JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Brian Austin Whitney Blog Monday, April 16th, 2007

Hi Folks,

Weird day. Hard to talk about something light with the massacre that happened today at Virginia Tech. I will say that as shocking and horrifying as it is, there seems to be a weird ho-hum sort of vibe about it all. I've seen student after student interviewed and they're so matter of fact that to me that's chilling in and of itself. Almost like it's just a blip on the radar. Perhaps our society is so used to horror movies and terrorist reports from the war zones and video games where mass murder is fun that this tragedy is just another thing to be referenced more by the numbers of the dead than the real loss behind it. Almost like it's a score because the most people were killed ever in a US murder. Anyone else sensing this vibe of acceptance? When Columbine happened, there seemed to be true shock. Now it's just this weird matter of fact response.

Hmmmmm....

Brian

I got that same impression during the second Space Shuttle disaster.
When Challenger blew up, there was a collective national outpouring of shock and grief, and when Columbia met the same fate it was like "Damn, it happened again."

Brian
No doubt this is a terrible thing but, let's face it, it pales in comparison to 9-11. I think people are becoming a little numb.
You see reports of 30, 40, 50 people a day being killed in bombings in Iraq. Their schools, markets, government buildings, etc. are daily targets. Women, children, it doesn't matter.
It's becoming just numbers now.
The only difference is it was here.
Heck, I think more Americans have been gunned down in Washington DC in the last four years than have been killed in Iraq.
Murder is one thing. You hear a report of some 13 year old girl murdered in a small town and people are shocked. You hear a report of 33 people killed in a shooting spree and it just sounds like what you hear on the news coming out of Iraq every day.

Yes, it is a sad day.

It's like the old Stalin quote: (And I am paraphrasing here) If one person dies, it's a tragedy.. if a million die, it's a statistic. This seems to be a case of that. There's a chilling sense of ho-hum about it that creeps me out. Are we all that callous already? And since this has happened in the middle east for eons, perhaps their culture are just as jaded and ho-hum which allows it to be a daily thing there. Are we headed there now as well? Very chilling.

Brian

Jesus, I hope not Brian. For my Grandkids and great Grandson's sake.
You may be on to something though.

Bill

I've read some of the posted responses on the net and they are almost as scary as what happened.
Some of these folks are threatening each other etc.
Unfortunately,tradgedies seem to bring out the loonies.
The news media being what they are does not seem to help.
Even in the initial reports it seemed to be a numbers game.
Really sad!
Where is our humanity headed?
Spooky!

Brian,

I live a mere 30 minutes away from VT. The school system I work in has a lot of dealings with VT and there are numerous personal ties here. With that said...I have seen exactly what you are refering to in the interviews...the nonchalantness of it all. It seems as though we have all been overexposed to such violent outbreaks that it doesn't even phase anyone anymore. Thankfully that isn't always the case. The town I live & work in is a small town...only approximately 14,000 in the entire county..but we send sooo many of our high school grads to VT that it's hard not to be effected. I haven't heard as of yet if anyone directly from our town has been involved, but they haven't released a solid list yet either.

The young man they have named, Ryan, was good friends with my sons Band Director at the high school...she will be interviewing with Inside Edition later today and I know a photo of she & Ryan was on the Today Show this morning. I'm only waiting to see what other ties may bind our community to this tradgedy.

This is one town I know is in shock and disbelief. Because things like that just don't happen around here. For heaven's sake, we still leave our doors unlocked when we leave the house. The crime rate in our area is practically non-existent ...then again...I have often said I live in a modern day Mayberry.

I truly hope and pray that the media will see the damage they are doing by airing so much of the numbness. Our nation as a whole will only continue this downward spiral if all that is ever aired are the negative vibes. It's a shame, really. As educators we try so hard to prepare kids for the "real world", to be productive, responsible citizens...only sometimes it feels as though with all the media hype they are exposed to, we are fighting a losing battle.

Bree

I do believe we are becoming more callous and un-affected.

I feel so sorry for the families.......and these kids...and
professors....

I pray it doesn't start a series of copycats..

best to all.....
Kaley

Hi Brian,

I actually just found out about this horrible tragedy while sitting in a waiting room this morning. Wasn't able to listen to much but my husband explained it (he'd seen the news earlier). I didn't see any student interviews. But, I did see a few student interviews right after that recent tornado took 8 highschool students lives in Enterprise Alabama. The girls responded with almost no emotional tone and no tears. My thoughts were that perhaps she and her friends were still in shock.

Seems to me that in the past, (many years ago) the media would not have started poking microphones into peoples faces (friends and family especially) right after a tragedy such as this. There was a respect for the grief process which starts with shock and denial. It's the body's defense mechanism that helps to preserve us in times like this.

Perhaps it is like you say---we are all becoming numb to the tragedies around us. But, I would like to believe it has more to do with the media rushing in before the community has even had a chance to get to the next stage where real emotional reactions are evident. Shock and denial are just that----the person hasn't yet taken in the full magnitude of what's happened yet. So, the person acts as if it hasn't really happened.

Still, we probably are all becoming more numb to the increasing numbers of senseless murders in this country and yes, I agree horror flicks and crime on TV (news included) have contributed to that. That is precisely why I won't watch that kind of television or movies. I'm jaded enough as it is.

Vanessa

Did anyone see the cool story about the couple from New York that retired to Sedona Arizona? How they tripped across the country by way of a Taxi Cab?

I'm only attempting to shed light on a cool story that will likely get shoved aside in the wake of those terrible shootings. BTW, CNN had a great interview with a student who flew into action to barricade the door of his classroom and prevented the gunman from coming in and killing at least 10 of his classmates. He doesn't view himself as a hero. Now that's a cool angle too. Yes, it's unfortunate that people were shot.

The question becomes, will they blame Marilyn Manson again for this? Seeing as how he's doing publicity for a new album.

Jody

The world will wax worst and worst,then the end.The devil is going around like a roaring lion seeing whome he can devour,for he knows his time is short.

We are going to see more and more of this,plus natural disasters, wars,earthquakes and the sea raging.All this is forcasted in the bible.

Jody, IU expect they will. Not that any of it is Marilyn's fault--it's just that (as my dad used to say) he just looks like he ought to be guilty of *something*.

The general public having become inured to mass violence is part of the problem, in my opinion, and the media is partially responsible for that--they have yet to learn the difference between "can" and "should," and it may be a long time before they do.

But part is the *scale*, too. It was noted above that the death of one kid, especially in a small town, would be considered a horrible tragedy. Multiple deaths are not--they become faceless, because they're impossible to individualize. Like the old proverb says, "kill one person, you're a murderer. Kill a million, a dictator. Kill everybody, you're a god."

Joe

Todd Snider has a GREAT song about this on his "East Nashville Skyline" album called "Ballad of the Kingsmen" check it out!

It's so sad when this kind of thing happens, what a waste of life. I appreciate what folks are saying about how we seem, as a society, to be becoming scarily numb and accepting of these events. Hard to know what to do though - it's just a fact that people can get used to almost anything. I guess making firearms a whole lot harder to get hold of would help.

We've seen this phenomenon in recent years several times - not just in the States but in the UK, Japan and Germany too that I can recall and maybe other places. Often disaffected kids, or a disgruntled ex-employee coming back for revenge....I was just wondering if it's a relatively new thing arising out of the stresses of modern society or have there always people who do this, but in the past the media coverage wasn't there, or maybe they couldn't do so much damage back then for lack of the kind of weaponry now available? I don't know the answer, just wondering.

Gerry

I don't think ANYONE really knows ALL the answers. Another factor though is the media turns these people into celebrities,and for some lonely loser, it's their chance at fame {imfamy}and to go down in a blaze of glory. It almost seems like that kid was consciously going for the homicide record.

Brian, I don't know if it's we're becoming nonchalant or numb to it all or that it's so disgusting that no words can really say how we feel about it. It's eerie to me. I sit here and think of it as nothing but evil that is apparently present in our society, in this world, and it sickens me...scares me.. but I refuse to live scared to do anything or laugh again. If I really sat and thought about this type of thing happening every day, I'd be scared to go to the mall or anywhere, and I just don't want to live that way. It's a horrible tragedy though and I cry every time something like this happens.

~~shelia
www.sheliaquattlebaum.blobspot.com

TV news makes everything into a movie like ad. I'm surprised they don't have that deep voiced guy who does the voice overs for Hollywood films. That vibe from the news,,,all of them, is what I think could have lead to desensitizing events, if they are by the masses. No more Walter Cronkite. It's that vibe that has probably taken over, and reduced ALL events to a "Showtime".

When I want just the news, I turn on the Philly all news station on AM radio, with no hype, no titles, no cute or pretty reporter who can't wait to interview the suffering and ask, "How do you feel"?

It's a marketing world. With money of course behind everything.

I think of the parents and other family members, for any loss I hear about, anywhere. Maybe with all the killings that do go on everyday, we all might except that, (at different levels of course), as a daily fact of life.

How long has it been going on? Killings of people through history? Yeah,,,that TOO long. Some brains are just not wired to handle life in a peaceful way, so they take it. And the news runs with whatever they can to get their advertising dollars to soar. And then to keep it going. So they hammer home the images. We who watch, over and over are to blame for giving them rating reasons to continue. Same with Tabloids.

Well.. 80 people died in a car bomb today in Iraq. It got 10 second coverage on the 24 hour news channels, and they they were back to showing the same footage and same coverage of the US shooting over and over and over. If 32 people dying in the US is a tragedy, wouldn't 80 dying in Iraq ALSO be a tragedy, rather than just reporting a number and moving on? That's the danger here. When Katrina happened and also the Tidal Wave a few years ago, there were earthquakes in other areas of the world taking 10's of thousands of lives. But because there was a supermodel invovled in the tidal wave and because Katrina became a race issue in the US, that was far bigger news. It's not the endless coverage that bothers me.. it's the flippant reports that "17,000 people died in an earthquake in a far away land we don't care about, but here's what Britney Spear's did to her hair.. we're live on scene" type of coverage and mentality that really disturbs me. It's societal hypocrisy. The spent more time dealing with Anna Nicole Smith than some of the biggest losses of human life ever. They ignore genecides in Africa. The ignore thousands and thousands killed by monsoons. But let Paris Hilton go commando at a Hollywood party.. and let's get a new crew there right away and talk it into the ground. It's sad.

Brian

About 4 weeks ago about 2 miles from us a 6 year old boy came up missing. It took a week to find his body not 2 miles from where he disappeared. 4 people have been arrested for the crime. According to the News one of the people that confessed to the murder stated that the boy was murdered because he beat a 30 some year old male at a video game. They have plead not guilty so a trial is in the cards.

I hear you Brian,it's all about which station wants to be #1 so they can charge more for their advertising.Covering Africa deaths is more of a turn off to the watching public,but murder
at home is sensationalized because it draws listeners,because they know it could happen to them,it is happening to their neighbours,so it is more shocking than what happens to folks half a world away.

And now this nut's videos are all over the place.

Haven't seen any commentary yet but I expect we'll have journalists saying things like , "Well we debated showing these videos but we concluded that the public had a right to know, yada, yada, yada"

Bullshit.

If I ever thought that maybe members of the media weighted journalistic integrity over ratings, I surely don't now.

What they've done is given the shooter a platform and encourage others to get their fifteen minutes of fame.

One thing I'll give them is, I am sure they'd have behaved the same way if the guy had shot up a newsroom rather than a campus....

If I sound a bit angry it's because I happen to work in the same type of environment as the victims did. I think of the professors and students who were contributing so much and how they are shoved aside to air the ravings of the lunatic who killed them. It sickens me...

Scott

The media is toxic and, as far as I can tell, there's no antibiotics that will treat it.

The day of the shooting "The Insider" STILL led off with the latest on Anna Nicole's baby!!!!!!!! IDIOTS!!!!!

Tragedy is now being turned into Celebrity.....The Morals of the western world are heading into the cess pit ....For all those poor victims&their families..it was a truely awful hideous crime..Their lives cut short in an instance...The Grief their loved ones must feel,is very hard to comprehend......as regards the Media...just another day at the office...The Travelling Roadshow moves on.....Our Society now demands instant -in-your- face coverage..."live& on the spot"...then move on to the next tragedy....Everything in to-days society has a price....except life itself...that seems to be getting cheaper all the time..
Terry Moore..

On the news the other night they were talking about journalists ethics at some journalism school.
Obviously the ethics class is not long enough or only exists in their minds.
From what I've seen there are no journalsist ethics.
It's all gone the way of the enquirer and those other trash mags.
Maximum saturation of sensationalism for maximum cash flow.

Well,
I think I have posted this before. I think the journalists should have a convention once a year and vote on the worst journalist of the year. Maybe I should add editor to that. The lucky winner gets to face a firing squad. We can draw straws as to who gets to command the squad.

I remember back when we had two weeks of non-stop news about the death of Princess Diana, and then a week of Mother Teresa. Hey! I get dibs on the firing squad!

By comparison there was about 2.5 months of Anna Nicole Smith.

It seems to me that there are certain underlying facets here that noone is touching on. For instance, the "numbness" of which you speak. I'd venture a guess it has alot to do with the fact that over the past 20 years or so we've allowed ourselves to disconnect with each other. Namely through the internet, video games and e-mail. (remember the old Bulletin boards? Present company excluded, of course) Far too often we hide ourselves behind our computers, our televisions, our gaming systems... Heck, even work. Am I right? The media is doing nothing more than presenting information. The twist or spin they put on it is irrelevent. News is news. As I read through the previous postings of those having issues with the way the news of this tragedy is presented, it struck me funny that you were doing exactly what they wanted you to do, which is to watch their program, station or broadcast. I'm not at all surprised at the emptiness of people in relation to the shooting. We live in a "Glad it wasn't me" society. And that's awful. And as my grandmother used to say "You know what AWFUL is, don't ya? It's stretching a mosquito's a**hole over the top of a telephone pole! Now THAT's awful." My heart honestly goes out to any and all affected by this and every tragedy that's happened. Bad news sucks.

I'm rambling... I know. I just sit back and watch all this unfold and can do nothing more than shake my head and say "What a shame." I'm not much of a church goer, but I reckon that Mr. Adams up there is right. It's gonna take a Global act of God himself to set things straight on this rock we're surviving on. Until then, stay tuned. We'll have more on this right after these messages from our sponsors....

Peace, Love and Happiness to all

Dave

I respectfully disagree, Dave. Even with 24 hr news, there is still far more going on in the world than can be reported. So someone has to decide what they are going to report.

As Jody indicated above, there are other newsworthy stories that take a backseat when something like this happens.

Certainly reporting on these shootings was news.

But putting the shooter's homemade videos up is not news. Even the authorities have said they don't say anything revealing about the killer.

I made my previous post early in the day yesterday when his videos were up on every news website. I NEVER post stuff like that but this was just way over the top. I guess if a laid back guy like me got upset, others would too and I was interested to see as the day went on yesterday how the various outlets started back-tracking on the videos. Apparently they ran some polls and found that the vast majority of the public was against showing the videos.

If you have to run polls to decide what is news, your soul has already been sold...

Scott

Hey Scott... I understand where you're coming from. Allow me to clarify. What I meant by that comment was, that no matter what they show ABOUT the story, the story is what it is. I don't agree with their decision to air the video provided by the murderer. That was not only in poor taste, but disrespectful. But the fact remains, that most stations will present the news in such a manner as to gain ratings and more sponsors to make more money because ultimately, that's what it's all about, right? The almighty dollar? IMHO. I doubt highly that the corporate fat cats care all that much about the human factor of it all, but how best to shock and Awe the viewer and keep em glued to their seats and watching... watching... watching... bait the end of the segment.... commercial ($).... and we're back!

Ok, I've seen video games blamed for quite a few things on this board recently, so I thought it was time I spoke up. I apologize for going off-topic.

While I agree somewhat with the first part of what Dave said, I disagree that the blame can be placed on video games and/or the internet.

There is currently an ongoing attack on video games. Video games are the latest "scapegoat" being blamed for the downfall of society. Just like Rock Music was being blamed in the '80's. And the '70's. And '50's.

Now, I might be a little biased, since I make my living as a video game programmer. But there are no studies (and several have been done) that show any type of negative long-term effects from playing video games, despite what you may have heard on TV. In fact, most studies show positive effects, i.e. improved hand-eye coordination, better problem solving skills, and yes, even a greater tendency toward socializing (games are more fun when played with other people).

So to place the blame for the "disconnect" on video games would be completely wrong. Of course, the most "disconnected" people I've seen are the kids with their iPods, who don't even realize there is somebody else on the sidewalk, or who cross the street against the light at a busy intersection.

But of course, we can't blame it all on music, can we?

Actually video games have been a scapegoat since shortly after Pong. Maybe you're too young to remember.. but I'm not.

Crazy people DO get their ideas from something. But if it wasn't a video game, it would be Music or TV or Comedy or Catcher in the Rye. So can a video game give a crazy person ideas on how and why to kill people? Of course. Could it be the thing that puts them over the edge? You bet. Does it actually CAUSE the average person to do anything bad? Of course not. If it did, we'd all already be dead. The video/computer game industry is larger than the film industry.

I do think video games do deaden our response to violence in the same way movies and tv and the evening news showing bodies does. It's like Porn. 10 minutes of it and you want to have sex right away.. but have someone force you to watch 10 straight hours of it and you never want to have sex again. We've been exposed to the "10 straight hours" of this type of stuff and we're all just numb to it.

But I don't believe for a second that it causes the average person without serious mental illness to do anything bad. Neither does Gangsta Rap or Metal Music or James Bond movies. Someone like this sick guy would have found SOMETHING (in his case wasn't it religion?) to push him over the edge. Didn't he compare himself to Jesus? As I said, anything can put a sociopath over the edge.

Brian

Thanks for clarifying, Dave. Can't disagree with anything you wrote....

Actually, I resonated to your comment about video games and the internet in your earlier post. I am referring to the numbness factor here - not to whether video games cause people to become violent. I don't believe they do...

My belief is that it is technology in general that is causing this numbness. Video games and the internet are examples but it goes back further I think - at least to the advent of the automobile. Think what the auto did - now we don't have to go to work on the bus or subway in the company of others but can go in our own cocoon. The people in the other cars aren't entirely real to us - if they were, we wouldn't cuss at them when they cut us off (and if we were real to them they wouldn't cut us off in the first place).

Or television. Before television, people did a lot more socializing. Getting together to play bridge, becoming active in clubs and organizations, etc. Now a lot of people isolate themselves from others to watch the little screen.

A lot of technological advances have the by-product of separating us from other people. And the more we become separated from others, the less real to us they become.

Anyway, reads like I'm stating it as a fact - but it's just a theory

Scott

Pong - the only video game I could actually play!

It's funny you brought this up Brian because I was jusy saying to someone that I felt that way. Of course I am empathetic and have sympathy for the families etc. but there is no shock because of Columbine, Oklahoma City and of course 9/11.

9/11 was different for me because I was close to it, knew people, my husband works in NYC many people from our area died that day and so I was obsessed with the news coverage but with when things are further away you don't have that same connection-
it doesn't mean you don't think it's horrific it's just different.

As for the news, I won't watch anything about this guy because to me it serves no purpose, we know he was mentally ill and showing everyone doesn't help or change it.
Disclaimer: the "we" I'm using is the public not anyone specific who has posted here-

We do blame the media (and sometimes rightfully so) for not showing us more on Iraq, Darfur, the slums of Sao Paulo Brazil, etc but we shouldn't sit back and let the media do our homework for us- pick up a couple of different newspaper, search the interenet, read, read, read (and I'm not saying I do this all the time, I don't so I'm challenging myself too!) but if we're really interested in something than we should take the initiative to find out about it ourselves and not expect "Inside Edition" to do that or even the nightly news -

[/quote Brian Lesniak]
Now, I might be a little biased, since I make my living as a video game programmer. But there are no studies (and several have been done) that show any type of negative long-term effects from playing video games, despite what you may have heard on TV. In fact, most studies show positive effects, i.e. improved hand-eye coordination, better problem solving skills, and yes, even a greater tendency toward socializing (games are more fun when played with other people).

So to place the blame for the "disconnect" on video games would be completely wrong. Of course, the most "disconnected" people I've seen are the kids with their iPods, who don't even realize there is somebody else on the sidewalk, or who cross the street against the light at a busy intersection.

But of course, we can't blame it all on music, can we? [/quote]


Okay.. Let's make sure we're all on the same page here...

1. Video of murdering pshycho being aired on all national and international news channels = BAD

2. Video games the ONLY reason for disconnection of people in todays society = False.

I'm not knockin your profession Brian. Coming from the days of Pong I commend and Thank you for your tireless and relentless pursuit to design an interface that is truly realistic and fun to play. (if that's what you do) I wasn't placing blame on video games here. I was merely suggesting that technological advances in the entertainment industry have provided a type of "1st person bubble". (Just as you mentioned about the Ipod and the child not paying attention to his surroundings.)

Your impression of the lack of proof to the negative "long term" effects of video game playing may be a bit biased. I'm reminded of a fairly recent incident overseas (Japan, maybe) where a young man spent numerous hours playing on-line only to stand up and die from being sedentary (sp?) for so long. And the on-line community for young children is much more volatile than you give it credit for. A recent television show (20/20 I think) created a mock "on-line" world for children of varying ages to chat with each other. They were seperated into groups depending on their age and given all of todays typical "toys" to use online like video cameras, camera phones, and they were given web pages and blogs to create and share. The result was surprising even to the host at just how nasty, rude and even risque these children would get after just a few short hours. On-line gaming may afford people an opportunity to meet new people they normally wouldn't get a chance to, but honestly does not teach them courtesy, etiquette or affords them the understanding of how their comments affect others online, because they are not there to personally witness the results.

And THAT is what I'm finally getting at with all this rambling. This is where the "numbness" comes into play. I love video games as much as the next guy but, for children to spend hours and hours playing and listening to their Ipods and not getting out there with their peers and friends and meeting new people in person.. that, I believe is one of the reasons we are so disconnected.

You can't get a warm hug from a microprocessor.

I feel a song coming on....

Peace, Love and Happiness to all