Elliot Rodger's was freaking nuts.

So this is the son of the assistant director of the movie The Hunger Games, and yesterday he went on a killing spree. All because he couldn't get a girlfriend and he decided to take he's rage out on the world. He's dead now and ruined alot of people's lives. Right now people on youtube is blaming feminism on he's rampage. Obviously this dude had some serious mental issues.

I don't get how a guy that was spoiled his whole fucking life. Feels like he deserves more even when he has everything. If he was so desperate to get laid, I'm sure it wouldn't have been hard to get a prostitute. Hell, there's plenty of people that are still virgins, but never felt the need to go on a senseless killing spree.

Not that this is particularly instrumental to the discussion, but he was the son of the Assistant Director.

...I feel bad that Gary Ross and Francis Lawrence are gonna go the rest of their lives with people being all "Didn't your kid kill a bunch of people?"

I don't really know what there is to discuss about him, but yeah, mentally disturbed kids can fall prey to horribly destructive delusions. From what the police have released, it sounds like his great anxiety grew into a senseless desire for violence. The tools of that violence were there, and he used them.

I feel sorry for his family and the families of his victims. I hope they will eventually find some peace and relief from the pain.

I think this is another sad case of a mentally unstable guy, unhappy with his life who fell prey to corrosive ideas. I find it odd that people are using the guy as greater societal battleground, I think the unique human element of the guy is just too large a part of this to derive anything useful out of the situation. I just feel sorry for all involved.

@falserelic: spoiled kids tend to have a spoiled perspective when it comes to what they think they deserve.

Edit: I probably should have specified that I don't think this is the greater issue at hand here. He clearly had severe mental issues.

My heart to the families hurt.

This discussion is starting to feel a narrative, and perhaps the wrong one. The focus is more on the person doing the killing rather than the people he killed.

Yes he was mentally unstable, but I'm still amazed by how lax the gun laws are in America. I'm amazed this doesn't happen more often.

Heard one guy say the only way to stop this sort of thing is to give more good guys guns. Where is the sense in that, it's like if he's got a big gun we need a bigger gun. Now I don't live in America so can't appreciate how guns are seen over there, but from an outside perspective the handling of gun laws is baffling to me.

Feel sorry for the families are those killed and hurt in this awful situation.

Every time he loses his place or doesn't know what to say next he does his stupid little supervillain laugh. Wannabe non-virgin alongside a wannabe drama student, apparently.

Good riddance to human garbage. Glad the privileged little psycho is off my planet. Rot in hell for eternity, loser.

Peace to those families. Can't fathom something so incredibly random and senseless impacting me directly or what it would take to get through that.

That's the sad thing. I remeber at my job a customer was arguing with her mom. All because her mom bought her a car, but she wanted a certain type of car. It kills me how some people can be so fucking spoiled. It goes to show that giving your kid everything they want isn't always a good thing.

Don't think this needs a thread here. I feel like Giant Bomb is better than the sites that are already out there validating his murder spree. It should be a felony to release the names and pictures of these people. Yeah, the kid was messed up and needed better help than he was getting (he was in therapy but it obviously wasn't working). Blaming feminism or any other movement for this is asinine and only showcases a person's selfishness and illogical thinking.

I am not sure what kind of discussion or rationale can be grown from the video & thread. This is probably actually the most disturbing topic I've seen on this sites forums. If you want to talk about mental illness, hollywood being spoiled or society's breakdown of communication causing loneliness, sure, but if you want to rationalize this man's actions, well that's one place I'd rather not go.

@i_stay_puft: I share your concern that there may not be any decent discussion to come from dwelling on this kid, but I didn't get the impression anyone was trying to rationalize what he did. The greatest explanation is still within his mind, and while we may get hints at the madness, that does not mean it makes any more sense.

There are actually people in the comments blaming women who turn men down. I actually want to throw up.

In the Youtube comments?

Should any of us really be surprised at this point?

Just fully disturbed by this story, hadn't watched any news all weekend so I'm just finding out about it now. Truly heartbreaking about the deaths.

Certainly is a tragic story. Sounds like he had been planning it for almost a year, and police checked on him just a month before. Yet, his act of normalcy was good enough to get by. Hard to really face the inexplicable violence that can come from an apparently normal individual.

Though, as it stands, I think we're better off not getting into a big thing about the shooter, because he was ultimately mad and undeserving of such attention. The ones who matter now are the victims and those who have survived the tragedy.

@truthtellah: I know, but... fuck

Fair enough.

The thing is that it's not terribly divorced from opinions shared by a lot of men. "Oh your boyfriend hit you? Well that's what you get for going out with an asshole and not a nice guy like me." Obviously there's a difference of scale, but the message is the same.

I find greater issue with posts like this:

As always.

(Moreso the first one.)

I just... hope this doesn't turn into fodder for social justice movements, I guess. That seems completely unfair to the real victims and their families who are actually suffering from this tragedy.

I've seen something to the effect of "Misandry hurts but misogyny kills" being reblogged rather constantly on tumblr, paired with a link to his "retribution" video, and that just seems...wrong, I guess. Maybe not wrong, maybe insensitive is the right word.

I don't know that there's really a whole lot to say about this situation, actually.

Being rich doesn't make you happy. Knew, and obviously see, a lot of fucked up rich kids.

Well I have already been called a rapist on reddit several times since this was co-opted by feminist movements. Even though I was agreeing with them, but not in the precise and exact way they wanted me to. That shit does more damage than good. Seems like there are bad apples everywhere, even in the feminist movement.

In relation to the guy in the video, please stop giving him the posthumous publicity he so desperately craved. THIS TOPIC is a part of exactly what he wanted out of his rampage and suicide.

The fact that it doesn't happen more often should show you that just because something is accessible by the public doesn't mean everyone is gonna go grab a gun and shoot someone.

If he didn't have a gun he could of used a knife, or a car, or a plane, homemade explosives, start a gas leak, start a fire, there are a million ways to cause destruction. Countries without guns have crime just the same and the serious criminals of the world have access to what they want, restricting it from the general populace does not make the world any safer. We have restrictions people aren't running around with fully automatic assualt rifles, they have registered owners and most gun crimes are carried out using stolen\unregistered guns. It isn't some Law of West show here everyday at noon, millions of people own guns and have the ability to go do this everyday and yet it only happens when some madman finally snaps, doesn't mean everyone should have to turn in their arms which are used for Sport, Hunting, and personal protection every day.

He could have at least tried not to sound so goofy in his video.

full blown narcissistic psychopath. he talks about his plans to kill his younger brother because he can't deal with the thought of him getting laid first.

I am sad that people are trying to weave this into some sort of discussion of social issues. There isn't anything meaningful to say there.

The real problem I have with it, apart from what he did, is that people are making his videos INCREDIBLY popular by linking to them everywhere. No one is talking about the fact that this kind of coverage is exactly what any narcissistic killer wants. His name should never be mentioned.

In an ideal world, when something awful like this happens, there would be an announcement on TV, his name mentioned once, and then any media coverage is focused purely on the families of victims and any charitable efforts one can donate to, etc. But this is not an ideal world, and this guys banal ramblings make for good television.

How is this linked to feminism?

Haha this, he sounds like some super cheesy villain in a movie with bad actors. Also his lips are frightening.

But they do happen fairly frequently. In the past four years, there was a school shooting about once every two months.

I don't exactly see the apparent tragedy of anyone using this as an instance to discuss social justice issues. It isn't really deniable that the killer did reiterate some unfortunately common themes of misogyny. Specifically, that rejection permits someone to respond with violence or act as though they are "owed" anything from a woman. I genuinely think this kid went on a rampage due to his out-of-control mental illness and access to guns, but I see no reason to fault anyone noticing the misogyny along with the madness.

What is someone afraid of from a commenter online bringing up how a madman expressed deplorable opinions that are an extreme of more common ones? That people might talk about our wider problems some more? To me, that's only a potentially good thing.

I hope that some people will perhaps make some good come of the tragedy. For the sake of the victims, maybe more people will seriously consider our continued problems, whether they be in lacking mental health services, a dangerous level of access to guns, and the social issues which harm and hinder many of us every day.

I'm getting depressed seeing this thing become a catalyst for inane arguments.

Terrible crimes like this stir up a lot of emotions. So, don't get too down from the response; it's only natural to see.

If you really want to know what he was all about, there is his 137 page manifesto online.

I only read the first few paragraphs.

@splodge said:

I disagree. When someone is motivated to kill because of a poisonous ideology and able to because of deep societal problems, those triggers deserve to be exposed and discussed. Ignoring them does a disservice to the victims.

People are products of their environment. Nothing more, nothing less. The guy didn't magically turn into a psycho killer and I'm pretty sure "misogynist hate screed" isn't a symptom of anything in the DSM-5.

Not to mention that his reasons for hating women are incredibly common and constantly used to justify horrible bullshit on a smaller, less news-worthy scale. It's naive to wave it off as "just a crazy dude" when his words seem downright mild compared to a lot of death threats I've seen thrown towards women over the most inconsequential shit. "Mental health issues" may have left this kid with the lack of self control and self preservation needed to actually go on the killing spree, but it certainly didn't put the toxic ideology in his head.

It would be like saying a racially motivated killing spree from a known member of the KKK had nothing to do with any social issues.

Damn. Rest in peace victims and I hope all of the families, including Rodgers', pulls through this ok.

As a side note I would like to remind people that teen gun violence is actually really low right now in America compared to the past

Yeah. He's clearly had a warped world view and anyone who commits acts like this is "crazy", but lets not confuse that with mental illness. The guys problem is he was a dickhead who placed the blame for his lack of sex on other people rather than some self-reflection that could have ended up with him considering that he was perhaps to blame. The god awful ideology is what needs to be examined rather than dismissing this as crazy person. Fuck that cop-out.

Yep. Dismissing every mass-shooting by a white guy as a product of mental illness just does more to stigmatise it and further discourage people who actually struggle with it from getting the help they need.

A deleted forum thread from a few days before this all happened.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D161988053

So sad. We need to remember at times like this how easy it is to start placing blame and fighting with each other. This kid was troubled and what he did was unimaginable but the best way to respect the people he hurt is to let them grieve in peace.

This may be true of gun crime in general (although I'm not sure, I haven't seen the data on it,) but it's objectively false of mass shootings:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map

That being said, I think gun rights is an ancillary issue here. I agree with those above that have said that the most important element of this is addressing toxic views of women that are sadly very popular.

He lived a petty existence and he died like the coward he was. Good riddance. Condolences to everyone involved.

He is a killer to be sure but I don't think this had to end up this way. This was years of rejection,loneliness along with obvious mental problems festering for years into a festering pit of malcontent especially for women.

Its easy to look at him as a monster but think if someone had actually bothered to talk to him and channel these emotions into other places. I'm not saying he should be forgiven or that we should even sympathize with him but if we as a society actually paid attention to people's mental and emotional states instead of brushing them off things like this wouldn't happen.

I also read about a girl this week called Alyssa Funke a girl who was a freshman in collage and was outted by her classmates for doing pornography. She had already been known to suffer depression and she was bullied both online and at school until the point she committed suicide with a shotgun. Two sides of the same coin here some peoples emotions manifest into anger others depression but both desperately needed help that they never got. And I think its sad that this happened but more sad that people just want to blame guns and a zillon other things instead of just helping people.

Maybe I'm just naive but I'd like to think the capacity for good is in everyone.

Surely he couldn't have been so blind to his own awkwardness. I mean how can you blame others when it's so obvious you're the one with the problem... The guy had to be deluded beyond belief. It's sad that people had to lose their lives over one person's very personal problem.

It's very easy to just say "yo, dude is crazy!" But the fact is that there are a lot of guys out there who think just like this. Obviously, this is an extreme case but there is violence against women every single day by men who feel they are entitled to them.

@forkboy: It's also scary to think that right now, on this very website, there are people that share similar views to his in regards to woman. They come out every time there's an article about sexism in gaming. They are a part of the global toxic culture that nurtured this guy's ideas.

I made it through 30 seconds and felt so sick I couldnt watch anymore. Mental health is something that society really needs to focus on in the future. While this guy is an insecure psychopath, SOMEBODY should have seen this guy was messed up. He posted many videos and forum posts around the internet showing his mental instability to the entire world. I mean im completely horrible with women, but im sure as hell not deluded enough to think its anything but my fault, its something I need to improve.

@demoskinos: No, there's no angle from which to be sympathetic to this guy. He was a spoiled, rich bastard who pulled every douchebag move to try to make people like him: fancy car, expensive clothing, bodybuilding, pick-up artistry. But none of it worked for him because he was just an asshole who fundamentally didn't see anyone but himself as a real human being. His mentality was that of a shitty dog owner whose instinct is to kick the dog when it doesn't roll over on command. He put out all the signifiers of the "player" but he still couldn't get women to be attracted to him, so he figured that the world had to be punished for not giving the appropriate response to the stimuli he was giving them. He is the prototypical bad person without redeeming qualities.

That's a pretty horrible thing to say.

This shouldn't be the time to give attention to the killer, but to give attention those who are no longer with us. No attention should ever be paid to him.