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September 14, 2006

904: Nota Bene

We can all agree that Kimveer Gill was a highly disturbed kid, but can we also agree that his pseudo Goth-ness was not the cause of his actions nor a direct signifier of his mental instability?

(Sure, he had really awful taste but that's not the issue.)

No one listens to music to feel suicidal or alone. People listen to music because it makes them feel connected to something outside of their own immediate world, and for a teenager that may hold special meaning. Kimveer imagined himself as part of a "Goth" subculture, and for him that provided some amount of self-definition and, perhaps indirectly, connection to other people. What's "vampirefreaks" if not a social networking site? He didn't harm anyone or himself because he listened to Marilyn Manson or watched a lot of wrestling -- he behaved violently because he felt irrelevant and disconnected from society in a profound and disturbing way.

There's plenty of kids in the world who listen to the same crap and still manage to be productive, positive members of society. If anything, music is a harmless way of venting teenage angst and frustration; the only tragedy in most of these cases is that some kid's hard-earned cash is going towards Hot Topic raver pants when it could be used for something of actual value. Besides, Marilyn Manson is probably a better role model than, say, a lot of other MTV fixtures -- at least in theory.

I'd put a check-mark next to the guy whose ambition (whether the quality of his work is poor, or whether he succeeds in actually achieving this goal in any meaningful way) it is to engage a teenage fan's mind with issues about sexuality, politics, ethics rather than the guy whose work seems content to question nothing but whether other people sufficiently respect his gang posturing and his sudden wealth. Am I alone in that respect?

This kid didn't kill anyone because he listened to Manson. He listened to Manson because he wanted to belong to something, and he was looking for some sort of meaningful relationship with society. I don't know what his situation at home happened to be, or why no one noticed his need for help sooner, but listening to Manson isn't a cry for help in its own right. (Well, maybe a cry for a Ministry album, but whatever.) There were obviously signs along the way, independent of his music-listening habits, indicating that this particular Manson fan needed attention. These things don't come from out of nowhere, nor are they necessarily indicated by a penchant for Mall Goth crap. Unhappy people come from all kinds of cliques.

And for the curious... here's the cached version of his "vampirefreaks" profile.

Edited to add:

On a related note, here's a previous blog entry on my fondness for Manson's brain (not so much for his music

And, yes, it occurs to me that one day I'll be responsible for the care of a little human being -- and that no matter how supportive I am of any desire for that little human to walk through life a little left of center, that human will probably grow up and be a completely normal, hetero, sports-loving, Abercrombie-wearing, popular kid with no cares in the world... even if he is named Danzig.

Edited, again, to add: I didn't post the link to his cached profile to encourage any abuse. If you look through the picture gallery, you'll see that prior to the website's apparent deletion of it, this particular profile was receiving a lot of abusive comments. I'm not sure why anyone feels compelled to act out in this way, but I think it's fair to say that if you hate this kid so much for what he's done (regardless of the fact that it seems likely most of these abusive posters didn't personally know him), you're giving him just what he seemed to be wanting -- infamy, attention, contept to justify his own feelings of worthlessness.

Posted by ashley at September 14, 2006 12:25 PM

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