The kids are doing it for the fame. Media has made fame the ultimate validation. And at that age, didn't we all desperately seek validation?
I heard this years ago in a discussion group in Santa Fe and thought it was a stretch. To blame mass shootings on the media seemed a bit like someone had passed the peace pipe one-too-many times.
But as I watch the news coverage and instant fame that comes to the troubled teens who commit these crimes, I can see why the copycat strategy has taken hold. We are rewarding their actions with the validation of fame.
My teenage niece would agree that I show my 43 years when I complain that she shares too much on social media. But to her, and most of her generation, I suspect, the number of likes for a social-media post often lays their next day's course of action.
In a recent press release from psychiatrists at Western New Mexico University, they call this the "media contagion effect".
"Recent analyses of media coverage followed by copycat incidents indicate a media contagion effect," report Jennifer Johnston, Ph.D. and Andrew Joy in "Mass Shootings and the Media Contagion Effect".
The report goes on to say "Most shooters desired fame and wished to emulate a previous mass shooter... Rampage shooters, who are almost all white men in early adulthood seek power and dominance that they perceive is their right, but perceive they are being denied, for various reasons, by society."
In this40-page report, strong evidence is presented to make the argument that "identification with prior mass shooters made famous by extensive media coverage, including names, faces, writings, and detailed accounts of their lives and backgrounds, is a more powerful push toward violence than mental health status or even access to guns."
We are hearing the discussion on gun control gain media attention, particularly involving assault weapons' accessibility. But if these doctors are right, we would be better-served to lose media attention on the shooters, themselves.
That would never happen from a legislative directive. Media outlets would be screaming the first amendment as loudly as the gun lobby is screaming the second. It would only work as a code-of-ethics paradigm shift adopted collectively by mainstream media to report the crimes but limit the attention on the criminal. A Gentlemen's Agreement among journalists, if you will.
Enter your own joke here about the likelihood of finding a gentleman.
Zeynep Tufekci, a UNC psychologist and columnist who writes about the intersection of technology, culture, and politics for the New York Times, has also been covering the media's contribution to the copycat shootings for a while. "This particular type of mass murderer is killing for the infamy," he said in recent tweet.
If I learned one thing in eighteen years of living in Nashville and eighteen months of living in Los Angeles, it was that people will do anything in the pursuit of getting famous. That has probably always been the case. What has changed is the role media plays in our lives – perhaps even the sheer volume of it. And to an eighteen-year old, this is the only way they have known it to be.
This most recent young man in Florida sought attention at school and was rejected, he sought attention on social media and was ignored. Was he seeking that same attention with his actions last week? Did we give it to him? Are we contributing to the delinquency of their delusions of fame?
-This article originally ran in The Henderson Dispatch.