The Virgina Tech shooter did something horrible. That’s his fault. But he existed in an environment in which he knew with a certainty that he would become famous for it. That’s the news media’s fault. That’s our fault. All of us.
The news media’s predictable vulture-like picking at the corpses of the victims is sickening. The most revolting thing about this, however, is the fact that the media are giving the killer everything he ever wanted. And, of course, this is because they’re giving us what we want. So, in the end, we are the problem.
The killer wanted to kill people. He got that. And the evidence (I’ve heard of a long suicide note and a video “manifesto”) suggests that he wanted to be famous — to spread his ideas and viewpoint through his killings. Thanks to ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox, Reuters, Yahoo, Google, and anybody else who produces or redistributes news stories, he’s getting that wish. More importantly, future disturbed individuals who consider killing people in similar ways, with fame and recognition as part of their motivation, will know for certain that the news services will do everything they can to make their dreams of notoreity come true.
And so will you, most likely.
The truth is that we pay for this violence. I don’t mean “pay” as in “suffer the consequences.” I mean “foot the bill.” “Write the checks.” We pay for violence.
Do you really care about what happened at VT? Do you really feel for the victims? Do you really abhor this kind of senseless violence? Then stop paying for it. Every time you watch a news program, or read an online article, or read a newspaper piece, or listen to a radio story about the killer’s childhood, his social problems, his sense of injustice, his anger at the victims; every time you hear his name, see his photo, or (this is the absolute worst) see content from his suicide note or “manifesto…” Every time you do these things, you are paying the news agencies to make him famous. Is that not clear? Even if they don’t directly get any of your advertising-fueled consumer dollars when you drink down their news piece, they always get your audience attention. That’s like gold to them. It’s their currency. We might as well all rush to Wal-Mart and buy VT-Killer action figures, with matching little plastic weapons.
So, if you really care about helping to prevent things like this in the future, watch the news only when they talk about victims. Honor and respect and mourn the people who senselessly died, killed by someone with serious problems. If you’re worried about predicting future violence, then go ahead and learn the relevant characteristics of people like this killer (although you’ll find that there is very little that predicts who will do things like this). If you’re concerned about the plight of the mentally ill in America, learn about mental illness, and how you can help others with similar problems. But do not watch or read or listen to anything unnecessary about the killer’s personality, his methods, his history or his ideas. Absolutely avoid all mention of anything he wanted the world to know through his killing. And shut up about it at the water cooler. Don’t talk about or listen to these things to anyone. Gossip (as a friend has pointed out) is almost as effective at creating fame as the internet is.
We want to know about these things. We are worried, scared, and insecure. We are curious. But we need to resist the temptation to consume every bit of the information we crave, for two reasons.
- First, killers like this person should not be given the fame that they wanted to achieve (at least in part) through killing. Killers do not deserve fame. Killers deserve oblivion.
- Second, we live in an age where our attention is a commodity with significant power. And so we have responsibility, whether we like it or not. We cannot both consume all information about killers like this, and also honestly believe that we are not part of the reason he did what he did.
I would love to say that the news media should refuse to publish the problematic information. But I have no faith in them, whatsoever. They are corporations, not humans. Viewership and money are their food, and they want to eat. They will publish whatever sells, no matter how horrid it is. So, it’s up to us. Horrible things will always happen, but we can influence how often they occur. If we want to truly help prevent horrors like this from happening in the future, we need to turn off the TV or the radio, throw away the newspaper, or navigate away from the web page when they publish the very information that will lead future killers to believe that the path to fame is paved with the bodies of the innocent (as it so clearly has been with the VT killer).
The next time something like this happens, thank the news media for their coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings. Then thank your neighbors for tuning in to that coverage so faithfully. Finally, you might even have to thank yourself.
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