Turn It Off
From psychologist Michael Welner, regarding the tape of the VA Tech killer:
“I think that’s very important for the viewing audience to understand. This is not him.These videos do not help us understand him. They distort him. He was meek. He was quiet. This is a PR tape of him trying to turn himself into a Quentin Tarantino character,” Welner said. “This is precisely why this should not be released. Parents, you should cut the pictures out of the newspaper. Do not let your children see it. Take them out of the room when these videos are shown. Because he’s paranoid and his agenda of blaming the rest of the world is unedited.”
“There’s nothing to learn from this except giving it validation. If this rambling showed up in an emergency room, my colleagues and I would listen carefully and, when we reflected that it was delusional, would go see the next patient and start the medication,” he said. “This makes it sound like he was tormented. He wasn’t.”
I totally agree. Dude should not be celebrated. All anyone is doing is making a pathetic nut job seem deeper than he really was. So that other disturbed nut jobs out there can feel as though they, too, would be vindicated by going on their murderous rampages. It is the ultimate case of Life: The Movie. Fame was more tangible to this guy than death. I don’t know what he thought he would be getting out of his sick media stunt, but he did not get it, because he is dead.
April 20th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
I think Nikki Giovanni did a great service to poets and sensible people alike when she said,
“I know that there’s a tendency to think that everybody can get
counseling or can have a bowl of tomato soup and everything is going
to be all right,” she said. “But I think that evil exists, and I think
that he was a mean person.”
I watched the videos though, just like everybody else. That’s the real reason they broadcast them. Everything they say about it’s journalistic value is grim rationalization. It’s violence porn.
April 20th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Oh dude, don’t get me wrong. I’m fascinated. His entire goal in life was to become a viral video. This is the 9/11 of our relationship to the media. Or maybe 9/11 was the 9/11 of our relationship to the media. I don’t know anymore.