I've know ER for many years now, I know the complete story, the ins and outs, and the cookie and the jar(yum). But what I don't get is why does it seem like people have to make a thread every once in a while about an almost 5 year incident? There is literally nothing else you can add to the story, you're just milking it to death. Out of all the ER threads I've seen from the last 2 weeks I've been here, I've learned nothing new, just the same old questions that has already been answered to death. WaS Elleeout ROOger a ManLEET? Was ELLy boy a FaKECELLy? Was Emergency Room a mentalcel? WHy ERODGER Bad BOI? Knock it off already.
People still discuss Rodger because he signified the end of one era when it came to the topic of male virginity and, in the very same moment, ushered in a new one. I'm not silly enough to believe Elliot was some kind of revolutionary; I have no doubt that the impact he had on the narrative regarding virgins was wholly unwitting on his part. Yet, regardless of his motivations, he forced the story to change.
Sure, there have probably been countless men who committed acts of violence driven by the same forces that compelled Elliot to take up the gun. The difference was that their motivations were murky and ambiguous, allowing society at large to pretend there were other forces at work. Edmund Kemper murdered attractive young women because he was infuriated that they found him repulsive but, conveniently enough, he also despised his overbearing mother. And so when scrambling to find some rationale for Kemper's crimes, Mother became a convenient scapegoat. Old Freudian narratives, having long been laid to rest, were desperately resurrected to find some reason, any reason, for Kemper's rage other than the inevitable pain of being regarded as sexually repulsive. Ed Gein's story and the attempt to understand his bizarre murders received the exact same treatment. He did the terrible things that he did not because he was a sexual being forced to live like a eunuch but because his parenting was lacking. Had these men been brought up by loving matrons rather than vicious harpies, both would have gone to the grave happily married with a score of children weeping at their funerals. The question of their virginity, of being unloved and undesired by the opposite sex, was happily obscured.
Which, given the way relatively old virgins were viewed before Rodger indulged in his nasty tantrum, is entirely understandable. The ugly man too repulsive to be loved has long been a beloved comedic trope, hasn't he? As the grotesque buffoon, the jester in mankind's court, he's served the only purpose he ever could hope to: an occasion for laughter. Life's difficult for the normal person, after all. There are financial struggles, disobedient children, nagging and sometimes unfaithful wives. Given the gravity of the average life, a little bit of levity is invaluable. One may be low, but at the very least he's had a woman who wanted him. Well, at least a little bit. Which means that the ugly old virgin, who's never shared in that experience, is lower even still. His tears make yours laughter by comparison, don't they? What's best about this model is that our jester is feeble, not even remotely human, so there's no guilt to be had knocking said tears from his skull and, more importantly, no risk. If he lacks the basic vitality to take a woman to bed, there's no way he'd ever have enough to lash out and draw blood.
But, well, Rodger did. And his manifesto rendered his motivations unequivocal. There was suddenly a new story to contend with, a new way of looking at the virgin. Now, ideally, this novel discussion would have been a sensitive one, taking into account the plight of those who hurt as Rodger did but refrained from violence. But, let's be honest: no one has the time or energy to understand the misery the ugly endure. All the vast majority understood, or was willing to understand, was that the repulsive jester that had provided amusement for so long had wrenched the king's scepter away and cracked a lovable person's skull with it. Blood had tainted the once-immaculate palace floors. The party was over.
Some tried to recapture the good times by lampooning Rodger, making light of the phenomena his acts pointed toward. Yet all of their efforts were doomed to failure; Paradise had been lost. The laughter evoked by the undesirable was no longer sufficient to drown out the screams one among them inspired after taking up the gun. And so giggles at the expense of the clown were replaced by indignant shrieks of "entitlement", patronizing contempt grew into abject hatred. Bereft of a place in the Divine Comedy where even God's mistakes were testament to His wisdom, the abomination was relegated to the role of dangerous villain whose only proper end was being slaughtered by the handsome hero.
Rodger was instrumental in precipitating this. Some of us curse him because of it, others among our misbegotten tribe laud him for the same reason. Regardless of the position one takes, every incel surviving him has been left to shoulder the weight of Elliot's sins because mankind needs a scapegoat.
So yes, we still speak about Rodger every now and again. How could we not?
His hands are stained with our blood after all.
Not necessarily a bad thing, depending upon how we surrender that blood. But it's certainly worthy of remark.
