This very issue is the reason I chose to study social psychology as an undergrad and why I'm trying to persue a PhD in the area now (if only a damn school would accept me...). I'm not of the mind that the media we interact with affects our judgment enough to make us want to kill those who bully us. It *has* been shown in the past that there can be a temporary spike in aggressive thoughts immediately after playing a game like "Mortal Kombat" (I don't have the reference handy... but they actually had males and females play each other in a round of the game and found that males' aggression didn't increase that much when they lost to another guy but it DID increase when the girl smacked them around), but a longterm effect of the type that Jack Thompson keeps claiming exists has never been proven. One major issue with most of the video game studies out there is that, while the experimenters try to control for age/sex/socioeconomic patterns/and a rudimentary sense of "gamer/nongamer" delineation, they never consider some of the other factors that ONLY someone who really "gets" games would think about. Hell, even in the study I just mentioned... what if coincidentally the guys had more of a background with the game than the girls and the girls were button mashers who won by sheer luck? Maybe that's why they got angry. (Note that this is just an example... I know PLENTY of girls who are genuinely skilled gamers and kick my ass repeatedly). In some cases, the games that the experimenters use in their studies are just shitty games all around. They're not any fun to play. There could be a rise in frustration simply because the game's controls suck or there are glitches galore.

But yeah. I also understand fully that plenty of people are bullied and never pick up a gun and take revenge. I DO believe that people have different thresholds and some are going to be far more sensitive than others. In the case of something like Klebold and Harris, they were picked on and, even worse, with their parents ignoring the fact that they were MAKING PIPE BOMBS IN THEIR BEDROOMS, the only real source of attention they had was each other... that probably has a lot to do with why their plans spiraled so dramatically out of control. I *did* hear a psychologist speak once about Columbine and he pointed out that the incidence of bullying in that school climate was the worst he'd ever encountered.

It's funny that people keep picking up on the fact that K and H reference "DOOM" in the video tape they made prior to the shootings. They seem to miss the references the boys make to the fame their actions will gain them. At one point, they even say that Quentin Tarantino will probably make a movie about them. The fault, in my mind, lies with parents turning over control to the media at large. I'm not talking about the movies and video games and music media we take in, though. I mean the newsmedia and the social fascinations that seem to dictate our lives. Let's face it. "Natural Born Killers" made the point beautifully: our society glorifies and memorializes bad people. That's why Charles Manson has his own t-shirt and most people couldn't tell you Gandhi's first name. K and H wanted to get back at their enemies and they wanted people to pay attention to them. A week after the massacre, they were on the cover of Time. Mission accomplished.

The saddest part, to me, is how now a lot of good kids are getting shafted. Right after Columbine every kid who walked around in a trench coat was suddently suspect. Schools outright BANNED them altogether. I actually used to wear one frequently and I got more than a few comments (and one guy gunning his car engine at me while he told me I was scum). Now the politicians, unwilling to piss off the "of voting age" parents are putting a band-aid on the problem by trying to force the kids to smile and act like everything's fine, while simultaneously attacking anything tangentially related to their lives. In a lot of cases, the "violent music" or whatever is an outlet for them. Back in '97, Raymond Kuntz appeared before a Senate committee lead by Joe Lieberman and Sam Brownback. In his testimony, he blamed Marilyn Manson's "Antichrist Superstar" for urging son to kill himself. Apparently it was the last thing he listened to before pulling the trigger (and, oh how he dragged out the lyrics to "The Reflecting God" to increase the drama). Anyway, he later said that his son was a good kid... a good kid who took a swastika off his bike ramp after his dad told him it wasn't a good thing to have on there. Again, a misattribution of blame... Marilyn Manson... swastika... Marilyn Manson... swastika... Maybe there was more going on than the father was willing to see. Maybe that album was what kept him from committing suicide sooner.

Anyway, I've already gone on at length and it's late so I'm probably mashing my thoughts together, but yeah... this topic is huge for me.