High School 1 "We want to be different," wrote one of the Colorado killers in a diary found by the police. "We want to be strange and we don't want jocks or other people putting us down." He continued, "It sucks being white, rich, and privileged. I live in a $400,000 house in the suburbs and drive a BMW. My trench coat cost over $200. Two hundred dollars and those jocks still make fun of me! That wasn't a cheap trench coat. I don't know why they keep making fun of me. I don't know why they make fun of the other people in my group, either. We just got together to hang out because we're loners. We're all different, and I want to be different just like them. I hate conformity. I think I'm going to join the military and be a Marine. I hate the jocks. They're all losers. I wish they'd stop stereotyping us. I wish they'd accept us how we are, although they won't because they're all steroid-abusing, no-neck morons. The jocks think they're better than us, but we're better than them. We just want to be left alone. That's why we wear trench coats, even when it gets warm, so the jocks know exactly which people to leave alone. And that's why we write violent stories, wear make-up, and dress in black. We just don't want to be the centers of attention in this lily white, God-fearing town. We wish people would forget that we exist. So, we're going to take over the school and kill people. Then no one will ever talk shit about us again! KMFDM RULEZ!! I'm a MONOLITHIC JUGGERNAUT!!!! When I start shooting those jocks, I'm gonna say, "SHUT UP, IT'S JUST A FLESH WOUND!" Isn't that funny? Isn't it dark and mean? I made it up myself. Someone told me I stole that from Monty Python, but he's just an asshole! He doesn't think I'm cool enough to make up a tough quote on my own! He is going to be one of the first to go! And so is his juke joint jezebel girlfriend! Hahahahaha!!!!!! Juke Joint Jezebel! That was good! I'm so clever!" White kids today. You've got to hate them. But not everyone does. Overlooking the shooters' trite nature, sympathy for them is abundant on the Web. Former high school losers (one would have to be a loser to identity with them) are crawling out of the woodwork, and expressing their support for what could have been the worst school massacre in United States history: "Well, it just shouldn't surprise anyone that some kids are reaching the breaking point, and deciding someone better pay. Good." "The hate just eats you up, like the molten metal moving up Keanu Reeve's arm in the 'The Matrix.'" "To be honest, I sympathized much more with the shooters than the shootees. I am them. They are me."
High School 2 "Yeah, I've had some fantasies about taking out some of these jerks who run the school, have parties, get on teams, are adored by teachers, have all these friends …" Where the hell do you people go to school? You think "life is shit" because the athletes laugh when you paint your acne-scarred skin with blood red lipstick and black as night eyeliner? You have fantasies about "taking them out" because their lives revolve around fingering the cheerleaders in movie theaters while you're at home? You're jealous because they're adored by teachers for doing little more than patting each other's asses and tossing the pigskin? Suck it up, you fucking pansies. I would have made fun of you in high school, too. The only person who might love and accept you no matter what is your mother. Life is harsh, and there are always going to be people with undeserved success and adulation. If they're not worth hanging out with, why are they worth killing? You wouldn't help them in a time of need, but you'd go to jail or commit suicide to show them exactly how worthless you think they are? You don't want them as friends, but you'll accept them as victims? Why would you want any connection to them? Because, deep down, you wish you were a part of their group. These shootings are symptomatic of a society that finds elitism repugnant. I accept that there are myriad people better than I am, and I realize I am better than others. Equality does not exist, and if you can't hack it, you deserve the ridicule. Public schools and parents are indoctrinating children with the notion that, somehow, they are "special," and when their inflated egos clash with the stark reality of brutal high school life, shit happens. They haven't been told life is not fair, or that things will not always go their way. They are alternately coddled and ignored by parents, government, and school systems. Their egos and self-esteem are built up to tremendous levels, and when life knocks them down, no one is there to pick up the pieces. Not until an act of extreme violence shakes up their world does authority take note of the hell they have wrought upon their "precious" children, and when it does, they rarely take the blame. When school violence spreads to a town lacking oxygen and melanin, it becomes an epidemic. Their kids wouldn't do that, and when they do, there's something wrong with our culture, and the news media must devote endless hours of programming to unravel the mystery. It takes a village to rear their kids, but the rest of us are on our own. And their kids are boring gits. Wholly unoriginal.
High School 3 Black trench coats? Marilyn Manson? Nazi propaganda? Writing in all caps on a Web page? Using the personal quote: "It's fun being schizophrenic?" Copying KMFDM lyrics? How obtuse can one be? Even in death, those kids were clichés. All black clothing. Piss poor planning. Done-todeath one-liners. When the fuck is someone going to shoot up his school wearing a bunny costume and singing Beethoven's "Ode to Joy"? But the funerals – the funerals were black comedy at its best. Cassie Bernall died "confessing her faith," and she was given a Christian soldier's funeral: "This is a graduation ceremony for Cassie," said the Rev. George Kirsten, pastor of the church. "Cassie went to a martyr's death, and we're going to celebrate that because she's in the martyr's hall of fame." Youth minister Dave McPherson called the service a wedding. Christ is the groom and "on the 20th he returned for Cassie." "So why do we cry? Because we weren't invited to the wedding. It took place in heaven," McPherson said. A wedding with Christ as the groom? Maybe Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were on to something.