Romanticism of Mass Murderers in the Age of Social Media
The age of social media has led to the inception of the age of complex connections. With access to information easily available for all, the trends we once saw in the past have drastically shifted. Today we can see younger and younger generations connecting online and more importantly connecting with others that share the same interests. Let’s boil down the mass of connections and mutual interests to romanticism of mass murders.
From cults to wives: American society has provided us with perplexing human behavior. Many mass murders including Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, and Richard Ramirez got married while in prison. In light of the recent “fan mail” and romantic letters sent to the Parkland mass murder, we want to find out: Why are mass murderers romanticized?
Klebold and Harris, also widely known as the “Columbine
Shooters”, made headlines 19 years ago after they committed one of the worst school shootings in American history. Both boys went into their school, Columbine High around lunchtime and murdered a total of 13 people —one teacher and 12 students. 24 people were also injured but fortunately survived the attack. Originally, the boys planted bombs in the cafeteria but the bombs failed to explode.
1999 is placed decades after the inception of the Digital Revolution; moreover, it was a time of exploration for America’s youth. Young people began using cameras and began videotaping their common lives. What Klebold and Harris didn’t realize was that their short home made video series documenting their lives would later become a one puzzle piece to understanding their lives and inner thoughts. The homemade videos gave media outlets a
look into their lives, and their journal entries gave everyone a look into their minds.
An eight part series uploaded on Youtube has given and stills allows for impressionable teens and young adults to interpret and understand the pair in a perspective that wasn’t possible before the 90’s. Many of the comments under the videos pose questions for those beyond the true crime community, one commentator writing: “ERIC IS SO HOT OMG,” which got two replies in agreement: “YES” and “oh God yes he is!!!” Other comments included: “Dude, Dylan’s voice is hot,” “Eric Harris supposedly died a virgin, how was that possible,” and “I love Columbine shootings… I love Eric n Dylan… my baby.” Of course there is the offset of comments criticizing the videos, the two boys, and the other comments, but there is still a surprising amounts of people that admire Klebold and Harris.
Although many of us can’t relate to or even begin to say anything remotely nice about Klebold and Harris, many of us did sing along to the 2010 top ranking song Pumped up Kicks by Foster the People. The song to date has 411 million views on Youtube, 442 million streams on Spotify, and was in the top 10 ranking songs of 2011. The song’s lyrics are hard to ignore when listened to, so why did we listen?
Pumped up Kicks is one instance of many in which people inherently sympathized with those that have done something horrible. There is a clear line connecting the song and the Columbine tragedy because the song caused many to think about Klebold and Harris, one listener writing: “Every time I hear this song it make me think about Columbine.”
The exorbitant amount of information available on Klebold and Harris made it easy for many to sympathize with them, couple that with the two being teens, gives good reason for one to get interested in their story.
Considering all the information available about Klebold’s and Harris’s lives, we turn to the networking platform Wattpad, a online app that allows for anyone to publish and read books. We found almost 600 fanfictions written about Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris and we contacted those authors to provide their perspectives on the pair.
Out of the 30 plus authors that responded to us, we found that may of the authors enjoy writing about Columbine because of the community, author Sml_Fan23 explains their reason for writing fanfiction about Columbine: “I only did it last summer because in my mind it keep reminding of my past of me being bullied by a lot of people and I was bored and I never thought after my story was published it caught attention to people at Wattpad.” Another author, Attack-On-Kathryn, explains what they find intriguing about Dylan and Eric: “What interests me is the hidden indications of their descent and how no-one knew what was to come. I find it almost comforting to see indications I can put into IRL situations so I’m always on the lookout for suspicious individuals to keep myself and others safe.”
The true crime community (T.C.C.) is a community interesting in the criminology surrounding mass murders of serial killers. When looked up, T.C.C. is most related to Klebold and Harris, most likely because there is a lot more information available about them in comparison to other famous mass murderers.
It isn’t surprising that many of the Wattpad users related to Klebold and Harris, most humans related to people with “broken” lives. In the widely popular film Heathers, Jason Dean played by Christian Slater is beloved be many. Jason Dean plays that part of a violent young teen that ends up plotting to kill his classmates. Under the comment section of an edit compilation of Jason Dean clips we can see the same type of commentary that is used for Klebold and Harris. One viewer asking “why do I always fall in love with the hot psychotic people,” another writing “I shouldn’t like this romanticism, but damn.”
Similar to the fictional character Jason Dean, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are so loved because they are “relatable” teenagers who dealt with social isolation in high school. High schoolers are often involved in drama and social pressures, which causes anxiety and even depression in some cases. To some teenagers struggling with isolation, the Columbine killers are tragic heroes. Despite the fact that they committed a crime, the two have supporters who are sympathetic since the boys were bullied. Httphg, a Wattpad user, gives their take on why so many romantic stories are written about Dylan and Eric: “I don’t think it’s so much ‘fanfiction’ as it is that they’re relatable and girls (and boys) found someone to relate to that they haven’t found in anyone else”.
Relatability is the recurring theme among all the interviews conducted. Many people write about mass murderers because they can relate to some of the emotions that the perpetrators had. But what exactly drives people to write love letters to people such as Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland school shooting perpetrator?
John Money a psychologist coined the term Hybristophilia which is used to describe those that romanticize people that have committed an atrocious crime. Hybristophilia is also appropriately known as the Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome. Charles Manson’s cult followers are examples of hybristophilia, many of which killed under his command.
Although it can’t be confirmed that the authors, video editors, fan-art makers, and love letter writers have hybristophilia, it is clear that some of them feel a personal connection with Klebold and Harris. Lilkittyxxx explains: “I would describe Eric and Dylan as teenagers at a loss. They tried and tried so hard to love, to be happy, but no matter what they did, they lost. I would describe them as hopeless in humanity.” In contrast, Attack-on-Kathryn explains: “I would describe Eric and Dylan as heartless and cold teens who needed severe mental help. From what I’ve seen and read I think Eric was beyond what’s socially accepted and morally right. Both were severely severely having bad lives but that does not justify in the slightest the event that happen.”
The true crime community around the story of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris is one of diverse point of views. One author writes before beginning her book: “This book doesn’t mean I agree with school shooting in any way. Maybe I do but that’s not the point. I’m not going to go to a school and shoot it up as tempting as it is. I just simply want to write about Dylan and Eric, so I will.” Then later prefaces the next chapter adding: “Yet again, I don’t agree with school shooting (liar liar ceiling fire) but those f*ckers had it coming for the way some of them treated the boys.” Attack-on-Kathryn gives us another perspective on the true crime community: “I wanted to write the story to show the effects it had on students and to get out to more people the interest in true crime event so they can experience the intrigue and curiosity that I feel when learning about what happened and why. I structured it in a way that people would not get the wrong idea and think of copying the two teens in any way. So in summary I liked writing about Eric and Dylan because of the close age to how old I am currently and how different I am to them made me want to explore and put into words how the mental state was so beyond our thoughts, beliefs, values, and everyt hing else.” Further adding, “The seriousness of the situation to the students also I felt needed to be reminded of to those who are newly aware to the Columbine shooting. If I can even bring the readers to feel even a small fraction of fear that they felt whilst being completely safe. It will help change views on gun control and hopefully one day America will be a country where children aren’t scared to go to school.”
Klebold and Harris represent many things to many different people, depression, teen life, guns, anger, and love. The two are essentially placeholders for other crime committers whether they are fictional or not. Jason Dean, Bonnie and Clyde, the Joker, Norman Bates, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, or Jeffrey Dahmer were all choices for the love letters, books, and fan art. What made and will still make Klebold and Harris just good candidates for fan fiction seems to be a result of the privileges we have because of the internet.
