Why Columbine?

I can only guess why this case has so many followers as it does. It' like a time capsule of a certain time and place.

Even now I came across someone's posts about Rachel Scott and what she was really like and that was very informative. I don't know if any new information is going to come out anymore though. But I think there will always be new people who want to find out what people were really like, and look at primary sources.

I agree with you when you say it is like a time capsule.

It was so different in the late 90's and I was a teenager so it did affect me greatly.

It's interesting though, some of the younger people, and those who look at ANYTHING from early 2000's and before as inherently problematic and don't look at the context and what they would do differently.

Honest to goodness I read a post where someone said they were disappointed in the Baby Sitters club books from the 80's because Jessi's family didn't experience worse racism... that's horrible to me.

It will seem odd, and I am not really sure why but Columbine affected me more than 9/11.

Obviously 9/11 is more influential on world history, but I can definitely understand why someone would focus on Columbine more. The stakes are kind of lower, I suppose.

nopenever wrote:

Obviously 9/11 is more influential on world history, but I can definitely understand why someone would focus on Columbine more. The stakes are kind of lower, I suppose.

I felt like it was something that could probably happen again, i was a senior in HS and it was kids my age doing it. Where as with 9/11 it didn't seem as personal. I know classmates took it really hard and we spent an entire theatre class talking about it, maybe it was because I was not fond of most of the people in that class, but I really didn't want to cry with them or cry at all. I had lost my dad recently, I was going through a lot personally and no one was there for me, so I was like "I don't want to engage with you over this."

I didn't see news reports on Columbine at the time it happened but I did see the constant coverage of 9/11 after it happened. Non stop replaying of the planes hitting the towers. I was 7 at the time.

The aftermath of the tragedy did affect me.

It was the first real high-profile school massacre. It was done by two nerdy gifted/emotionally disturbed students, and I was a nerdy gifted/emotionally disturbed student. I got into it as a form of rebellion after being thrown into a CEDU type program by corrupt school administrators. It was the most inappropriate interest I could possibly form at the time. My interest never went away, just changed in focus and intensity.

The reasons you have already heard from everybody on this board are all probably at least partially valid....but I seriously think it has to do with everybody's godawful memories of getting pounded or humiliated or bullied in high school. I wonder who really gets through those years without at least idly thinking about how cathartic it would be to burn down their high school. Hey, I did.

Take out the teen drama and teen misery and all that soap opera that we can all relate to and you're left with two emotionally crippled, troubled dumbshits who killed a bunch of people they barely knew because their poorly-made bombs didn't make their school library fall into the cafeteria.

Cho shot up a school too, but you don't know everybody at college like you know everybody at high school.

I went to high school in a post columbine society so I wasn't bullied directly, I guess? Or maybe I was just too oblivious.

nopenever wrote:

I went to high school in a post columbine society so I wasn't bullied directly, I guess? Or maybe I was just too oblivious.

Direct and targeted bullying isn't actually as common as some users here love to make it out to be. But this is a Columbine forum so you're going to have a bunch of "special cases" who will tell you high school was being locked in the tower of London in the middle ages. Did I hate high school? Fuck yes. But everyone does.

HanShotFirst wrote:

nopenever wrote:

I went to high school in a post columbine society so I wasn't bullied directly, I guess? Or maybe I was just too oblivious.

Direct and targeted bullying isn't actually as common as some users here love to make it out to be. But this is a Columbine forum so you're going to have a bunch of "special cases" who will tell you high school was being locked in the tower of London in the middle ages. Did I hate high school? Fuck yes. But everyone does.

So agree. Something one often sees is "outcasts" and "bullying" fused together in this case. They of course can go together, but I've seen people quote Eric saying people left him out of fun things as evidence of bullying, have seen them say Tim Roche saying they felt like they were at the bottom of the social ladder to mean they were bullied, and of course in the most self righteous tone possible. They also don't distinguish "being picked on once ever" and "having a bully who regularly picks on you". "Bullying"  seems something specific yet often left undefined.

Also it seems to me by far the biggest reason for the bullying narrative is the library quote "This is for the last four years", but that's in books not the witnesses, and Bree who is our best witness corrects this with "This is for last year."  For last, not last four. They planned the massacre for a year, not four. Makes sense. But then they could be talking about the van incident, or just saying "this is what you deserve", rather than saying "every day in high school for four years was torture", and people don't like that.

But to not stray from the topic, many factors seem to contribute to the uniqueness of the crime, attacking on a school day while attending, two of them, all the media coverage, the nostalgia. I think large factors are the bombs, which is why it's not like other school shootings, and probably is what made the cops stay outside, hence they didn't just run into a school and kill somebody, they took over the school, which gives it a revolutionary or fantastic appeal rather than a strictly psychotic or pathetic one.  

Also their suicides. Aside from suicidality allowing them to run into a building with bombs, there was the shock of that, the friends to the end aspect, and it allowing for so many un-answered questions, both in the sense of "We cant ask them" and "cops can tell us whatever they want."

I wonder why they were left out of events they wanted to go too? If nothing else, they could invite themselves and crash the party .

cakeman wrote:

HanShotFirst wrote:

nopenever wrote:

I went to high school in a post columbine society so I wasn't bullied directly, I guess? Or maybe I was just too oblivious.

Direct and targeted bullying isn't actually as common as some users here love to make it out to be. But this is a Columbine forum so you're going to have a bunch of "special cases" who will tell you high school was being locked in the tower of London in the middle ages. Did I hate high school? Fuck yes. But everyone does.

So agree. Something one often sees is "outcasts" and "bullying" fused together in this case. They of course can go together, but I've seen people quote Eric saying people left him out of fun things as evidence of bullying, have seen them say Tim Roche saying they felt like they were at the bottom of the social ladder to mean they were bullied, and of course in the most self righteous tone possible. They also don't distinguish "being picked on once ever" and "having a bully who regularly picks on you". "Bullying"  seems something specific yet often left undefined.

Also it seems to me by far the biggest reason for the bullying narrative is the library quote "This is for the last four years", but that's in books not the witnesses, and Bree who is our best witness corrects this with "This is for last year."  For last, not last four. They planned the massacre for a year, not four. Makes sense. But then they could be talking about the van incident, or just saying "this is what you deserve", rather than saying "every day in high school for four years was torture", and people don't like that.

But to not stray from the topic, many factors seem to contribute to the uniqueness of the crime, attacking on a school day while attending, two of them, all the media coverage, the nostalgia. I think large factors are the bombs, which is why it's not like other school shootings, and probably is what made the cops stay outside, hence they didn't just run into a school and kill somebody, they took over the school, which gives it a revolutionary or fantastic appeal rather than a strictly psychotic or pathetic one.  

Also their suicides. Aside from suicidality allowing them to run into a building with bombs, there was the shock of that, the friends to the end aspect, and it allowing for so many un-answered questions, both in the sense of "We cant ask them" and "cops can tell us whatever they want."

You're correct. The whole "This is for the last 4 years" is yet another BS myth that continues to surround itself in aura

However Eric did tell Bree this was for last year, and it was all because people were mean to him
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Yes, also Patti being shot and coming into the library is what made Bree "look out the window", then she sees Dylan toss the same pipe bomb Richard saw. Then she sees him go down into the cafeteria and back up the stairs. All that is supposed to happen before Patti is shot according to the usual timeline, and Bree describes all that in the clip and her statement. Thus it seems Patti telling them to "knock it off" is what kicked the whole thing off. Perhaps she saved those in the cafeteria.

The media definitely helped create this kinda "anti--hero" thing about Eric and Dylan(not saying what they did was okay) along with the amount of coverage it got back then did help make it have more followers. Their Journals(mainly Eric's) which showed how they felt about the world and their issues. Add the fact that they were teenagers and seemed relatively normal, which helped create this aura around them. Those reasons basically made Columbine so well known and such an interesting case to study.

cakeman wrote:

HanShotFirst wrote:

nopenever wrote:

I went to high school in a post columbine society so I wasn't bullied directly, I guess? Or maybe I was just too oblivious.

Direct and targeted bullying isn't actually as common as some users here love to make it out to be. But this is a Columbine forum so you're going to have a bunch of "special cases" who will tell you high school was being locked in the tower of London in the middle ages. Did I hate high school? Fuck yes. But everyone does.

So agree. Something one often sees is "outcasts" and "bullying" fused together in this case. They of course can go together, but I've seen people quote Eric saying people left him out of fun things as evidence of bullying, have seen them say Tim Roche saying they felt like they were at the bottom of the social ladder to mean they were bullied, and of course in the most self righteous tone possible. They also don't distinguish "being picked on once ever" and "having a bully who regularly picks on you". "Bullying"  seems something specific yet often left undefined.

Also it seems to me by far the biggest reason for the bullying narrative is the library quote "This is for the last four years", but that's in books not the witnesses, and Bree who is our best witness corrects this with "This is for last year."  For last, not last four. They planned the massacre for a year, not four. Makes sense. But then they could be talking about the van incident, or just saying "this is what you deserve", rather than saying "every day in high school for four years was torture", and people don't like that.

But to not stray from the topic, many factors seem to contribute to the uniqueness of the crime, attacking on a school day while attending, two of them, all the media coverage, the nostalgia. I think large factors are the bombs, which is why it's not like other school shootings, and probably is what made the cops stay outside, hence they didn't just run into a school and kill somebody, they took over the school, which gives it a revolutionary or fantastic appeal rather than a strictly psychotic or pathetic one.  

Also their suicides. Aside from suicidality allowing them to run into a building with bombs, there was the shock of that, the friends to the end aspect, and it allowing for so many un-answered questions, both in the sense of "We cant ask them" and "cops can tell us whatever they want."

Excellent points that one shouldnt take stuff at face value. I believe that Ive read a piece quite recently that mass shooters often feel percecuted even if its only in their own imagination.

Frank Ochberg suggests that Dylan wasnt psychotic, but I believe Peter Langmann suggests that he was.

As for the bullying stuff, Im fence sitting, because some sources do confirm that they were bullied, but there are other sources that deny this. Frank Ochberg being one of them

lol wrote:

cakeman wrote:

HanShotFirst wrote:

nopenever wrote:

I went to high school in a post columbine society so I wasn't bullied directly, I guess? Or maybe I was just too oblivious.

Direct and targeted bullying isn't actually as common as some users here love to make it out to be. But this is a Columbine forum so you're going to have a bunch of "special cases" who will tell you high school was being locked in the tower of London in the middle ages. Did I hate high school? Fuck yes. But everyone does.

So agree. Something one often sees is "outcasts" and "bullying" fused together in this case. They of course can go together, but I've seen people quote Eric saying people left him out of fun things as evidence of bullying, have seen them say Tim Roche saying they felt like they were at the bottom of the social ladder to mean they were bullied, and of course in the most self righteous tone possible. They also don't distinguish "being picked on once ever" and "having a bully who regularly picks on you". "Bullying"  seems something specific yet often left undefined.

Also it seems to me by far the biggest reason for the bullying narrative is the library quote "This is for the last four years", but that's in books not the witnesses, and Bree who is our best witness corrects this with "This is for last year."  For last, not last four. They planned the massacre for a year, not four. Makes sense. But then they could be talking about the van incident, or just saying "this is what you deserve", rather than saying "every day in high school for four years was torture", and people don't like that.

But to not stray from the topic, many factors seem to contribute to the uniqueness of the crime, attacking on a school day while attending, two of them, all the media coverage, the nostalgia. I think large factors are the bombs, which is why it's not like other school shootings, and probably is what made the cops stay outside, hence they didn't just run into a school and kill somebody, they took over the school, which gives it a revolutionary or fantastic appeal rather than a strictly psychotic or pathetic one.  

Also their suicides. Aside from suicidality allowing them to run into a building with bombs, there was the shock of that, the friends to the end aspect, and it allowing for so many un-answered questions, both in the sense of "We cant ask them" and "cops can tell us whatever they want."

You're correct. The whole "This is for the last 4 years" is yet another BS myth that continues to surround itself in aura

However Eric did tell Bree this was for last year, and it was all because people were mean to him
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They made up a lot of arguments as they went along. Keep in mind that mass shooters can lash out over both real or percieved strifes.


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