Copycat Coping

Two days after another school shooting, this time at Virginia Tech, some of the dust has settled. The media has started to move on and certain concerns have begun to wane. One of the most involving topics regarding this incident is that of the "Copycat Effect".

The Copycat Effect is something that I personally think is just hype on a more generic concept: "branding". I don't know anyone who best described this as well as coined the concept than Ze Frank.

"A brand is an emotional aftertaste that's conjured up by, but not necessarily dependent on, a series of experiences. ... everything's a potential brand!"

Once a high profile event occurs, it's inevitable that someone will want to become a part of that "emotional aftertaste". We try to brand ourselves even if it's only temporary and not always do we brand ourselves deliberately. We tend to brand ourselves with a high profile event to give ourselves greater meaning than ... well ... than what meaning we usually give ourselves. The more insecure a person is with his or her identity, the greater that person will brand him or herself to any event, no matter how small. Those who are more secure tend to brand themselves through empathy rather than association.

This is why I find nerds not only tie themselves emotionally to Star Wars and Star Trek, but they actually associate their lives so much with these programs it becomes some type of religious philosophy. The matrix did the same thing, only because of it's layers of abstracted eastern doctrine the general public felt the "Neo-Zionists" were elite by incorporating lines in the movie as life lessons.

I remember after a friend committed suicide that suddenly people she hated and who had obviously reciprocated the emotion started calling her a "dear friend". After school séances became the popular past time. This was not for the merit of trying to find inner peace, but for bragging rights. Something along the lines of "We could summon [her] from the dead, what could you do?" It was a macabre form of typical arrogant gossiping. Like gossip it made them feel elite because they were part of a circle of events larger than themselves.

That model is the entire benefit of motion picture franchise. You show someone an involving film and try to make a strong emotional aftertaste. After the movie, they'll want to savor that aftertaste longer by buying your junk. This is true even if it's a crappy horror movie. Remember all the "Blair-Witch Project" paraphernalia in the stores?

Emotion is one of the defining properties of sentient life. What would you rather live with? A dry Vulcan life or an emotional yet defining life? Our dull, busy, industrial, unemotional, hurried lifestyles (in America at least) have distanced us from one of the most important definitions of "self". We have become the "Tin Man", devoid of understanding that we have an emotion that needs to be nurtured.

By pushing a fresh thought or emotion into someone who lives an otherwise dry life, we feel energized and in some respect hold onto that emotion with all of our being.

Sadly, that becomes all the more evident during devastating events such as school shootings. People are hurt and angry and filled with so much more emotion that they've ever had that they don't know how to deal with it. The result is usually to absolve to guilt that they have no involvement in, such as false confessions, or to become active in the crime itself, such as calling in bomb threats.

After the hanging of Saddam Hussein, at least 8 people (some children) died while repeating the act on themselves.

Perhaps this act of hatred on the Virginia Tech campus is only appropriate for this time of year. Yom Hashoah, the day of Holocaust Remembrance was just the day before on Sun April 15th (27th day of Nisan). April 1933 is when Hitler began aggressively persecuting the Jews. April 15th is also the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. The anniversary of the Columbine shooting is only 4 days later on April 20. A Google search of "april massacre" reveals other grisly historic events. With such a harsh history during this period of April, I have to ask myself if there's some horrible imbalance that has to be set out, like sending the scape goats to Lilith to suffer terribly as some type of otherworldly atonement.

We all try to wrap our brains around these events, the school massacres and wars, but it's just too big for us to do that with. Even though I am distinctly separated from the Virginia Tech event itself, I'm tied to it; it's a battle within me that finds an odd necessity to relate with it just to reel in the great questions of life: why are we here? what is life good for? what does this all mean? how do I fit in to the big picture? how important is this blog - really?

It's our natural tendency to associate ourselves; It's part of our ego and helps us define who we are.