Just before he went on a shooting rampage just off the campus of Santa Barbara City College on Friday, Elliot Rodger created more than enough digital clues to make his motive quite clear.
After shooting six people dead and putting seven others in the hospital during his drive-by rampage through Santa Barbara, Rodger, 22, killed himself. Fortunately for investigators, he’d just written an in-depth essay — sub-heads and all — to fully detail his angst. To ensure the point was made, he recorded a video called “Elliot Rodger’s Retribution” from the driver’s seat of his BMW just before flipping out completely. The video was posted all weekend on YouTube until the site took it down.
At the very end, after removing a $300 pair of sunglasses , according to Forbes , foremost on poor Rodger’s mind was this frustration for still being a virgin who’d never been kissed . According to the Daily Kos , Rodger said:
“‘It’s not fair. You girls have never been attracted to me. I don’t know why you girls have never been attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it. It’s an injustice, a crime, because I don’t know what you don’t see in me. I’m the perfect guy, and yet you throw yourselves at all these obnoxious men, instead of me, the supreme gentleman. I will punish all of you for it,’ he says, giving a completely rehearsed-sounding laugh.”
Rodger continued:
“On the day of retribution I will enter the hottest sorority house of [University of California-Santa Barbara], and I will slaughter every single spoiled stuck-up blonde sl*t I see inside there. All those girls that I’ve desired so much, they would have all rejected me and looked down upon me as an inferior man if I ever made a sexual advance towards them. While they throw themselves at these obnoxious brutes. I’ll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you. You will finally see that I am in truth the superior one. The true Alpha Male.”
Based on this and other recent internet expressions from Rodger — which included postings on a body-building forum and a handful of men’s rights movement websites — Daily Kos writer Ollie Garkey just pointed the finger of blame at the entire men’s rights “movement.” Garkey believes the members of this burgeoning online menace are “attempting to create a movement based around their hatred, disdain, and fear of women.” Rodger had subscribed to a few men’s rights groups on YouTube, where he ultimately posted his final video.
But Garkey goes further to point out how Rodger seemed to loathe men as much as he loathed women, at least the successfully socialized ones.
In his essay/manifesto, he writes about seeing:
“…other boys who had inferior cars driving around with hot girls in their passenger seats. I have a BMW and never had any hot girl in my passenger seat. Not once. It only made me fume with rage. Santa Barbara was such a beautiful town, but I could go nowhere without being insulted by my enemies. The mere sight of them enjoying their happy lives was an insult to me, because I deserve it more than them.”
Says who? You?
Read the full transcript of Rodger’s 141-page manifesto here:
[Image courtesy of Twitter]