Tuesday, October 3, 2017

The more things change, the more they stay the same?

"But some [4chan] posters are also acting out those fantasies. Among the stale memes, repeat posts, true-life confessions, pre-rampage tip-offs, and cock-and-bull stories that make beta forums so impenetrable, sometimes even insiders can’t tell which are which. In November 2014, an anonymous 4chan user submitted several photos of what appeared to be a woman’s naked and strangled corpse, along with a confession: “Turns out it’s way harder to strangle someone to death than it looks on the movies . . . Her son will be home from school soon. He’ll find her then call the cops. I just wanted to share the pics before they find me. I bought a bb gun that looks realistic enough. When they come, I’ll pull it and it will be suicide by cop. I understand the doubts. Just check the fucking news. I have to lose my phone now.”
Later that same day, police in Port Orchard, Washington, announced that they were investigating a suspected homicide, after the thirteen-year-old son of a woman in her early thirties found her dead in their home. The victim, Amber Lynn Coplin, was indeed the woman in the 4chan/b/ photo. Her thirty-three-year-old live-in boyfriend, David Michael Kalac, was arrested after a brief police chase and charged with murder. Every dead body on 4chan is a joke, unless it isn’t.
Elliot Rodger’s rampage, too, was real. On a spring day in 2014, Rodger stabbed his roommates, drove to a University of California–Santa Barbara sorority house, and hammered on the door. When he was denied entry, Rodger shot at people outside, in the end killing mostly men. The rampage ended when he crashed into a parked vehicle; police found him dead in his car with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his head.
Midway through his massacre, Rodger uploaded a final video to YouTube, titled “Elliot Rodger’s Retribution,” outlining his purpose. He announced his desire to punish women for rejecting him and railed against sexually active, macho, dominant men, whom he called “brutes” and “animals”:
Well, this is my last video, it all has to come to this. Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the day in which I will have my revenge against humanity, against all of you . . . I’ve been through college for two and a half years, more than that actually, and I’m still a virgin. It has been very torturous . . . I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it . . . I’m the perfect guy and yet you throw yourselves at these obnoxious men instead of me, the supreme gentleman."
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/new-man-4chan-nagle

11 comments:

edutcher said...

Hate to break it to you, pal, but a gentleman does not go around murdering people.

Maybe that's why girls didn't like you.

deborah said...

Our ever-trenchant Ed.

ndspinelli said...

I remember this shitbird. He was the son of a movie industry exec.

MamaM said...

Not only "ever trenchant" but "ours"? Is flip labeling and group talk how Version 2.oh! of the Cute Nick Game plays out?

In that vein the word "louche" came up at Althouse today, in comments on a post comparing Hefner to Pajama Boy. It was new to me, and I appreciated the fit as well as the origin, Louche ultimately comes from the Latin word luscus, meaning "blind in one eye or "having poor sight." This Latin term gave rise to the French louche, meaning "squinting" or "cross-eyed." The French gave their term a figurative sense as well, taking that squinty look to mean "shady" or "devious." English speakers didn't see the need for the sight-impaired uses when they borrowed the term in the 19th century, but they kept the figurative one. The word is still quite visible today and is used to describe both people and places of questionable repute. Louche: disreputable or sordid in a rakish or appealing way.

Humans have been "sight impaired" and prone to using a single eye/I for most of recorded history. Yet out of that, there is a creative mystery that transpires and is often inspired when a 2nd or 3rd eye/I is added to the mix, and that outcome is also something to behold, with life and goodness in place of death made real time and again.

While I don't understand the intent of this post and what it's here to invite beyond zingers, what lurks behind the story, in addition to what ND shared, is a history/diagnosis of cognitive disorder coupled with severe alcoholism, depression, anxiety, head injuries along with past use of meth and opioids. Not an excuse but a lived reality present alongside and contributing to the skewed fantasy thinking.

Edutcher is right, he was not a supreme gentleman.

ndspinelli said...

Meeeeow.

MamaM said...

Did you miss the earlier Meow ND?

It was epic, complete with moving lips.

chickelit said...

Absinthe makes la louche grow fonder.

chickelit said...

You have to read into the link a couple of paragraphs wherein you find another (unrelated?) meaning for louche.

The Dude said...

Wormwood? No thanks. No pokeweed, no Atropa belladonna, no no no no.

deborah said...

Memory lane...thanks for that excellent link :)

Methadras said...

ndspinelli said...
I remember this shitbird. He was the son of a movie industry exec.


That's right and the left tried to pin this shooting on the right and they had to be reminded that daddy was an entrenched leftist and guess what? Silence. Oopsy.