Santa Barbara mass murderer Elliot Rodger.
Background information about the Santa Barbara shooter is beginning to emerge, tending to confirm what I said about Elliot Rodger when his YouTube rant was nearly all we knew about his motives:
This attitude is a typical “Nice Guy” rationalization by which losers project onto others the responsibility for their own failures, so that successful men are scapegoated as “obnoxious brutes” and women who reject the Nice Guy are condemned as “sluts.”
At the root of the “Nice Guy” rationalization is a narcissistic blindness to his own shortcomings and a sense of entitlement to female companionship. He cannot admit (especially to himself) that his own resentments are actually motivated by envy, nor that his rage against women is a type of “sour grapes” rationalization: Frustrated desire expressed as rejection of those who reject him.
Rodger was short, non-athletic and socially awkward, and this kind of “Nice Guy” rationalization is what goes on inside the minds of losers who can neither accept their limitations nor overcome them. The Los Angeles Times has the full transcript of his video rant:
“Hi, Elliot Rodger here. Well, this is my last video. It all has to come to this. Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the day I will have my revenge against humanity, against all of you.
“For the last eight years of my life, since I hit puberty, I’ve been forced to endure an existence of loneliness, rejection and unfulfilled desires, all because girls have never been attracted to me. Girls gave their affection and sex and love to other men, never to me.
“I’m 22 years old and still a virgin, never even kissed a girl. And through college, 2 1/2 years, more than that actually, I’m still a virgin. It has been very torturous.
“College is the time when everyone experiences those things such as sex and fun and pleasure. In those years I’ve had to rot in loneliness, it’s not fair.
“You girls have never been attracted to me. I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me but I will punish you all for it. It’s an injustice, a crime because I don’t know what you don’t see in me, I’m the perfect guy and yet you throw yourselves at all these obnoxious men instead of me, the supreme gentleman. I will punish all of you for it. [laughs]
“On the day of retribution, I am going to enter the hottest sorority house at UCSB and I will slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up, blond slut I see inside there. All those girls I’ve desired so much. They have all rejected me and looked down on me as an inferior man if I ever made a sexual advance toward them, while they throw themselves at these obnoxious brutes.
“I take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you., You will finally see that I am, in truth, the superior one, the true alpha male. [laughs] Yes, after I have annihilated every single girl in the sorority house, I’ll take to the streets of Isla Vista and slay every single person I see there. All those popular kids who live such lives of hedonistic pleasure while I’ve had to rot in loneliness all these years. They all look down upon me every time I tried to join them, they’ve all treated me like a mouse.
“Well, now I will be a god compared to you, you will all be animals, you are animals and I will slaughter you like animals. I’ll be a god exacting my retribution on all those who deserve it and you do deserve it just for the crime of living a better life than me.
“The popular kids, you never accepted me and now you will all pay for it. Girls, all I ever wanted was to love you, be loved by you. I wanted a girlfriend. I wanted sex, love, affection, adoration.
“You think I’m unworthy of you. That’s a crime I can never get over. If I can’t have you girls, I will destroy you. [laughs] You denied me a happy life and in turn I will deny all of you life, it’s only fair. I hate all of you.
“Humanity is a disgusting, wretched, depraved species. If I had it in my power I would stop at nothing to reduce every single one of you to mountains of skulls and rivers of blood and rightfully so. You deserve to be annihilated and I will give that to you. You never showed me any mercy so I will show you none. [laughs]
“You forced me to suffer all my life, now I will make you all suffer. I waited a long time for this. I’ll give you exactly what you deserve, all of you. All you girls who rejected me, looked down upon me, you know, treated me like scum while you gave yourselves to other men. And all of you men for living a better life than me, all of you sexually active men. I hate you. I hate all of you. I can’t wait to give you exactly what you deserve, annihilation.”
See? Dude had no game, but that can’t be his fault. No, it’s the girls he wanted — the blonde sluts who rejected him — who are to blame.
The Daily Mail has more background on the “gentleman” killer:
He was diagnosed at an earlier age with Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism meaning he had difficulties with social interaction.
Rodger was living with roommates at the Independent Living Institute in Santa Barbara, a facility that offers ‘living skills instruction to help adults with disabilities to live more independently in their communities,’ according to the website. . . .
A good-looking boy, it is impossible to say what caused Rodger’s problem with women, but apart from his parents’ divorce, there are no clues in his background as to the deeply troubled loner he would become.
He was born in August 1991 in Lambeth, South London, the scion of a family steeped in photography and the cinema.
His Malaysian-born mother Li Chin, now 53, and film director father Peter, 49, moved to America’s West Coast when Elliot was five and his younger sister Georgia only a baby. . . .
Speaking from her home in Kent, Elliot’s grandmother, 89, explained that he had suffered mental health issues for some time.
She said: ‘He was a very disturbed boy. He lived in California but of course I’d known him. This is just one of those very tragic things. I don’t want to talk about it any more. This is a rather difficult time.’ . . .
Yesterday, a family friend told The Mail on Sunday that Peter and Li Chin divorced soon after moving to the US and Peter later married Soumaya Akaaboune, a French actress of Moroccan-French descent who appeared in Hollywood blockbuster Green Zone. . . .
[Elliot] recalled in one Facebook posting ‘being the smallest kid in the class’ when he was photographed at Topanga Elementary School near his home, aged seven, in 1998.
Asperger’s Syndrome — thanks to science, we now have a diagnosis, so parents don’t blame themselves for their kid being a total dork. But this is small comfort when the creepy little weirdo kills six people:
A California gunman who went on a rampage near a Santa Barbara university stabbed three people to death at his apartment before shooting to death three more in a terrorizing crime spree through a neighborhood, sheriff’s officials said Saturday.
The three people in the apartment were among the six left dead Friday night during the shootings near the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Elliot Rodger, 22, the suspected gunman, apparently killed himself, authorities said. . . .
Earlier Saturday, Alan Shifman — a lawyer who represents Peter Rodger, one of the assistant directors on “The Hunger Games” — issued a statement saying his client believes his son, Elliot Rodger, was the shooter. It was unclear how the son would have obtained a gun. The family is staunchly against guns, he added. . . .
Attorney Shifman said the Rodger family called police several weeks ago after being alarmed by YouTube videos “regarding suicide and the killing of people” that Elliot Rodger had been posting.
Police interviewed Elliot Rodger and found him to be a “perfectly polite, kind and wonderful human,” but noted that he had few friends and no girlfriend, he added.
So the family is “staunchly against guns,” and they called the police because they were worried about their creepy little weirdo son, but the police found the future mass murderer to be “perfectly polite” — the supreme gentleman, you might say.
Because no one can be blamed — not the parents, not the cops, and certainly not the shooter, who was a victim of Asperger’s Syndrome — some people go hunting for political scapegoats and (surprise) find what they’re looking for: Elliot Rodger was a racist because he wrote some stuff on an Internet forum complaining that he saw a black guy with four “hot white girls.” Never mind, of course, that Rodger was himself of mixed ancestry, and also never mind the real object of his murderous rage: “It’s been my life struggle to get a beautiful, white girl.” And, hey, let’s blame the NRA while we’re at it.
Meanwhile, we now have the Mass Murderer’s Manifesto — a 141-page autobiography — because what’s the point of being a mass murderer unless you’ve got a manifesto about how the innocent people you killed really deserved to die because of how unfair your life was?
UPDATE: Just spent about an hour of my life I’ll never get back reading the first 60 pages of the creepy little weirdo’s manifesto. He was very aware — in his conscious, rational mind — of his shortcomings, and understood that his resentments resulted from envy. But this rational awareness did not lead to any kind of effective coping strategy, nor did it quell the intensity of his emotions. He felt horribly humiliated by girls; his sense of being doomed to rejection made him fearful of social interaction with girls. Also, he was unusually obsessed with social status. When his father’s directing career took a downturn, his mother’s child-support was reduced, and she had to move into a less-affluent neighborhood. The boy was so embarrassed by this that he stopped inviting friends to visit. Meanwhile, he disappeared into World of Warcraft — becoming that 21st-century cliché, the videogamer with zero social life.
UPDATE II: From Page 67 of the “Manifesto,” when the creepy little weirdo was 18 and had dropped out of college:
I continued searching for a job, but I still wasn’t able to find one. . . . The problem was that most of the jobs that were available to me at the time were jobs I considered to be beneath me. My mother wanted me to get a simple retail job, and the thought of myself doing that was mortifying. It would be completely against my character. I am an intellectual who is destined for greatness. I would never perform a low-class service job.
Oh, what a Special Snowflake — he was “destined for greatness”!
I was 5 years older than this special snowflake when I met my wife. I’d never kissed a girl before her. And only had brief relationships with women until then.
I don’t regret waiting for her. 15 years of happy marriage is worth waiting. The *stupid* in all this special snowflakes being told the rest of the world is wrong if they don’t get everything they want when they want it.
There’s no teaching people to entice a woman by becoming a better man yourself. It’s all about the unfairness of the world. And an insistence on superficial examination of the opposite sex instead of understanding a life lived together depends on a lot more than external beauty.
I don’t believe in soulmates. I do believe in developing the character to become the right person for the one you meet. Of course, that involves honesty and willingness to grow. Something most special snowflakes are neither encouraged to possess nor willing to accept.
He was diagnosed at an earlier age with Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism meaning he had difficulties with social interaction.Nailed it.
[…] UPDATE: Portrait of a Killer: Elliot Rodger Claimed in Video to Be ‘Supreme Gentleman’ […]
He said he’s a 22 year old virgin, but the dipshit lived in southern California, only a 3 hours drive from Tijuana. He could lost his virginity for $30 in TJ.
He could have further found a shitload of Mexican chics who would be his girlfriend.
I can sort of understand some dude in Utah, or North Dakota with this kind of problem. But when you live 3 hours from the Mexico border there is zero excuse for not getting as much damned sex as you could ever hope for.
This is all an argument for complete legalization of prostitution, everywhere, not just Nevada and Puerto Rico. Dipshit loser men, do need to get laid. And if that means paying for it, oh well.
Save the rest of us from sexless murderous rages from madmen like this guy.
I’m sure that Charlie Sheen could have found him some local hookers.
If he’s this messed up at 22, it’s not the Asperger’s. Ten bux says his mom is an awful, awful person.
His dad’s a Hollywood director. He could have scored a ho if that’s what he actually wanted.
Something else is wrong with this kid, and it ain’t just sexual frustration.
Once again, there are significant warning signs, and nothing was done.
Eh, Aspebergers does make a person socially awkward so it’s no wonder he couldn’t meet a girl on his own. Poor sod. His final act was a big fuck you to God.
It wasn’t just the sex, as he said, he just couldn’t fit into that group. He was frustrated at multiple levels.
His parents sent him to therapy and called the police.
Interesting the similar parallels with Jihadi rhetoric. Sexual disfunction is part of it, but not all of it.
Yeah, pretty sad.
Let me explain why no woman wanted him: he is a psychotic freak. Not even having a hotshot director dad is enough to overcome that.
Further, let’s think about this “unfairness” trope, of killing people because they are happier than you: is that not the brutal, murderous extension of the rage against income inequality? Be mad at people who have more money, a nicer job, better home, lovelier wife, whatever. It’s the twenty-two year old virgin version of hating the rich. For him, his currency was sex, and in that, he was broke.
It’s a sad world.
Only a small percentage of people with Asperger’s Syndrome are mass murderers. But with the videos and the parents concerned enough to call police, seems like something was missed.
Im not condoning this young mans actions because there are a million and one ways to get a piece of tail if youre motivated, but the world really is a sad, awful place, and each and every one of us is better of having never lived at all.
I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
Then I guess you should shoot yourself? Doesn’t change the fact that the world is full of horrors.
Join the Navy. Go to the Philippines. Enough said.
Speak for yourself.
Eh, it’s been said before, and when you consider all the burdens that life puts on you, sweet oblivion, and never having known any of it seems preferable. Just look at that poor bastard. His existential condition drove him to mass murder.
Women really can be cunts.
Couldnt one of you bitches give him a piece? Do all of you have to be completely controlled by your programming that dictates you must love douchebags for your own safety?
LOL, dude! As a young soldier I found myself in London with some time on my hands in the late seventies. The Boy George thing was just getting started with guys wearing make up and such. Anyway, I went pubbing and the girls came at me like a Nick Saban blitz.
I saw that the father of one of the victims blamed politicians and the NRA. I understand his grief. The loss of a child is a terrible ordeal. The fact is, this kid could have just as easily driven his car into a crowd and done just about the same damage. There are already plenty of gun laws, none of which prevented this tragedy. As has been reported the parents of the killer alerted police, perhaps if special units were developed to deal with people who have potentially dangerous mental illness we could reduce these sorts of crimes. Were the officers who interviewed Elliot trained in any way to evaluate mental illness? At this point it seems unlikely.
This is the first bit of common sense I’ve seen in the comments. And I’m not even a supporter of legalized prostitution.
fuck off, troll
If the strategy here is to call Elliot Rodger a “loser” with “no game,” then you can count on there being more frustrated young men willing to take their anger out on the innocent.
Let us hope we don’t know any of the victims.
Really. Is it that hard to be constructive? How about just impartially analytical?
I had difficulties with social interaction. Never drove me to shoot anyone. But then apparently no one insisted I outgrow them either.
Wonder what I might have been if there had been a convenient term to pigeon-hole and forget me under?
Uh, in what universe is violence an acceptable response to one’s own ineptitude? Overcoming disadvantage can be very difficult; failure does not entitle people to take out their frustrations on the innocent. However unfair life may be, victimizing others is wrong. Or have “right” and “wrong” lost any significance?
I’m not talking about acceptable. I’m not talking about entitle or what the world ought to be. You won’t argue someone like Rodger out of an accurate appraisal of his situation.
For everything that he was and wasn’t, he was angry.
I’m reminded of an exchange in the 1993 movie Tombstone:
Wyatt Earp: What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?
Doc Holliday: A man like Ringo has a great empty hole through the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.
Wyatt Earp: What does he need?
Doc Holliday: Revenge.
Wyatt Earp: For what?
Doc Holliday: Being born.
This is not a justification. I’m tracing out Rodger’s psychology.
Either you die a loser (see above) or live long enough to become a bigger (and I mean bigger as in “listen, Sunny Jim, ah et a bebeh”) loser (see previous post).
“He could have scored a ho…”
No, he couldn’t.
Per Bridget above, “Not even having a hot shot director dad is enough to overcome that.”
He was thinking what you were thinking. Hence, his fixation with social status. That didn’t seem to work out too well.
I do agree that he must’ve had other deficits, though.
I reject out of hand your sad and self pitying little moan. Life is great when its lived with purpose and daring. Get out of your dark hole and live.
Any word on whether or not he was taking a psychotropic “wonder drug”?
Don’t know about drugs (legal or otherwise); too soon. But apparently, he was in therapy?
I wonder what those sessions were like.
you started out being a pitiful self pitying loser and now you’ve digressed into being a misogynistic cretin. Go back to your internet porn, loser.
There are thousands with Asperger’s in varying degrees, few if any become violent. This little twerp is the exception.
The sense of entitlement in the last quote from his manifesto tells the real story. His problem isn’t Asperger’s, it’s that he is a sociopath.
Mom, Dad, and Step-mom, probably.
But it’s not their fault, either, no matter what wretched parents they are. Thousands of young men have lousy parents and don’t go out and kill strangers.
Can I call him a worthless piece of murdering feces?
Because that’s what the lad IS, after all.
You can call him whatever you like. Whether that’s helpful is another question.
I can’t help but think, “this is what it looks like when the social fabric starts to tear.”
As others have pointed out, there have always been people like Elliot Rodger. Up until recently, they didn’t seem to go on killing rampages.
Given the positions of his parents, I’ll bet he wasn’t a regular church-goer.
First of all, I don’t believe in “giv[ing] [men] a piece” before marriage. Second, my boyfriend is the nicest man I’ve met in my entire life – a man who is, at his core, a fundamentally kind person who takes better care of me than I take care of myself.
If you are surrounded by women who date douchebags, then keep better company instead of blaming us for your misery.
Another stunning personal admission; let’s see if those from the left chime in with their stories. I was not dissimilar to this obscene product of the left and it took me far too many years to develop the self confidence to attract the opposite sex and eventually find my wife. I know my problem was my problem. I don’t blame anyone else for my somewhat barren university days. Women everywhere can breathe easy, because I won’t kill you for not sleeping with me. It was my fault, not yours.
The basic pathos of his situation — his fear of rejection, his insecurity — is something even a complete extrovert like myself can relate to. From the hindsight of 25 years of marriage, my single years are covered with the glowing mist of nostalgia, so that I tend to remember only the “hot streaks” and lucky nights. But there were also cold streaks and unlucky nights, and times I cursed my seeming misfortune. But to read this dude’s manifesto, how he was completely frozen by fear of rejection and how the fear led to hatred — it’s just horrible and depressing to contemplate.
You say “it’s horrible and depressing to contemplate,” but there are many people that do go down this path. I was supremely confident in my job skills and my career benefitted from that, but somehow I never gained the confidence to deal effectively with the opposite sex…until more recently. I am an older father as a consequence, but there is no regret. God deals hands differently for all of us.
We are not all good at everything and various experiences of our childhood leave us less prepared to cope with some aspects of reality. But…I was given the skills to deal with my deficiencies without grabbing the nearest rifle. The left today are setting our kids up to fail like no other generation has ever done before. The icing on the cake is that they are making sure there are also no coping skills to go along with that inevitable failure. I am liking today’s world less and less with every passing day.
Come Lord Jesus come.
I feel for this kid. All through my school years from the time I was a little kid, the “mean girls” group.mercilessly attacked me, sicced their big boyfriends on me, and generally made my social life so miserable I wanted to kill every single one of them. One of my great pleasures was plotting various.forms of revenge.
I had a terrible, crippling fear of rejection from a lifetime of female abuse and rejection. From my own mother and sister on down the ladder. By some miracle I did not take the path this kid, but I very easily could have.
I know the pain and frustration this kid felt, and there are plenty of people like him. The fact is his obsession with social status.is correct, low social status males get ugly women.
A man may not.be entitled to female.companionship, but a man denied sexual release and female.companionship can be a very dangerous one.
So what? He was abused and used by women. That tends to build resentment.
You have GOT to be joking.
So what exactly are you saying? That females are not allowed to have males as friends? Because I can assure you, these young girls don’t view their platonic friendships with boys as, “dangling the possibility of more.”
That’s just not how a young, female’s mind functions….. But even if it were, what this guy did was NOBODIES FAULT BUT HIS OWN.
I find it incredible that someone with such a conservative looking handle cannot seem to grasp that
Liberals blame their bad behavior on everyone else in the world. Conservatives understand personal responsibility.