When highly media-oriented, attention seeking madmen go on killing sprees, doesn't it seem kind of contrary to public interest (not to mention antisocial, cynical, and just generally a bad idea) to grant them daily media coverage? Isn't that sort of reinforcing what they've done and thereby encouraging others to do the same? Wouldn't a wiser resort be a sort of "cone of silence" imposed on the offender, such that, save for a brief report on their crime, their presence on cyberspace and in the media sphere would be completely erased?
I actually didn't feel this way about the Unabomber - because at least he wrote a pretty interesting book! - but reading about Breivik generally sickened me, and this Batman kid - I just don't give a fuck about this guy, you know? I'm offended, saddened, and disgusted at having to see his photo every time I go to the news; sorry as I feel for his victims, his is in no way an interesting or useful example of humanity, nothing I need held up in front of me. Plus who the fuck decides to call shit like this news? People are ACTUALLY DOING THINGS IN THE WORLD - accomplishing things, creating things, discovering things, advancing the cause of humanity; shouldn't we be devoting attention to positive things, reinforcing behaviour we actually want to encourage, rather than sloughing through the morbid trough of the lunatic-of-the-month club?
Such coverage re-inforces our dominant Gothic worldview; one brought to us for the most part by Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. Inside each of us, we are taught when the Joker wannabe flashes across the screen, lurks evil.
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