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“ RIP Black Incel King': Admirers float copycat plans as latest school shooter is celebrated

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'Nothing is beyond our reach': Extremist site accused of 'grooming' teen attackers exposed

An image taken by school shooter Solomon Henderson and shared in his diary features a character from the Soyjak website. It's thought to be based on Patrick Crusius, who carried out a mass shooting in El Paso.

(Taken from Solomon Henderson's diary.)

Jordan Greenand Raw StoryFebruary 01, 2025

Before taking a handgun out of his backpack and walking into the cafeteria at Antioch High School in Nashville, where he opened fire and killed another student before taking his own life on Jan. 22, 17-year-old Solomon Henderson posted a link to an online screed filled with violence and unfiltered racism.

His message gave “special thanks” to Soyjak.party, an imageboard website whose anonymous users and administrators post bigoted memes based on a stock set of caricatures that typically make fun of liberals, sensitive men and trans people.

Using the insider lingo of the community, Henderson closed his post with a sign-off, “Remember keep jakking ‘teens,” followed by the website’s emblem, an octopus-like creature wrapping its tentacles around the globe. The emblem was accompanied by the slogan, “Nothing is beyond our reach.”

Henderson is one of three teenage attackers who have carried out shootings — and in one case a knife attack — over the past six months that extremism researchers have linked to a subset of the Soyjak community known as the Soyjak Attackers Video Fandom, or SAVF.

In the hours after Henderson’s school attack, investigators at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism monitored discussions among the anonymous users on the Soyjak website.

“We watched as they started panicking about losing their website out of fear because they believed the Antioch shooter had been groomed to carry out the shooting by their imageboards,” Carla Hill, the center’s director of investigative research, told Raw Story.

Henderson was a Black teenager whose writings revealed a deep immersion in white supremacist ideology. His consumption of extremist content appears to have manifested as a loathing for himself and other Black people, as he grappled with personal difficulties.

Henderson also identified with the involuntary celibate, or incel, movement, whose members blame women and society for their lack of romantic success.

The title of Henderson’s screed combined the two ideas by marrying a racial slur against Black people with the suffix “cel,” adding a parenthetical to explain that he was an “involuntary” Black person.

“We felt like the Antioch shooter was driven to self-loathing by what he saw online,” Hill said. “That’s how he came to be a self-hating person.”

Other terrorist attacks — such as the car-ramming recently carried out by an ISIS sympathizer in New Orleans and the 2019 mass shooting by a white supremacist at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas — have proven to be significantly more lethal, but Henderson’s attack has unnerved extremism researchers as a harbinger of an emerging hybrid threat that is harder to pin down.

Hill took notice of three intertwined “driving forces” behind Henderson’s attack.

“There’s the incel space — various incel spaces — we found him in those. Soyjak crosses over with that,” Hill said. “Then, he was in spaces that glorify violence and gore and school shooters. Third, he was in these reactionary imageboard sites like Soyjak that serve as a hub for all kinds of extremist discourses, including antisemitism, accelerationism, white supremacy and misogyny.”

Through his participation in overlapping fringe internet subcultures where members use multiple social media platforms to celebrate white supremacist mass murder, dabble in the occult and engage in degrading interpersonal drama, Henderson connected online with 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, who fatally shot a fellow student and teacher before taking her own life in Madison, WI, in December.

And Henderson took inspiration from an 18-year-old Turk named Arda Küçükyetim, who carried out a knife attack at an open-air café near a mosque in August. Rupnow participated in an online group that held a pre-arranged viewing party to watch Kücükyetim carry out the attack on a livestream.

Küçükyetim and Rupnow were also “part of” the Soyjak Attacker Video Fandom,” according to a report written by two pseudonymous authors and published by Marc-André Argentino, a senior researcher at the Accelerationist Research Consortium.

A screed left behind by Ryan Palmeter, a 21-year-old white supremacist who fatally shot three Black people in a Dollar Store in Jacksonville, FL in August 2023, also bears the imprint of the Soyjak community. A graphic included in Palmeter’s document includes a Soyjak character known as Chudjak, who is said to have been inspired by Patrick Crusius, the El Paso shooter. The word “soy” is emblazoned across Chudjak’s T-shirt in the graphic. The reference caught the attention of Henderson, who referenced him in his writings as a “soyteen,” the term that insiders use to describe a member of the community.

Similar to Palmeter, Henderson and Küçukyetim published screeds in advance of their attacks that celebrated previous white supremacist shootings, reviewed their meticulous planning and gear, and provided encouragement to readers they hoped would emulate their actions. (Rupnow also engaged in this ritualistic practice, but it’s unclear what she wrote because she left her Google document on private before taking her own life.)

As part of an iterative effort to promote accelerationist violence calculated to bring about the collapse of society, Henderson and Küçükyetim’s posts shared one specific facet: They recommended documents produced by the Terrorgram Collective, which was recently named as a specially designated global terrorist entity by the U.S. State Department.

Terrorgram first emerged in 2019 and, within a couple years, coalesced into a tight-knit group that produced PDFs with highly stylized graphics that combine terrorist propaganda, white supremacist hate, and tactical guidance. Terrorgram’s propaganda venerates white supremacist mass murderers by calling them “saints.”

Terrorgram’s publications function like a virus that finds a receptive host in fringe online extremist communities such as Soyjak, and then infects individuals who attack society at large through mass shootings and other lone-actor violence.

Henderson shared instructions on how to perpetrate attacks on social media from a Terrorgram Collective publication, among others, according to Argentino, and links to three of the publications appear in his screed.

Küçükyetim, meanwhile, shared PDFs of three Terrorgram publications on Telegram, according to a federal indictment of two Terrorgram Collective leaders. Dallas Humber of Elk Grove, CA, and Matthew Allison of Boise, ID, the Terrorgram leaders, were arrested less than a month after Kücükyetim carried out his attack. Humber and Allison were indicted on 15 counts, including conspiring to provide material support for terrorists, and could face up to 220 years in prison if convicted.

On the morning of his attack in the northwestern Turkish city of Eskisehir, according to the Humber/Allison indictment, Küçükyetim posted in a Telegram group chat: “Come see how much humans I can cleanse.” The post included links to a livestream and PDF files of the Terrorgram publications.

Hill and her team at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism found the group chat. A Telegram account they identified as Natalie Rupnow's joined the chat through an invitation, which meant that she had been connected somehow to the other members of the chat prior to the livestreamed attack, Hill said.

Hill told Raw Story that Rupnow participated in a post-play discussion to evaluate the merits of the attack. Rupnow remarked that Küçükyetim had been “caught” and that the death toll was “0 probably,” but that he deserved “credit” for at least trying.

Humber and Allison also took note of the attack.

“He included the Terrorgram books and other Saint manifestos in his file dump, gives shoutouts to the other Saints in his manifesto and references several Hard Reset passages, he was 100% our guy,” Humber wrote in a chat with Allison, according to the indictment.

“But he’s not white, so I can’t give him an honorary title,” she added. “We still celebrating his attack tho, he did it for Terrorgram.”

When Rupnow posted her screed on X before opening fire at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, WI on Dec. 16, Henderson replied under the post: “Livestream it.”

Later that day, after the attack, he expressed excitement that “the newest skool shooter followed” him on two of his X accounts.

In his diary, Henderson appears to speculate that he may have influenced Rupnow.

“It’s weird how we had similar takes and views, but not really because she followed my account,” he wrote.

“Arda was right!” Henderson added. Then he quoted directly from Küçükyetim’s screed: “Remember, I and the other saints will not forget what you did…. In this way, you will motivate future saints.”

It’s not clear whether Henderson directly interacted with Küçükyetim. In his diary, Henderson described Küçükyetim as “an ultimate saint” and “someone I was inspired by,” while cryptically adding, “maybe I didn’t know him.”

The transfer of terrorist motivation and camaraderie in each of the attackers’ screeds is part of a negative feedback loop, along with group chats and other social media posts, that is ensnaring some teenagers who are globally linked to one another through the internet.

“It’s not like a conversation in real life where if I told you something crazy you would be like, ‘Wait a minute,’” Hill said. “It’s an echo chamber that allows anything to go. They’re not getting healthy feedback. It builds on things that trouble them, and causes real-world problems.”

The proliferation of accelerationist terrorism through online radicalization is a challenge that law enforcement is not equipped to handle alone, she said.

“It’s going to take everyone,” Hill said. “It’s going to take parents talking to kids about how what you see on the internet could be false and horrible. And the tech community somehow trying to stop the spread of this.”

NOW READ: Incompetence and chaos as Trump 2.0 crashes and burns

This story is the first in a three-part series exploring how violent online subcultures provide the opportunity for teenagers attracted to accelerationism and inceldom to network and encourage one another to carry out terrorist attacks.

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Alternet

Social media shows Antioch shooter was influenced by Holocaust deniers, white nationalists

Antioch High School.

Jordan Greenand Raw StoryJanuary 23, 2025

The 17-year-old who killed a female student at a high school in Nashville before taking his own life was an African-American Reserve Officers' Training Corp member who hated Black people and identified as involuntarily celibate, according to a manifesto apparently posted by him online.

A document outlining the views was posted to the X account of the shooter, Solomon Henderson, along with a photo of a handgun in a backpack that appears to have been taken in a bathroom before he walked into the cafeteria at Antioch High School and opened fire around 11 a.m. Central Time. Henderson’s X account was still active, with the link at the time of publication.

In a question-and-answer section in the document, Henderson indicated the attack was motivated by “hatred” of Black people referenced through a racial slur. Europeans, according to the shooter, “need to be protected because they are conquerors, inventors and revolutionary’s [sic] thinkers.” It goes on to accuse Jews of subverting Europeans and imperiling their existence, echoing the racist Great Replacement theory.

ALSO READ: Trump's MAGA America revives a Confederate nightmare

The final page of a diary that was also posted on the shooter’s X account shows a photograph of Henderson, accompanied by the inscription: “God I am ugly. 4 hours to go.”

An entry in the position document on Henderson's opinions of Black people includes a litany of shockingly dehumanizing and ultraviolent descriptors of murder and atrocities.

Henderson credited less than a dozen internet personalities, mostly far-right influencers with radicalizing him.

The list includes Candace Owens, a Black conservative who left the Daily Wire website founded by Ben Shapiro last March following a string of increasingly antisemitic comments. In 2019, Owens testified before a House subcommittee hearing on white supremacist terrorism as a witness for the Republican minority. Owens lashed out at another witness during the hearing, saying, “The audacity of you to bring up the Christchurch shooting manifesto and make it seem as though I laughed at people that were slaughtered by a homicidal maniac is in my opinion absolutely despicable.”

Henderson wrote: “To expand on this, Candace Owens has influenced me above all. Each time she spoke I was stunned by her insights and her own views helped push me further and further into the belief of violence over the Jewish questions.”

Henderson also said he was influenced by Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist and Holocaust denier who dined with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, and Ethan Ralph, a far-right podcaster who helped stoke the Gamergate controversy, a culture war flashpoint in 2014 that proved to be a staging ground for a misogynist backlash against women’s participation in gaming and other male-dominated spaces.

Henderson describes himself as a "Groyper incel," using terms that respectively refer to Fuentes followers and the involuntary celibate, or incel, movement.

Fuentes responded to the shooting by acknowledging that Henderson called himself a 'groyper,' but distanced himself from the attack in a post on X.

The document also credits the rapper Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) with inspiring his violence and extremism.

Henderson's position document pays tribute to an array of white supremacist mass murderers, including Patrick Crusius, who carried out a massacre targeting Hispanics in El Paso, Texas, in 2019; Brenton Tarrant, who killed Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019; and Anders Breivik, who murdered young people at a youth camp in Norway in 2011.

Henderson's document expresses support for neo-Nazi ideals, which he described as "a better, neater, cleaner world by eliminating all undesirables." He added, "We must aid the Aryans regardless of our race."

Henderson’s diary indicates that he had initially planned to attack on Thursday, but decided to move it up to Wednesday because he wanted “to speed things up.” He said he was “scared of failing to kill myself and then going to jail,” and that his “goal was to kill at least 10 people.”

He wrote on X that he had saved money for a GoPro camera "but it was hard to explain to my parents why I needed it so I couldn't buy it." Henderson's X account includes a link to the streaming platform Kick.com, where three videos documenting his attack were posted. The videos have since been taken down from that site, although Henderson's X account remains active.

Henderson’s X account re-shares posts from four other accounts that promote violence, self-hatred, white supremacy and the incel movement. Some of the accounts show pictures of the users making the A-OK hand signal and writing, “Goodbye everyone.”

The similarities suggest some degree of coordination, although it is unclear whether the other account owners carried out attacks of their own.

Henderson said he had "connections" to some of the other shooters, although "only loosely via online messaging platforms."

In a section of his position document, Henderson paid tribute to what he called "new gen cases," including Natalie Rupnow, the 15-year-old girl who fatally shot two students at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, last month.

huh? rww 12 24

Finally, after the most recent school shooting, Lance Wallnau reacted by insisting that gun control is not the answer, arguing that if someone carried out a terrorist attack via a suicide vest, "you don't ban suicide vests, what you do is you ban the ideology that produces radicals." We're pretty sure that if suicide vests were readily available for sale and being regularly being used to kill masses of people, the government would ban them.

yet another mass shoot xian school 12 24

In wake of a school shooting, Newsmax's Greg Kelly condemns “a sick, lame and lazy conversation about gun control”

12/17/24 mma

December 16, 2024, edition of Newsmax's Greg Kelly Reports

GREG KELLY (HOST): All right, you probably heard about this. Another mass shooting at a school. Three dead, including the shooter. Six injured, I'm told some of those are really, really critical. Bad news, right? And what's going to happen now? What is happening right now? A sick, lame and lazy conversation about gun control.

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KELLY: Well, whatever it may look like, it's a violation of the Constitution. You want to have that conversation again? Everybody's sick of it. All right? Even the gun control advocates, I think they know deep down inside they don't know what they're talking about. Why can't we talk about psychotropic drugs? Notice it never really comes up. We have millions and millions and millions of kids on lithium, all kinds of — whatever it is.

I mean, there are all kinds of drugs, and those drugs have side effects, right? They tell us in the commercials, you know, watch out for this ideation. Watch out for that. Some of the side effects are pretty intense, really intense.

But we don't — does anybody know that this is actually when it all started? The first school mass shooting — a lot of people consider this the first school mass shooting, when Brenda Ann Spencer shot at a middle school right across the street where she lived. She was 16 years old at the time, and that might have been the first modern day school shooting. What was going on in the 80s? The pills, the pills, and more pills. This country has always been awash in guns. We're a gun culture. We are pioneers. It's not the guns. It's a lot of other things.

gun control good issue 2024 w gen z?

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rupar PN 10 24

...:{RFK Jr. having so much power is a horrifying thought, as he touches all the bases when it comes to full-fledged conspiracy-mongering.

Besides his anti-vax stance, he believes that 5G phone networks are being used for mass surveillance, that wifi causes chronic illness, that chemicals in drinking water are turning people trans, and that school shootings are increasing because kids take antidepressants.

...

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Matt Walsh calls for arming teachers in schools, saying there is no "magic button" to prevent mass shootings in schools | Media Matters for America

4 24 2 parents sent to 15 yr invol manslaughter spn kia 4 he life

Libs of TikTok creator accuses innocent person of Uvalde shooting to push anti-trans conspiracy theory | Media Matters for America

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https://www.mediamatters.org/diversity-discrimination/manosphere-influencers-are-teaming-anime-obsessed-content-creator-who

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violent misogynist and alleged human trafficker Andrew Tate is now promoting dangerous incel culture to his audience of millions.

Tate and his associates have teamed up with and are promoting an anime-obsessed content creator and misanthrope whoglorifies school shooters, pushes Holocaust denial, and promotes the hyper-sexualization of underage girls.

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Tate and his acolytes Justin Waller and “Sneako” have aligned themselves with “Waifu Watchers,” a viral content creator who appears to be obsessed with sexualizing underage cartoon anime girls. Waifu Watchers’ content promotes an incel-aligned and misogynistic ideology;the same kind of extremist rhetoric that has led to real-world violence, harassment, and is correlated with mass shootings.

This is an example of Tate and his adherents leaning into and helping to popularize violent incel culture while using Tate’s massively viral nature to push a new set of dangerous misogynistic ideas to his followers. This could be dangerous for Tate’s large fanbase, which includes susceptible kids and teens who idolize him.

In May 2022, Tate bestowed Waifu Watchers with the title of “G of the week” after he made a TikTok gloating about being legally allowed to be sexually attracted to underage anime girls because they aren’t real.

“I want you to follow this guy, Waifu Watchers. This is an official shoutout.” Tate’s co-host and brother Tristian said. “Can you follow this guy, everybody. He’s a fucking hero.”

“Hero. He ain’t taking shit,” Tate added.

Recently, Tate posted a photo of himself wearing a “Waifu Watchers” jacket standing alongside two female anime characters. Tate and the influencer have been pictured together numerous times. Waifu Watchers claimed that he stayed with Tate for a week, and that Tate gifted him cryptocurrency.

WW Tate

CitationScreenshot from Waifu Watchers' Instagram page

Tate and his adherents' decision to platform and promote an anime-obsessed misogynistic edgelord continues the pattern of far-right figures using anime and Japanese entertainment to push dubious narratives.

What is a waifu?

According to Dictionary.com, a “waifu” is “a term for a fictional character, usually in anime or related media, that someone has great, and sometimes romantic, affection for.” The term is taken from the English word for “wife.”

Some anime consumers have a “pseudo-intimate relationship” with waifus. This becomes insidious when anime watchers fixate on underage female characters as waifus, as some of these characters are drawn to be hyper-sexualized and fit coming of age stories.

Waifu Watchers promotes extremist and predatory views to his audience

Online, Waifu Watchers has promoted the sexualization of underage cartoon girls, Holocaust denial, and the glorification of school shooters.The influencer goes by “chaiinmail chase” in some of his videos.

Here’s a breakdown of the content creator’s history of pushing extremist views:

In a YouTube Shorts video, the influencer douses himself with what he pretends is the urine of an underage-looking anime girl.

In another YouTube Shorts video, the content creator celebrated the sound of a female anime character getting her finger broken and screaming.

On various occasions, Waifu Watchers has posted misogynistic content about women.

The content creator made a fake Joe Rogan interview with an anime character where she defends Hitler and promotes Holocaust denial.

During a vlog, the influencer said “I would never shoot up a school” unless it was a place that was “indoctrinating” kids into believing that three million Jews died during the Holocaust. He bleeped out the word Holocaust during the entirety of the vlog.

During the same vlog, he told his audience, “I hope you’re keeping those streets clean and those schools empty.”

The influencer sells t-shirts that glorify school shooters, rapper Ye’s (formerly Kanye West) “White Lives Matter” stunt, and convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

The content creator posted a photo of himself holding what appear to be firearms with the words “don’t log into twitter tomorrow,” appearing to refer to the phrase “don’t come to school tomorrow,” which was popularized as a meme following the Umpqua Community College shooting.

He admitted to making a fake, racist article that went viral on social media.

Some of the influencer’s YouTube content may violate the platform's terms of service against hate speech. Earlier this year, YouTube began monetizing YouTube Shorts for creators. Some of the short videos feature outright bigotry and misogyny. Tate’s own content is reportedly all over YouTube Shorts, despite being banned from the platform.

Online misogyny leads to real-world violence

Online misogyny has led to real-world violence and harassment. Incel culture and domestic violence have inspired mass shootings across the country.

Early manosphere influencers were a critical driver of Gamergate, a harassment campaign against women who worked in the video game industry that pushed violent misogyny and anti-feminism. Several women received death and rape threats for years from online harassers.

Viral influencers like Tate and Sneako promoting hateful or misogynistic content online have reminded some audiences online of the rhetoric that was used to attack women during Gamergate.

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rubber glue projection

sometimes retaliation FAILs even backfires

// tucker

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'The worst case of blackface': Matt Walsh's racist attack on Justin Pearson

Brandon Gage April 12, 2023

Right-wing Daily Wire host Matt Walsh called Tennessee State Representative Justin Pearson (D-86th District) a "gutless fraud" and accused Pearson of "doing blackface" as Nashville officials were voting to reinstate him to his office on Wednesday afternoon.

Pearson and State Representative Justin Jones (D-52nd District) – both of whom are Black – were expelled from the chamber last week by Republicans because they protested the GOP's lack of action to prevent gun violence following the deadly mass shooting at the Covenant School in late March.

A third legislator, State Representative Gloria Johnson (D-90th District), who is white, was spared. Jones was reinstated on Tuesday.

READ MORE: 'Miscarriage of justice': Metro Nashville council reappoints Justin Jones

On Easter Sunday, Pearson delivered a Resurrection-themed sermon at the Church of the River in Memphis in which he blasted his right-wing colleagues for their unprecedented assault on the democratic process.

"The Republican-led supermajority of the Tennessee assembly sought to have a political lynching of three of its members because we spoke out of turn against the status quo of the government after the tragic deaths of six people at the Covenant school in Nashville," Pearson said. "The movement for democracy lives or dies in Memphis. The movement to end gun violence lives or dies in Memphis. We’ve seen those who want to kill the movement in the Republican-led supermajority."

Pearson compared Governor Bill Lee to Pontius Pilate, the biblical Roman official who condemned Jesus Christ to crucifixion.

"Because we walked to the well of the house out of turn, resolutions were unjustly and undemocratically filed against us on these trumped-up charges," Pearson stated. "Because we spoke out against the empire of the NRA of the gun lobbyists; because we demanded an end to gun violence, an end to the proliferation of weapons on our streets, an end to the funerals we attend day after day and week after week and month after month and year after year — because we did that, the Republican-led General Assembly with the support of folks even in this district like Mark White, from our own community, thought it better to get rid of our democratic representation in District 86 than to actually solve the problem."

READ MORE: Tennessee lawmaker: 'Partisan' GOP efforts to oust him were a 'gross miscalculation'

Pearson also penned a blistering CNN editorial on Wednesday in which he admonished Republicans for their "gross miscalculation" in having him removed.

"The spectacle was a gross miscalculation by Republicans in the chamber," Pearson argued. "It turns out that most Americans care deeply about democracy. Most people care about equality and progress. And over two-thirds of Americans — including four out of 10 Republicans — support the kind of common-sense gun safety laws that Rep. Jones, Rep. Johnson and I were protesting in favor of, in the wake of the senseless March 27 Covenant School massacre."

Pearson's powerful oratory triggered a vengeful reaction from Walsh, who launched a racist attack against Pearson:

You know, he doesn't, he, he doesn't really sound like a 1960s civil rights figure, which is what he is trying to sound like and look like. Uh, he sounds like he's doing a parody of one. You know, this is, this is the worst case of blackface that we've seen since Justin Trudeau, except that Pearson's actually Black and he's still doing blackface. Nevertheless, he, he is performing and we know he is performing because now we know what he sounded like before theperformance. It's not at all a convincing performance, of course, in fact, I didn't think I'd see a performance less convincing than Bill and Mulvaney's portrayal of womanhood until Pearson came along. Pearson's really given him a run for his money. This is what the left promotes and encourages – empty performance taken to comical, almost surreal extremes. You know, they give us heroes and leaders who are cartoons. Who are hollow and paper thin, who are, it always turns out conniving, cowards, gutless frauds, and self-aggrandizing performance artists.

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: Judges axe Tennessee GOP's halving of Nashville Metropolitan Council: report

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

'Fascism, full stop': Progressives in Congress condemn expulsion of Tennessee Democrats ›

'Can’t expel truth': Ousted TN lawmaker Justin Pearson highlights hypocrisy of 'country built on a protest' ›

Democrat Justin Pearson erupts at Republicans ahead of vote to expel him from the Tennessee House ›

Background

AOL website

In 1996, 15-year-old Eric Harris created a private website on America Online (AOL).[n ^4] It was initially to host levels (WADs) Harris created for use in the first-person shooter video games Doom and Doom II, as well as Quake.^[5][6][n ^5] On the site, Harris began a blog, which included jokes and his thoughts on his family, friends and school. It also detailed Harris sneaking out of the house to cause mischief and vandalism, such as lighting fireworks, with his friend Dylan Klebold and others.

Harris worked at a fireworks stand, and had received several fireworks as a result.^[8] The mascot of Columbine High School (CHS) is the Rebels, and they called the sneaking out "Rebel Missions".^[5][9][n ^6] Harris and Klebold adopted the nicknames "Reb" and "VoDkA", respectively.^[10][11] Beginning in early 1997, the blog postings began to show the first signs of Harris's anger against society.^[9] By the end of the year, the site contained instructions on how to make explosives.^[12] Harris wrote: "the first true pipe bombs created entirely from scratch by the rebels (REB and VoDkA)... Now our only problem is to find the place that will be 'ground zero'."^[5][10]

Harris's site attracted few visitors and caused no concern until March 1998. Harris ended a blog post detailing murderous fantasies with "All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you as I can, especially a few people. Like Brooks Brown"; a classmate of his.^[13][n ^7] Brown claims that Klebold gave him the web address, in an effort to warn him of Harris's threats of violence against him.^[13] Others suggest that it was in fact discovered by Brooks' brother Aaron Brown.^[15][16]

After Brown's parents viewed the site, they contacted the Jefferson County (Jeffco) Sheriff's Office. When investigator Michael Guerra accessed the website, he discovered numerous violent threats directed against the students and teachers of CHS. Guerra wrote a draft affidavit, requesting a search warrant of the Harris household. The affidavit also mentioned the discovery of an exploded pipe bomb in February 1998 and a suspicion of Harris being involved in the unsolved case. The affidavit was never submitted to a judge and therefore, went ignored.^[17][18]

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Rationale

The shooting was planned as a terrorist attack that would cause "the most deaths in U.S. history",^[24] but the motive has never been ascertained with any degree of certainty. Soon after the massacre, it was thought Harris and Klebold targeted jocks, blacks, and Christians.^[62] Both sought to provide answers in the journals and videotapes, but investigators found them lacking. In a letter provided with the May 15 report on the Columbine attack, Sheriff John Stone and Undersheriff John A. Dunaway wrote they "cannot answer the most fundamental question—why?"^[51][129] On May 3, 1999, an issue of Newsweek was dedicated to the massacre, with the cover asking "Why?" in large print.^[150]

FBI's theory: Psychopath and depressive

The FBI concluded that the killers were victims of mental illness, that Harris was a clinical psychopath, and Klebold was depressive.^[38] Dr. Dwayne Fuselier, the supervisor in charge of the Columbine investigation, would later remark: "I believe Eric went to the school to kill and didn't care if he died, while Dylan wanted to die and didn't care if others died as well."^[151]

In April 1998 (a year before the shooting), Harris wrote a letter of apology to the owner of the van as part of his diversion program.^[36] Around the same time, he derided him in his journal, stating that he believed himself to have the right to steal something if he wanted to.^[152][153] By far the most prevalent theme in Klebold's journals is his private despair at his lack of success with women, which he refers to as an "infinite sadness."^[154][155] Klebold had repeatedly documented his desires to kill himself, and his final remark in the Basement Tapes, shortly before the attack, is a resigned statement made as he glances away from the camera: "Just know I'm going to a better place. I didn't like life too much."^[39][156]

According to this theory—used by Dave Cullen for his 2009 book Columbine— Harris had been the mastermind. He had a messianic-level superiority complex and hoped to demonstrate his superiority to the world. Klebold was a follower who primarily participated in the massacre as a means to simply end his life.^[38][157]

There have been other attempts to diagnose Harris and Klebold with mental illness. Peter Langman believes Harris was a psychopath and Klebold was schizotypal.^[158] Professor Aubrey Immelman published a personality profile of Harris, based on journal entries and personal communication, and believes the materials suggested behavior patterns consistent with a "malignant narcissism ... pathological narcissistic personality disorder with borderline and antisocial features, along with some paranoid traits, and unconstrained aggression".[n ^19]

Other factors

The FBI's theory has been met with criticism.^[46] For instance, Klebold, not Harris, was the first to mention a killing spree in his journal,^[22][160] and there is evidence to suggest that both were depressed, such as Harris being prescribed antidepressants.

Bullying

The link between bullying and school violence has attracted increasing attention since the massacre. Both of the shooters were classified as gifted children who had allegedly been victims of bullying for years. Early stories following the shootings charged that school administrators and teachers at Columbine had long condoned bullying.^[161] Critics said this could have contributed to triggering the perpetrators' extreme violence.^[162] Klebold said on the Basement Tapes, "You've been giving us shit for years."^[24]

Accounts from various parents and school staffers describe bullying at the school as "rampant."^[163] Nathan Vanderau, a friend of Klebold, and Alisa Owen, Harris's eighth-grade science partner, reported that Harris and Klebold were constantly picked on. Vanderau noted that a "cup of fecal matter" was thrown at them.^[164] Reportedly, they were regularly called "faggots".^[165]

Klebold is known to have remarked to his father of his hatred of the jocks at CHS, adding that Harris in particular had been victimized. Klebold had stated, "They sure give Eric hell."^[166] Classmate Chad Laughlin stated "A lot of the tension in the school came from the class above us...There were people fearful of walking by a table where you knew you didn't belong, stuff like that. Certain groups certainly got preferential treatment across the board." Brown also noted Harris was born with mild chest indent. This made him reluctant to take his shirt off in gym class, and other students would laugh at him.^[167]

A year after the massacre, an analysis by officials at the U.S. Secret Service of 37 premeditated school shootings found that bullying, which some of the shooters described "in terms that approached torment", played the major role in more than two-thirds of the attacks.^[168] A similar theory was expounded by Brooks Brown in his book on the massacre, No Easy Answers; he noted that teachers commonly ignored bullying and that whenever Harris and Klebold were bullied by the jocks at CHS, they would make statements such as: "Don't worry, man. It happens all the time!"^[169]

During junior year, Harris and Klebold both had been confronted by a group of students at CHS—all members of the football team—who sprayed them with ketchup and mustard while referring to them as "faggots" and "queers".^[170] According to Brown, "People surrounded them in the commons and squirted ketchup packets all over them, laughing at them, calling them faggots...That happened while teachers watched. They couldn't fight back. They wore the ketchup all day and went home covered with it." Laughlin stated "I caught the tail end of one really horrible incident, and I know Dylan told his mother that it was the worst day of his life."^[170] According to Laughlin, it involved seniors pelting Klebold with "ketchup-covered tampons" in the commons.^[171]

Dave Cullen disputes the theory of "revenge for bullying" as a motivation. While acknowledging the pervasiveness of bullying in high schools including CHS, he has claimed they were not victims of bullying. He said Harris was more often the perpetrator than victim of bullying.^[172] In a fact check published on April 19, 2019, on the eve of the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the massacre, Gillian Brockell in The Washington Post underscored that, contrary to the popular view, their attack was not revenge for being bullied.^[173]

Social isolation

During and after the initial investigations, social cliques within high schools such as the Trench Coat Mafia were widely discussed. One perception formed was that Harris and Klebold were both outcasts who had been isolated from their classmates, prompting feelings of helplessness, insecurity, and depression, as well as a strong need for power and attention.^[62][174] Harris's last journal entry reads: "I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things."^[25] "The lonely man strikes with absolute rage" wrote Klebold.^[175] In an interview, Brown described them as the school's worst outcasts, "the losers of the losers".^[176][177]

This concept has been questioned, as both Harris and Klebold had a close circle of friends and a wider informal social group.^[4][178] Cullen and Brockell both also say they were not in the Trench Coat Mafia and were not isolated outcasts or loners.^[173][179]

Political terrorism

Sociologist Ralph Larkin has theorized the massacre was to trigger a revolution of outcast students and the dispossessed; "as an overtly political act in the name of oppressed students victimized by their peers...The Columbine shootings redefined such acts not merely as revenge but as a means of protest of bullying, intimidation, social isolation, and public rituals of humiliation."^[180] One author argues Columbine was only increasingly linked to terrorism after the September 11 attacks.^[181]

On the Basement Tapes, Harris claimed they would "kick-start a revolution".^[24] Klebold wore a Soviet Union pin on his boots during the massacre.^[182]

The attack occurred on April 20 (Adolf Hitler's birthday), which led to media speculation that the attack was political.^[12] Some people, such as Robyn Anderson, stated that the pair was not obsessed with National Socialism, and they did not worship or admire Hitler in any way. In retrospect, Anderson stated that there were many things the pair did not tell friends. Harris at least did revere the Nazis and often praised them in his journal.^[33][183][n ^20] Harris was enrolled in German class.^[10]

Klebold and Harris might have originally selected April 19—the date of the Oklahoma City Bombing—as the date for the massacre, but the attack occurred on April 20.^[184][n ^21] Harris needed more ammunition from Mark Manes, for which one had to be 21 years old to get from K-Mart, and Manes did not get it for him until the evening of the 19th. Manes asked if Harris was going shooting that night. Harris replied he would tomorrow.^[10] In 2001, K-Mart announced it would no longer sell handgun ammunition.^[186]

Author Nick Turse suggested that the massacre was a revolutionary act. He wrote, "Who would not concede that terrorizing the American machine, at the very site where it exerts its most powerful influence, is a truly revolutionary task? ...(D)on't dare disregard these modern radicals as anything less than the latest incarnation of disaffected insurgents waging the ongoing American revolution."^[187]

Medication

Opponents of contemporary psychiatry like Peter Breggin claimed that the psychiatric medications prescribed to Harris may have exacerbated his aggressiveness.^[188][189] Toxicology reports confirmed that Harris had Luvox in his bloodstream at the time of the shootings.^[190] Klebold had no medications in his system.^[191]

Also as a part of diversion, Harris began therapy with a psychologist and a psychiatrist. Harris continued his scheduled meetings with his psychologist until a few months before the massacre. In one scheduled meeting with his appointed psychiatrist, Harris had complained of depression, anger, and suicidal thoughts. He was prescribed the antidepressant Zoloft. He complained of feeling restless and having trouble concentrating; his doctor switched him to Luvox, a similar selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI).^[192][193]

Harris also wanted to join the United States Marine Corps. His application to the Marines was rejected shortly before the shootings because he had taken Luvox.^[10][194] According to the recruiting officer, Harris did not know about this rejection, but Brooks Brown said that he did.^[195]

Music

Blame for the shootings was also directed at other metal or 'dark music' bands.^[62][196]

Marilyn Manson

Main article: Marilyn Manson–Columbine High School massacre controversy

I think there's something going on that you can't see from the outside ... his whole thing is part of a drug-cultural type of thing, with a subculture of violence and killing and hatred, and anti-family values, anti-traditional values, anti-authority ... We're having an alarming rate of killings in schools, and youth violence and an increase in drugs. I would say that though they're not all to be blamed on a shock entertainer like Marilyn Manson, I think he promotes it and can be part of the blame.

—Michigan State Senator Dale Shugars' concerns on the influence of Marilyn Manson on his teenage fans.^[197]

In the late 1990s, Marilyn Manson and his eponymous band established themselves as a household name,^[198] and as one of the most controversial rock acts in music history.^[199] Their two album releases prior to the massacre were both critical and commercial successes,^[200] and by the time of their Rock Is Dead Tour in 1999, the frontman had become a culture war iconoclast and a rallying icon for alienated youth.^[201] As their popularity increased, the confrontational nature of the group's music and imagery outraged social conservatives.^[202] Numerous politicians lobbied to have their performances banned,^[201] citing false and exaggerated claims that they contained animal sacrifices, bestiality and rape.^[203] Their concerts were routinely picketed by religious advocates and parent groups, who asserted that their music had a corrupting influence on youth culture by inciting "rape, murder, blasphemy and suicide".^[202]

Immediately after the massacre, a majority of blame was directed at the band and, specifically, at its outspoken frontman.^[204][205] In the weeks following the shootings, media reports about Harris and Klebold portrayed them and the Trench Coat Mafia as part of a gothic cult.^[62][206] Early media reports alleged that the shooters were fans, and were wearing the group's T-shirts during the massacre.^[46][207] Although these claims were later proven to be false,^[208] news outlets continued to run sensationalist stories with headlines such as "Killers Worshipped Rock Freak Manson" and "Devil-Worshipping Maniac Told Kids To Kill."^[209][210] Speculation in national media and among the public led many to believe that Manson's music and imagery were the shooter's sole motivation,^[211][209] despite reports that revealed that the two were not big fans.^[212][213]

Despite this, Marilyn Manson were widely criticized by religious,^[214] political,^[215] and entertainment-industry figures.^[216] Under mounting pressure in the days after Columbine, the group postponed their last five North American tour dates out of respect for the victims and their families.^{[217][218][219]} On April 29, ten US senators (led by Sam Brownback of Kansas) sent a letter to Edgar Bronfman Jr. – the president of Seagram (the owner of Interscope) – requesting a voluntary halt to his company's distribution to children of "music that glorifies violence". The letter named Marilyn Manson for producing songs which "eerily reflect" the actions of Harris and Klebold.^[220] Later that day, the band cancelled their remaining North American shows.^[221] Two days later, Manson published his response to these accusations in an op-ed piece for Rolling Stone, titled "Columbine: Whose Fault Is It?", where he castigated America's gun culture, the political influence of the National Rifle Association, and the media's irresponsible coverage, which he said facilitated the placing of blame on a scapegoat, instead of debating more relevant societal issues.^[222]

On May 4, a hearing on the marketing and distribution of violent content to minors by the television, music, film and video-game industries was held by the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. The committee heard testimony from former Secretary of Education (and co-founder of conservative violent entertainment watchdog group Empower America) William Bennett, the Archbishop of Denver Charles J. Chaput, professors and mental-health professionals. Speakers criticized the band and its label-mate Nine Inch Nails for their alleged contribution to a cultural environment enabling violence such as the Columbine shootings.^[223] The committee requested that the Federal Trade Commission and the United States Department of Justice investigate the entertainment industry's marketing practices to minors.^[223][224] After concluding the European and Japanese legs of their tour on August 8, the band withdrew from public view to work on their next album, 2000's Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) as an artistic rebuttal to the allegations leveled against them.^{[46][209][225]} Manson appeared on an April 2001 episode of The O'Reilly Factor, where he once again denied that the band's music was responsible for Columbine. Bill O'Reilly argued that "disturbed kids" without direction from responsible parents could misinterpret the message of his music as endorsing the belief that "when I'm dead [then] everybody's going to know me." Manson responded:

Well, I think that's a very valid point and I think that it's a reflection of, not necessarily this programme but of television in general, that if you die and enough people are watching you become a martyr, you become a hero, you become well known. So when you have these things like Columbine, and you have these kids who are angry and they have something to say and no one's listening, the media sends a message that says if you do something loud enough and it gets our attention then you will be famous for it. Those kids ended up on the cover of Time magazine twice, the media gave them exactly what they wanted. That's why I never did any interviews around that time when I was being blamed for it because I didn't want to contribute to something that I found to be reprehensible.^[226]

During the supporting tour for Holy Wood, Manson appeared in Michael Moore's 2002 documentary, Bowling for Columbine; his appearance was filmed during the band's first show in Denver since the shooting. When Moore asked Manson what he would have said to the students at Columbine he replied, "I wouldn't say a single word to them. I would listen to what they have to say and that's what no one did."^[227]

KMFDM and Rammstein

Harris and Klebold were both fans of the German rock bands KMFDM and Rammstein.^[10] Harris's website contained lyrics from both artists, such as KMFDM's "Son of a Gun", "Stray Bullet", and "Waste", as well as translations for the songs done in German.^{[12][228][229]} In the same blog post which threatened Brown, Harris wrote: "I'll just go to some downtown area...and blow up and shoot everything I can. Feel no remorse, no sense of shame." The last sentence is a quote from the KMFDM song "Anarchy". As above, Klebold wrote in Harris's yearbook "My wrath for January's incident will be godlike,"^[23] and he wore a shirt saying "Wrath" during the massacre. "Wrath" and "Godlike" are songs by KMFDM. On April 20, 1999 KMFDM released the album Adios. Harris noted the coincidence of the album's title and release date in his journal "a subliminal final "Adios" tribute to Reb and Vodka. Thanks, KMFDM... I ripped the hell outa [sic] the system".^[230][231] He quotes Godlike. KMFDM's frontman Sascha Konietzko responded to the controversy with a statement:

First and foremost, KMFDM would like to express their deep and heartfelt sympathy for the parents, families and friends of the murdered and injured children in Littleton. We are sick and appalled, as is the rest of the nation, by what took place in Colorado yesterday. KMFDM are an art form—not a political party. From the beginning, our music has been a statement against war, oppression, fascism and violence against others. While some of the former band members are German as reported in the media, none of us condone any Nazi beliefs whatsoever.^{[196][232][233]}

Film

They are able to hook into the Internet and play video games that are extraordinarily violent, that cause the blood pressure to rise and the adrenaline level to go up, games that cause people to be killed and the players to die themselves. It is a very intense experience. They are able to get into Internet chat rooms and, if there are no nuts or people of the same mentality in their hometown, hook up with people around the country. They are able to rent from the video store—not just go down and see Natural Born Killers or The Basketball Diaries—but they are able to bring it home and watch it repeatedly. In this case, even maybe make their own violent film. Many have said this murder was very much akin to The Basketball Diaries, in which a student goes in and shoots others in the classroom. I have seen a video of that, and many others may have.

In music, there is Marilyn Manson, an individual who chooses the name of a mass murderer as part of his name. The lyrics of his music are consistent with his choice of name. They are violent and nihilistic, and there are groups all over the world who do this, some German groups and others. I guess what I am saying is, a person already troubled in this modern high-tech world can be in their car and hear the music, they can be in their room and see the video, they can go into the chat rooms and act out these video games and even take it to real life. Something there is very much of a problem.

—Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Youth Violence Senator Jeff Sessions testifying before the Senate on the Columbine tragedy, 1999.^[234][235]

Parents of some of the victims filed several unsuccessful lawsuits against film companies, over films such as The Basketball Diaries, which includes a dream sequence with a student shooting his classmates in a trench coat.^[236] In the Basement Tapes, they debate on whether or not Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino are appropriate choices to direct films about the massacre.^[24] Their home videos also show inspiration taken from Pulp Fiction.^[11] Both were fans of the film Lost Highway.^[237] Apocalypse Now was found in Harris's VCR.^[238]

Natural Born Killers

They were avid fans of the movie Natural Born Killers, and used the film's acronym, NBK, as a code for the massacre.^[22] In February 1998, Klebold envisioned a massacre with a girl like in the film, writing "Soon...either ill commit suicide, or I'll get w. [redacted girl's name] & it will be NBK for us."^[239] In April 1998, Harris wrote "When I go NBK and people say things like "oh it was tragic" or "oh he is crazy!" or "It was so bloody." I think, so the fuck what you think that's a bad thing?"^[240] In Harris's yearbook Klebold wrote "the holy April morning of NBK".^[23] Around February 1999, he wrote "maybe going "NBK" (gawd) w. eric is the way to break free."^[241] In Harris's last journal entry, he wrote "Everything I see and I hear I incorporate into NBK somehow...feels like a Goddamn movie sometimes."^[25]

Video games

Violent video games were also blamed.^{[62][242][243]} Parents of some of the victims filed several unsuccessful lawsuits against video game manufacturers.^[236][244] Jerald Block believes their immersion in a virtual world best explains the massacre.^[22]

Harris and Klebold were both fans of shooter video games such as Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D and Postal.^{[6][245][246]} Harris wrote the massacre will "be like the LA riots, the Oklahoma bombing, WWII, Vietnam, Duke and Doom all mixed together."^[18] In his last journal entry, Harris wished to "Get a few extra frags on the scoreboard."^[25]

Doom

They were avid fans of Doom especially.^[47][247] Harris said of the massacre, "It's going to be like fucking Doom."^[24][248] He also wrote "I must not be sidetracked by my feelings of sympathy...so I will force myself to believe that everyone is just another monster from Doom."^[249] In Harris's yearbook, Klebold wrote "I find a similarity between people and Doom zombies".^[23]

Harris named his shotgun Arlene after a character in the Doom* novels.^{[24][250][251]} Harris said the shotgun was "straight out of *Doom".^[24][248] The TEC-9 Klebold used resembled an AB-10, a weapon from the Doom novels that Harris referenced several times.^{[45][250][252]}

After the massacre, rumors circulated that Harris created Doom levels resembling CHS, but the alleged levels were never found.^[7][253] Harris spent a great deal of time creating a large WAD, named Tier (the German for "animal", and a song by Rammstein), calling it his "life's work."^{[254][better source needed]} The WAD was uploaded to the Columbine school computer and to AOL shortly before the attack, but appears to have been lost.^[22]

Perpetrators

Main article: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold

Eric Harris

Eric David Harris (April 9, 1981 – April 20, 1999) was born in Wichita, Kansas. The Harris family relocated often, as Harris's father was a U.S. Air Force transport pilot. His mother was a homemaker. The family moved from Plattsburgh, New York, to Littleton, Colorado, in July 1993, when his father retired from military service.^[255]

The Harris family lived in rented accommodations for the first three years that they lived in the Littleton area. During this time, he attended Ken Caryl Middle School, and Harris met Klebold.^[10] In 1996, the Harris family purchased a house south of CHS. His older brother attended college at the University of Colorado Boulder.^[18][256]

Dylan Klebold

Dylan Bennet Klebold (/ˈkliːboʊld/; September 11, 1981 – April 20, 1999) was born in Lakewood, Colorado.^[255] His parents were pacifists and attended a Lutheran church with their children. Both Dylan and his older brother attended confirmation classes in accordance with the Lutheran tradition.^[257] As had been the case with his older brother, Klebold was named after a renowned poet – in his case the playwright Dylan Thomas.^[55]

At the family home, the Klebolds also observed some rituals in keeping with Klebold's maternal grandfather's Jewish heritage.^[257][258] Klebold attended Normandy Elementary in Littleton, Colorado for the first two grades before transferring to Governor's Ranch Elementary and became part of the CHIPS ("Challenging High Intellectual Potential Students") program.^[259] He found the transition to Ken Caryl Middle School difficult.^[255]

Unlike the white caps of the jocks, Harris and Klebold wore black baseball caps. As was typical in the 1990s, they wore them backwards. Harris wore a KMFDM cap, and apparently did not wear it during the massacre.^[89] Klebold's cap had a Colorado Avalanche logo on the front and a Boston Red Sox logo sewn onto the back.^[260]

Legacy

Main article: Columbine effect

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It was the fourth school shooting in Colorado since the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999, the Denver Post reported.

March For Our Lives, which was formed in the wake of the Parkland, Florida mass shooting last year, demanded an end to such violent acts. The group said people must not to “grow numb” to the tragedies and urged political leadership tackle the gun violence epidemic.

The group made the calls in a Twitter thread that included video from local Denver7 News of young STEM students boarding a bus outside the school....

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