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I hate people who are "fascinated" by serial killers. They are just emotionally stunted morons who get off to violating the social contract. There is nothing special about them.
I am fascinated by what causes a person to become that way. But I agree, I once read up on Manson cause you hear so much about him. Manson was a moron and a jackass, just a complete waste of a person, an utter loser, yet people talk about him like he's a genius. He's honestly so ordinary and unimpressive.
Yeah that's what I mean, whenever I get to know the personality of a serial killer they are not that different than all the narcissists I met throughout my life. Socially aloof, spiteful, childishly manipulative, ill tempered, and emotionally stunted. The only difference is that serial killers kill people, which to me all that indicates is that the person is missing some sort of social intelligence. So when I say they are not that special I'm saying that they are just your run of the mill narcissist who are extra stunted. All the same flavor of shitty human.
Killing people as an indicator of missing social intelligence might be my favorite understatement
Lol you're welcome. I say that because most of the time these people think they are more intelligent because they are not bound by social norms and so they see themselves as superior predators to exploit the fools who follow the system. But in reality they are just incapable of forming connections with human beings and don't understand the social landscape that well, or dont understand why social structures exist in the first place even if some norms are silly. Most humans are capable of murder, we just aren't dumb.
Well, it's kinda taboo and not everyone is sensitive to those social rules.
Unwritten rules, explicit laws, socializing is hard, okay?
What causes a person to become a serial killer is brain damage, nothing more complicated than that.
It can be an issue during embryological development, the result of physical injury, or the result of extreme psychological distress. But at the end of the day, it's just brain damage.
I don't think it's unreasonable to be interested in people who act in really unusual ways that cause problems; exceptions are interesting, and threats to your survival are interesting. What bothers me is more the mystique and cool factor that gets applied to them. Interest is warranted, respect isn't.
Yeah my issue is that it often comes packed together. I go to these serial killer documentaries and I see comments praising the serial killers intellect or something stupid. And to your point, it's the mysticism that bothers me the most, these people are not that different than that shitty narcissist you personally know and hate, its just that they took up killing as a hobby. And here is my point, killing doesn't make them special, most people are capable of killing and governments normalize it all the time. It's shocking to us, sure, but for me it's no different than the narcissist that spends time screwing over people in other ways. In my eyes it's the same basic psychological mechanism at play.
i myself find specifically unsufferable the people who describes them as those like unstoppable force of nature like they are some apex predatores, a tough fighter.
My brother in christ, the overarching tendency of all the victims of serial killer is that they tend to be small framed women and fucking children. They always take the easiest victims in the whole area
Even if it did make them "special" in the sense of unusual, it wouldn't matter. Worst hobby.
Yeah, they should take up cross-stiching or something, at least they still get to stab something.
I’m still waiting for a good corollary to movies like American Psycho, that instead of playing up any awesome feeling of these tilted psychos, exposes how pathetic and illogical they are.
No Country for Old Men came close when the woman rejected the coin toss.
Except that was the whole point of American Psycho. People miss the subtext (not that it's subtle) and think it's about glorifying Patrick Bateman, but the whole point is that he's pathetic and overestimates his own importance on every possible level.
I agree that people that see obviously evil protagonists as antiheros need to be given a reality check, but American Psycho is a weird film to use as an example of "glorifying psychos." Joker would have been a better example, IMHO.
I agree. I think that filmmakers should have an understanding of how their work may be interpreted. American Psycho is a great example.
My go to examples are Fight Club, in which the protagonist is seen as a hero, and American History X, which is seen by the white power community as a justification of their viewpoint. In the former case, the misinterpretation is possibly more common than the intended portrayal of mental illness. In the latter case, it’s more of a phenomenon restricted to the already converted. The film Wall Street is another one.
I’m really on the fence about this. On the one hand, I love and respect art and how it reflects society. On the other hand, if A Modest Proposal actually resulted in people eating Irish babies, that would have been horrible.
Where’s the dividing line between something like that and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Is it the intent of the author, or is it the consequences of the publication? If Fight Club resulted in an increase in misogyny and inceldom, does the creator bear some responsibility? I find that the fanbase spoils a movie like Fight Club for me, at least a bit. AHX, though, is so blatant in its message that I find it hard to reject.
I actually agree with you, and yet I still see so much merchandising and celebration around Patrick Bateman. I think visually, they didn’t quite land that impact they wanted on audience impressions.
Kind of like how Pyramid Head has somehow outlived his role as James Sunderland’s fractured psyche for the sake of stardom.
For me it's ironic and a funny joke, but I see how people are actually real about it.
I’d say Joker was sympathizing more than glorifying.
To-may-to, to-mah-to
Javier Bardem's role as Anton Chigurh is often cited as the best portrayal of as the most realistic move psychopathic killer in films. The extremely uncaring way Chigurh is shown is one of the defining features. Along with how he has no need for validation, he never does anything he doesn't have to and never lets anything distract him be it pretty girls or injury.
One of my favorite serial killer movies is Serial Mom.
I love how it’s all goofy except for one moment in the movie where it’s serious and horrifying, then goes back to goofy.
I am rather disturbed by people who are serial killer stans. I think that's the kind of people you're talking about.
And horrified by serial killers. But I am interested in understanding what factors create them and why they do what they do.
There is something special only in the sense that few people become so horrifically violent. But, obviously, they are severely fucked up monsters.
I primarily engage with the world by trying to understand as much as I can about how things work. For me, understanding and knowledge eliminate fear.
I wouldn’t say they are part of the social contract in the first place. I don’t think they are like a regular person who gets naughty feelings when they do something bad, like running a red light at a dead intersection at 3:00 am. They just don’t think like regular people at all, so to place the same motives onto them as normal people is kind of missing the point. They don’t even see the social contract, and don’t have awareness that they are violating it.
In a lot of interviews with these people they mention about how others are 'weak' or 'bound by social rules' or something along those lines, and flaunting these taboos is what make them feel special or 'superior' because their minds are free. It's always some variation of that. They know the social contract is there and they actively violate it. I've met plenty of people in real life that think like this (criminals), they think people are suckers, fools, or sheep and they deserve to be exploited.
Right, to them there is no social contract. They recognize us normal people have & adhere to a social contract, but for them the social contract is like God to an atheist. Nonexistent, fabricated, an illusion, a delusion, etc.
I like that analogy
I was friends with a psychopath for a long time (ended the friendship when I finally admitted to myself what he was).
This definitely matches how he saw himself. Big time self identity as having transcended the social contract. But also, not in any way ignorant of the social contract. Understands it better than most people actually, made a serious study of history, philosophy, and sociology when he was still struggling with his own psychopathy.
He tried really hard to find a reason to be good.
A friend of his died in suspicious circumstances, and it matched an “idle thought”/what-if scenario he used to talk to me about. I suspect he killed that guy, and my gut tells me he hasn’t stopped.
Hopefully you've tipped off the cops
He’s extremely powerful, and I have nothing to back it up with.
I honestly hadn’t considered it, and I will do that consideration seriously.
If you're serious and you really think that my be the case, might want to contact the detective on the case or try to get one opened.
The ability to get away with it is special.
Not really, I could easily murder 10 people in a year and get away with it.
I don’t believe you
Watch me