful. Before, sure, there were other shootings: Heath. Thurston. Jonesboro. Pearl. But these events seemed minor and worlds away. The general consensus was “Nothing like that could ever happen here.” Nothing had ever been witnessed on such a large scale in a high school, a place people sent their kids and expected them to return home safely. The word “Columbine” was synonymous with the feelings of violence and not feeling safe in schools. Everything about the event seemed like it was under a microscope: the tragedy was front page news for weeks. Everyone and everything was to blame: guns, video games, rock music, bullying, distant parents, etc. People wanted quick answers, to feel reassured, to feel safe again. In a way, Columbine burst people’s bubbles of the facade of safe small communities. Then afterwards, nothing was the same again with Zero Tolerance policy (which has been proven now as ineffective). Everyone that seemed just a *bit* different was targeted as a threat to school safety. Metal detectors were installed. School resource officers were hired. Even small children playing became perceived threats. But most of this was done for a false sense of security. Sadly, these terrible tragedies seem commonplace anymore, to take up a headline for one day, and then it’s on to the next one.

Personally: Columbine happened when I was 13 years old and a freshman. I dealt with some pretty intense mental health issues in high school, especially my early teen years. I was also naive, and the thought of two teenagers doing such a thing was fascinating to me. At the time I definitely did not condone what they did- I never have- but at the time I understood why they did what they did.

True_crime you're spot on with that analysis. Columbine one of the most significant things to happen to America, right up there with Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Also, Eric and Dylan weren't total fugly losers who were clearly detached from reality (like Holmes) or autistic (Lanza) They were both perfectly capable of fitting into society and having friends, even though they were a bit socially awkward/shy. It's easier to relate to them and thus easier to try to understand things through their eyes.

Good luck trying to understand Lanza, Holmes, Cho, or Cruz if you're not highly autistic or schizo or both lol.

Heinrich94 wrote:

True_crime you're spot on with that analysis. Columbine one of the most significant things to happen to America, right up there with Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Also, Eric and Dylan weren't total fugly losers who were clearly detached from reality (like Holmes) or autistic (Lanza) They were both perfectly capable of fitting into society and having friends, even though they were a bit socially awkward/shy. It's easier to relate to them and thus easier to try to understand things through their eyes.

Good luck trying to understand Lanza, Holmes, Cho, or Cruz if you're not highly autistic or schizo or both lol.

It’s like what Sue Klebold wrote in her memoir: people wanted quick answers, to be reassured. It would be easier for the public to think of these as two crazy kids with crazy clown eyes, when in reality Dylan appeared (to his parents) as the typical teenage boy.

Lots of press coverage to introduce one to the crime and lots of material to get lost in it (even video during). It hinged on a more dastardly plan that failed which one has to recreate for themselves, adding a layer of mystery on top of the mysterious motive. Can say similar things about e. g. the JonBenet case

2 shooters and the amount of deaths as well make it uncommon, and of course the double suicides, which seem to make people aware it was a suicide pact and not just a murder pact, and so feel some degree of sympathy for them. That only their deaths were shown with up close photographs probably adds to this.

Also it really seems the transition from serial killing to mass murder as the popular murderous crime. Of course there have been others before, but few know of Richard Speck or James Huberty to the same degree, and neither of them had the enormous list of copycats. It seems the significance of Dylan's Reservoir Dogs shirt. They thought of themselves as serial killers, perhaps, but we think of them as mass murderers, so they get the infamy of both. Planning and keeping secrets for nearly a year is also more like the image of a serial killer getting away with murders for a year than like the typical image of a mass murderer snapping one day. They get the long list of casualties on a single day of a mass murderer, yet we know all their names like with Bundy or Gacy victims.

I wish I had one singular answer for that question.
If you’re asking for me personally, it was the meticulous planning, the horrible execution (in regards to what they got versus what they were aiming for), how in the world they were never caught, trying to decode what led to it exactly, it was the first one that I can recall that got crazy levels of media coverage, there’s so many holes in the entire thing that you could race a U-Haul, or thirty, through them...so, for me, there’s a lot of different things that makes it interesting.

As for the general public? I have no idea.

Because there’s been others. More successful. More media coverage. Easier to figure out because there was no suicide to kill the answers. But that Columbine just keeps lingering.

And I think it always will.

For me, it started with Dave Cullen and other articles. It made me more interested in trying to understand the underlying motive. The flip side is that sometimes it boils into an unhealthy interest.


Eric to me is a bit like the character of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. I see him as what Ellis would label hes own character- the banalaty of evil. Motivated by sadism and lack of empathy for other people. Theres a lot of traits in hes writings which suggests sadistic thoughts and feelings for other people. Those people do exists out there, but they barely kill anyone. They can make people truly miserable, however, because they lack conscience of any kind.

Dylan, on the other hand, was extremely depressed and I believe that he went in there with a desire to die. Ive been depressed to the point where I just want to die. I never acted upon it. But when your at that low point its truly hopeless. I believe that he just wanted to die and NBK
were seen as an option.

Both could have been stopped. Dylan could have been helped. Thats the failures of what happened at Columbine.

Columbine, through and through, is about mental health in my view, and a path to trie and understand it better.
How do we deal with people that have psychopathic tendencies? They usually do not kill you, but they can become fairly abusive towards the people around them. Therefore its important to know how to deal with it.

Depression, on the other hand: I think that its hard to deal with for some people. Atleast suicide prevention is important to have focus on.

Its primarily about mental health combined with ASD. And that people didnt pick up the warning signs.

The only things that bothers me a bit is

1: Its not really that good for me reading too much about it.


2: Its seems as though people cling onto a lot of myths. Such as bullying, outcasts, etc. I dont necessarily deny that they were bullied, but I take some issues that people that reaeach the content sometimes tend to take stuff at face value. Such as old news outlets, that people now argue is actually not that relevant any more. People should always question the source and where its coming from. Thats the challenge I feel like Im constantly facing. Its been very helpful to read Langmanns view. I believe that made some valuable points in trying to comprehend the situation

It seems plausible to me that Eric and Dylan were part of the TCM. They werent goths and they definately werent lonwrs. They may not have been the most popular, but they did have a number of friends and one source suggested that they were actually well liked by a lot of students. Even though Brooks Brown suggested that they were the lowest of the low(which I kind of doubt, to be honest). They may or may not have been fans of Marilyn Manson.

I do sense that they may have been bullied, though, contrary to what Cullen says, and that they may have bullied others in return. Judging by withness accounts from their friends it seems like certainly Eric atleast bore the brunt of harassment from other students. Than again I think that the bullying wasnt necessarily a one way street and the two engaged in their own harassment towards other students