Senseless violence shows banality of cool

On May 23, California student Elliott Rodger slaughtered six students from the University of California, Santa Barbara, leading to a flurry of theories that tried to explain his senseless killing spree. One explanation that I read is Elliott Rodger's mind, like many, was a pro-duct of "media programming" which celebrates a culture that justifies killing and violence of the young as shown in the movie Hunger Games. Ironically, the killer's dad was an assistant director on the movie.

Controversial as this theory may sound, I do think it offers a legitimate explanation of Rodger's morbid mind. From a video he recorded before his rampage, the killer felt a false sense of injustice that he remained a "virgin" in spite of the privileges he enjoyed, including the BMW he drove. Popular culture does contribute to the misunderstanding that material possessions qualify someone to be cool, while those who do not have such things will never be cool.

In the meantime, a video, showing a young child being brutally tortured by three teenagers in the suburbs of Beijing, went viral in China. I relate it to the "virgin" killer as the three perpetrators in this case were also heavily influenced by what popular culture instilled in their minds as standards of "cool". The lingo they used while inflicting pain on a younger child seemed to be taken directly from youth movies such as Young and Dangerous, a series of Hong Kong movies about young triad members. From the video it is pretty obvious that the school gangsters of the movies, whose depravity is transformed into cool, were the role models for the teenagers. The teenagers were also stupid enough to shoot a video of what they did, as "it'd be so awesome if it makes it to the web," according to the member of the gang that was filming it all. Once again, this is an example of how pop culture idolizes popularity at all cost.