50 people died in Orlando on Sunday. Now everyone in the world knows the perptrator’s name. Isn’t this just giving murderers what they want?
I have often heard that this is part of why terrorists and shooters do what they do, is because they want the fame.
I’ve heard that said, too, but since the killers so often end up dead themselves, it’s hard to see how they could expect to enjoy their fame. Not that they are necessarily thinking clearly in the first place, of course.
I agree to the extent that the media dwelling on the lives of these murderers is just cashing in on the misfortunes of others. Providing the public with information doesn’t have to extend into the excruciating and usually pointless detail while investigations continue. I’m not suggesting anything like censorship, only that the media not treat true tragedies in the same way as celebrity gossip.
Maybe it is just me but since there have been so many massacres lately I haven’t been able to keep track of the shooters’ names. Just their shooting locations: Orlando, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Charelston (I even had to look up the location of that one, since I just think of it as ‘The racist fucktard that shot up a black church’). If this is fame it is getting watered down.
The PBS Newshour on Tuesday spent the air time broadcasting pictures and names of all the innocent victims … I stopped what I was doing to watch …
I support the OP 100% … we should hear these victims’ names 50 times and the shooter’s name once, rather than the other way around.
Yes - it does get tricky in the social media age, though. There is a desire by much of the public to learn what are the “warning signs”, the “tells”, what is the “see something” at which they should “say something” – and, let’s be frank, a desire to be able to blame someone else for not connecting the dots before and catching him. (Because they badly want to believe it could have been prevented.) So there’s a market demand for information about the killer’s social-network presence, job history, relatives’ positions and expressions, shopping habits, etc. and there’s always someone willing to supply.
I would prefer the media make up names for these mass murderers: “The shooter has been identified as Dickhead McFuckface. Authorities are now combing the assailant’s social media accounts to determine if there is additional evidence that can be ridiculed, as the public will surely want to drag this idiot’s pseudonym through the muck.”
I remember after Virginia Tech, some shock jocks acted out some really douchey play that had surfaced that the shooter had written in high school. It was remarkably effective at making the shooter seem less like the badass he so clearly wanted to be and more like a dork. I think if there was a promise that the president would read aloud every awful poem in your journal that you wrote to a girl you liked in eighth grade, that would go a significant way toward curbing this sort of violence.
You know who tried to ban using an evil doers name in 356 BC? Neither do I, cause the Wikipedia article on ancient arsonist Herostratus only refers to them as the Ephesian authorities. I know Herostratus’ name though. It wasn’t possible to stop people using a name then, it’s definitely not possible now.
Market forces, alas. People (by and large) want to know these things. It is just like celebrity gossip.
(During the O.J. Simpson trial, one network broke away from doing gavel-to-gavel coverage. Their ratings plummeted. People actually watch this stuff.)
That’s not how people nor the media operate. Tragedy sells.
Agreed. There has to be some modern version of damnatio memoriae.
It made me sick to my stomach when the news played excerpts from the VT shooter’s videos. Why would you give them what they want? The worst thing you could do to these people is to stick their manifestos and video screeds right in the trash.
My hat and mug haven’t even arrived yet and you’ve gone and ruined them for me.
A thousand years from now Adolf Hitler will still be remembered by the average person; can the same be said about even one of his victims? Even Anne Frank doesn’t get nearly the pop culture presence he does.
What a good idea. Let’s start censoring the news. Not only does such a plan uphold our values of a free press and a free society, it will undoubtedly be easy to enforce and therefore effective, and thus prevent future tragedies.
The problem (not that I disagree) with this is the victims outnumber the killer by X, depending on the number of victims.
John Wayne Gacy killed at least 33. Dean Corll killed at least 28. Gary Ridgeway (Green River) killed at least 48 (and most were prostitutes whom society normally considers throwaways anyway).
Dennis Rader (BTK) killed at least 10.
That’s 119 victims right there, compared to four killers (not to mention other killers like Dahmer, Bundy, Peter Kurten, Peter Sutcliffe, Harold Shipman, etc., etc., etc.). It’d be impossible to remember that many victims.
On the other hand, we do remember a lot of victims, from Sharon Tate, et al, to Mary Kelly.
Plus, we idolize and mythologize violence. I just finished a book of short stories by Louis L’Amour, and good god, how easily the “good guys” shot and killed people. Sure, those were fiction, but it reflects our views in society.
It may not be said so often now, but how many people have said, in reality or kids playing cops and robbers, “He needed killin’”?
There have been some half hearted (arguably self serving) attempts to do this by various media outlets, downplay coverage of the killers or try not to keep using their names. But the basic problem is that it actually matters who these people are, their backgrounds and experiences, other people’s (and especially the authorities’) experiences with them. It would only not matter if all these cases were really the same and all suggested the same remedies. Which some people claim (either in terms of mental illness or more often, guns), but that’s highly debatable.
I have no doubt that seeking fame is a common factor of more or less importance across most of these incidents (people who think you need to live to enjoy fame in order to seek it wouldn’t do stuff like this, but unfortunately I don’t think that’s universal). But a lot of the other factors vary, are important to know, and can’t be broadly known without talking about the killers one by one.