Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking soundbites to support it. “Wouldn’t you say,” she asked, ‘that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?” No, I said, I wouldn’t say that. “But what about ‘The Basketball Diaries’?” she asked. “Doesn’t that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machinegun?”
The obscure 1995 Leonardo DiCaprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office and it’s unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.
The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. “Events like this,” I said, “if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. Kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn’t have messed with me. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.”
In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, “The NBC Nightly News” and other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of “explaining” them.
The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.
” Roger Ebert(Source: yeezytaughtme)
I can’t decide what’s funnier, the dog, or the guy that’s dying of laughter in the background
I literally almost peed my pants from laughing so hard. Hahahaha!
I have never heard a grown man laugh like that.
that background guy. couldnt even finish his sentences lmfao
“It’s a tradition for tourists to touch the foot of John Harvard’s statue for good luck. A lesser known tradition is that Harvard students are supposed to pee on that foot before they graduate.”
(Cambridge, MA)
“I Can’t Remember Where I Put My Phone Two Seconds Ago But I Vividly Remember Every Embarrassing Thing I’ve Said Or Done Since 2008” a book written by me
(Source: coolnessgraphed)
I hope this is true
It’s true. It happened at Shangri-La in Austin.
(Source: phroyd)
DIY Briefcase Picnic ♥ Found here!
(Source: pigall)
