Unpacking Columbiners The Romanticization of The Columbine Massacre

Unpacking “Columbiners”: The Romanticization of The Columbine Massacre In 1999, two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado struck fear into the nation. With the pull of the trigger, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold stained the hearts and minds of many for years to come. Though this tragedy remains a horrific memory for most, there are pockets of the internet that have turned the massacre into something completely different. The romanticization of criminals, crime, and the “bad boy” image has been prominent in American culture for decades. Charles Manson’s many followers, Ted Bundy’s wives, and of course, the “Columbiners” of the World Wide Web. America has a morbid fascination with the mind of a killer, and whilst studying the psychology behind a criminal is normal, dreaming of them as your lover, confidant, or friend is damaging. Eric and Dylan were what the media would classify as outcasts. The two were fond of alternative music, gore, and the darker side of life. From the outside looking in, one could make an assumption that they were just two loners against the world; but digging deeper is where the truth lies. Eric Harris was a Naziophile, and set the date of the massacre to fall on Adolf Hitler’s birthday (April 20). According to Ralph Larkin’s Comprehending Columbine,“Eric was experiencing psychological problems. After his arrest for breaking into a van in the fall prior to the attack on Columbine, the court recommended that he receive psychological services.” (Larkin) Eric dealt with the stress of not being able to compete against the “popular” crowd due to his personality and physical stature. This, along with moving house once every two to three years, caused Eric to spiral out of control. He created his own website where he spewed hate speech such as, “For the rest of you, you all better (expletive) hide in your house because I'm comin’ for EVERYONE soon, and I WILL be armed to the (expletive) teeth and I WILL shoot and kill and I WILL (expletive) KILL EVERYTHING! No I am not crazy, crazy is just a word, to me it has no meaning, everyone is different, but most of you (expletive) out there in society, going to your everyday (expletive) jobs and doing your everyday routine (expletive) things, I say (expletive) you and die.” (Eric Harris’s website, Larkin) Although Eric and Dylan are both guilty as charged for their crimes, Eric was the mastermind behind the violence. Dylan grappled with mental health issues and violent thoughts himself, but was more of an accomplice to the twisted mind of his best friend. The two were inseparable, and if one was going to wreak havoc on innocent people, the other would surely follow. According to Ryan Broll, a sociologist and criminologist in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at the University of Guelph, “There is increasing concern that the media’s reporting on serial killers – and their “celebrification” of murder – increase the likelihood of future attacks. As a result, experts have called upon the media to stop publicizing the names of mass killers while still reporting other details of the offense (Lankford and Madfis 2018).” (Broll, 2018). The majority of these online fans are teenage girls. For instance, one particular case dealt with 18-year-old Sol Pais, who flew to Denver on the anniversary of the shooting to recreate the massacre. In an article by the New York Times, “the police found Ms. Pais dead of an apparent self-inflicted shotgun wound near the base of Mount Evans in Jefferson County, Colo., more than 2,000 miles away from home. Officials in Colorado had been searching for her for 24 hours, saying they believed her to be ‘infatuated’ with the mass shooting at Columbine High School in April 1999, and that she had flown to Denver on a ‘pilgrimage.’ Hundreds of Colorado schools were closed on Wednesday as a precaution.” (Patricia Mazzei, 2019) The romanticization of these school shootings and criminal activity itself among the young people of America makes the recreation of these horrors more possible than ever. Young people will often cling to an idea or a group that aligns with their intense personal feelings. Pais, like Harris and Klebold, blended into the background of her school. To her teachers, she didn’t seem incredibly troubled, but her journals and artwork predicted something much more sinister, much like the shooters. In Broll’s case study, he states that “The Columbiner dark fandom on Reddit distinguished between Klebold, a sympathetic, misguided, antihero in the Columbine narrative and Harris, the evil, psychopathic mastermind.” (Broll, 2018) Teenagers on this corner of the internet paint these two to be lost souls after reading their hate-fueled journals, sympathizing with the killers as if they were friends or personal crushes. Broll writes that “These communities allow those with a shared interest in those who have committed heinous acts, like mass or serial murderers, to collectively share their interests, and the growth of the internet has surely contributed to their formation.” (Broll, 2018) With the rise of the web, young and misunderstood individuals will band together over a certain idea to gain a sense of community, whether it’s healthy or not. In conclusion, the internet is a place where the misinformed and misunderstood may roam free. These subcultures and communities are a danger to the easily molded and influenceable minds of young people, who have been known to lurk in places where they can feel like they’re wanted and fall under the influence that they could have prevented a tragedy. The aftershock of the 1999 massacre is still felt today, as the United States has a reputation for being the breeding grounds for violent acts taking place in schools. In response, there should be more of a watchful eye placed on young people and their activities online. In more recent years, school shooters have broadcasted their feelings on social media, where no one looks to report the suspicious activity, resulting in hellish acts being committed on innocent people. essentials.ebsco.com/search/eds/details/dark-fandoms-an-introduction-and-case -study?query=columbiners&requestCount=2&db=asx&an=143394850. Accessed 6 May 2022. “Search Result Details | EBSCO Essentials.” Essentials.ebsco.com, essentials.ebsco.com/search/eds/details/global-online-subculture-surrounding-school-s hooting?query=columbiners&requestCount=2&db=eax&an=128683069. Accessed 6 May 2022. Reflection: Specifically, students will reflect on: their choices as they relate to the genre and intended audience and the general form of the text, their takeaways from the assignment, and/ or how they might imagine themselves using the applied skills in their future writing: My intended audience for this assignment are those who are members of the Columbiner community and the adults in their lives. I believe that the Columbine shooting itself could have been prevented if the parents of the gunmen dug a little deeper into their sons’ lives literally and physically. Eric and Dylan had an actual arsenal of military grade rifles in their closets, a website filled with harmful speech, home videos of them acting out the massacre, and many more easily accessible items that would have prompted the Harris and Klebold families to seek help for their children. I took away a lot from this assignment; I hadn’t done much research on databases beforehand, but quickly learned that they’re powerful tools for accessing academic information and accurate research. While I had my own opinions, I tried to stick to the database information and not include much of my own input until the conclusion. Although my profession doesn’t call for it, I’d like to one day write a similar piece for a publication of some kind. I enjoy writing a lot, it makes me feel like my voice is one that’s worth hearing. I think that doing my own research and being a junior journalist myself is really invigorating, because not only am I learning more about my desired topic, I’m applying it somewhere where someone else can learn about it in a much more condensed form instead of just doing their research on their own. I found a lot of valuable information that probably wouldn’t have been accessible through just a Google search, like the Ryan Broll case study. I’d recommend that study to anyone interested in dark tourism, myself included. I like to learn about more macabre and morbid topics, but I keep myself at an arm's length because I’ve seen the effects on other people. My sophomore year of high school, I almost fell into the rabbit hole. I was obsessed with learning about Jeffrey Dahmer, and often quoted him as my “favorite serial killer.” My parents and teachers fed into my obsession, buying me books and toys associated with Dahmer himself. I eventually grew out of it, but it wasn’t until visiting the Museum of Death here in New Orleans that it really struck me. Dahmer wasn’t just a figment of my imagination or some boogeyman that had his face plastered all over the internet. I recall staring at his handwritten letters under the plexiglass in the museum and thinking to myself how damaging it could have been if I had really fallen deep into that “obsession” I had with him three years ago. I think it’s important for young people to realize that these murderers they idolize and romanticize were actual human beings who committed heinous acts and that they need to separate themselves from their own delusions.