Elliot Rodgers' 'manifesto': WARNING: potentially disturbing content/trigger

[Crixus]

This kid killed 6 people before apparently shooting himself. Here's a complete transcript of his 'manifesto":

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/05/25/us/shooting-document.html?_r=0

Really sad and disturbing stuff, truly. What really got to me, though, was his love for ASOIAF. He's mentioned the series several times in there and even quoted lines. Not saying there's any correlation, of course. Just that a simple reference made the guy more real to me.

Beyond that, his obsession with 'cool kids' and sex is just depressing in so many ways. It's clearly well outside the normal boundaries but it does make me think about the importance placed on looks and image and success in society, and how it can fuck people/kids up.

Mods, apologies if this has been posted already.

ETA: the account gets progressively uglier and racist.

[sologdin]

goodness. tedious and self-absorbed. "all because the females." you actually make it through the whole, crix?

[Crixus]

I actually managed to slog through, yes! :blushing:

What struck me most of all was the petty entitlement, the conviction that he 'deserved' beautiful women-as-sex-toys/the relentless, creepy objectification of women (always blonde), his rage that they didn't care about a 'superior gentleman' like himself, and the desperate attempts to become a multi-millionaire through... you guessed it... playing the lottery.

Also, his vile racism at the end: referring to POC as 'pigs' and 'slave descendants' and anguishing over how such 'inferior' lads could actually get the attention of women despite the fact that he himself was apparently descended from 'aristocracy.'

I have to say, the sheer confluence of insecurities reads almost like a parody at times.

[Dendrophobic Ent]

This almost reads as a parody of the sort of people who hold these beliefs. Just awful and horrible.

Am I being dumb here or does he not mention approaching a woman once? He goes out wearing nice clothes just expecting supermodels to flock to him. Really weird. He also claims that people drop him as a friend for no reason despite proudly recounting times where he would in public describe his wish to flay people alive for having sex. Just seems like he had no idea of how human interactions work.

[The Marquis de Leech]

I've skimmed bits and pieces. I'd need a stiff drink to get through it all.

I think there is a truly disturbing level of self-absorption going on: Rodger felt he was entitled to everything. This in turn tied in with his own extremely unhealthy view of social success (the extent to which we can blame social constructs here is an interesting side-issue), and when he didn't attain that success, he latched onto the language of misogyny and racism. It really boils down to "I'm special, but no-one recognises me as special so I need to validate myself in a particular way, but women won't let me use them to validate myself so I blame the world, and am taking those women down in a blaze of pathetic glory."

[polishgenius]

He went on a shooting spree. I'm not sure why anyone is surprised that his manifesto does not seem like the work of a well-adjusted individual.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Spree-killers generally don't put out a 140 page autobiography-disguised-as-a-manifesto before they go on a rampage. It's just such a strange experience to get inside the mind of this sort of person.

I'll also say this for Elliot Rodger: he's a better writer than Adolf Hitler.

[The Marquis de Leech]

This bit:

"I tried my best to put myself out there on the Halloween weekend. I made many laps around Isla Vista, trying to bolster up the courage to talk to a girl or walk into a party, but I just couldn’t. I knew they would all reject me."

Seems that he didn't actually try to communicate with girls, and that the rejections were purely imaginary.

[Zoë Sumra]

Headdesk repeatedly when you realise that this is the kind of guy women are told to humour because they're not dangerous, or, when encountering their beliefs online, are told that they are just trolls and not actually a threat.

[Ormond]

Headdesk repeatedly when you realise that this is the kind of guy women are told to humour because they're not dangerous, or, when encountering their beliefs online, are told that they are just trolls and not actually a threat.

Yes, but the problem with this is that MOST of them aren't a threat. The cases where this sort of ideation turns into real violence are actually quite rare. Predicting which few of these men will finally cross the line into violence is almost impossible.

[MerenthaClone]

Headdesk repeatedly when you realise that this is the kind of guy women are told to humour because they're not dangerous, or, when encountering their beliefs online, are told that they are just trolls and not actually a threat.

Similarly, that the online response to his videos has largely been "hey, dumb blondes, maybe if you'd slept with him this wouldn't have happened." That's one of the most disturbing parts in this whole deal to me. Yes, I know it is the internet, but this guy's socialization was largely on the internet. It reminds me of the Ecole Polytechnique shooting and the plaque set up commemorating women killed by men. The organizers of said plaque got death threats because "not all men are like that." Seriously? Way to fucking confirm it, dipshits.

[Ormond]

Similarly, that the online response to his videos has largely been "hey, dumb blondes, maybe if you'd slept with him this wouldn't have happened." That's one of the most disturbing parts in this whole deal to me. Yes, I know it is the internet, but this guy's socialization was largely on the internet. It reminds me of the Ecole Polytechnique shooting and the plaque set up commemorating women killed by men. The organizers of said plaque got death threats because "not all men are like that." Seriously? Way to fucking confirm it, dipshits.

On the one hand even one person having the "dumb blondes" response is too many.

But on the other hand I find it really difficult to believe that this is has been the most common online response (which is is what the word "largely" implies to me.)

[brook]

Yes, but the problem with this is that MOST of them aren't a threat. The cases where this sort of ideation turns into real violence are actually quite rare. Predicting which few of these men will finally cross the line into violence is almost impossible.

Real violence? Or this level of violence?

Because I have doubts that the first is actually that rare.

[karaddin]

And it hasn't been the most common response from men, that would be the various iterations of not all men. More of that than the responses from men who get it though, and in comments on some news articles I've seen more sympathy for him than the victims.

[Suttree]

UCSB was my Alma mater so this one hits really close to home. Absolutely sickening that there is apparently a this whole "incel" community where this guy is being looked at as some hero. A

[The Marquis de Leech]

UCSB was my Alma mater so this one hits really close to home. Absolutely sickening that there is apparently a this whole "incel" community where this guy is being looked at as some hero. A

Ah. Incel is literally involuntary celibate - people (male or female) who want to have sex, but can't. You get an entire spectrum, from perfectly decent people who are horrified about this, all the way down to the crazy misogynists, who think there is some sort of international feminist conspiracy. Don't confuse the former with the latter.

[Suttree]

Sorry if that came across wrong. I just meant that some in that community are viewing him as such.

[sologdin]

a whole new world of billable clients opens before the enterprising advocate. I will zealously represent 40-year-old-virgins in their grievances against the international feminist cartel and in their claims for governmental benefits, at a reasonable hourly rate.

[Solmyr]

Skimmed thru it, mostly the ending. Recall reading he was a virgin. So all this could've been prevented if this dude had had sex? He was spending his money on new laptops and driving a BMW but couldn't pay a hooker?

Humour aside, the main problem I have with this guy's story is his lack of logical consistency. If he had stopped and thought some of his reasoning through, he'd've realized he's contradicting himself on more than one occasion. Unfortunately he seems to have been living with a very narrow worldview and the influences he was exposed to did naught to broaden it.

Someone who has read more / the entire story, be so kind as to link to (or quote) the more important bits or milestones in the story.

ETA:

Read the epilogue ... and I thought this can't get any 'better' ... women in concentration camps, starved to death ... few women kept alive in secret labs to allow mankind to continue ... I know, I know, I shouldn't be posting spoilers without the proper tag, but if this was a book, that should be on the back cover!

[Solmyr]

a whole new world of billable clients opens before the enterprising advocate. I will zealously represent 40-year-old-virgins in their grievances against the international feminist cartel and in their claims for governmental benefits, at a reasonable hourly rate.

For that to work you need to first outlaw masturbation (some religious pretext could work) and then argue that sexual fulfillment is a basic human need your clients have been deprived off. From there it is not that difficult to prove that women hold a monopoly on heterosexual intercourse and therefore any male deprived of it is a victim of discrimination.