New Karen Name And Content Warning

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hello, Karen's In this week's episode of You Can Call Me Karen, I continue my campaign of potential options for a new Karen name, which I think the world agrees with me is Jessica. So if you're with me, please comment or offer up other suggestions, always open to new ideas. But we do get into some really dark topics this week. So this week we are diving into kind of the history of Columbine as millennials. It was a pretty defining moment in our upbringing. And so we wanted to unpack that and better understand it. And now that we can reflect on it and have more information to react to. We also learn a lot about nihilism, which again is a very difficult topic. So we do ask everyone to please listen with care, know that we get into some pretty deep topics and totally understand if you need to skip this week for a little mental health break. But for those that want to stick around, we're excited to have you. And we think this one will teach us all a little something about our past. So thank you for listening, and here we go.

Internet Rabbit Holes And Definitions

SPEAKER_06 1:43

Hey booze, it's me, Manny, and I am the glutton for punishment who signed up to lead us in this conversation around perhaps the most insane cultural event of our childhood, or at least that we have ever covered on You Can Call Me Karen. Um, one TikTok on my for you page about gropers, trans maxing, and incel culture. And next thing you know, I am spiraling down an unhinged rabbit hole as an investigative journalist for You Can Call Me Karen. We'll get into all that in just a minute because I know listeners are dying for me to define these terms. Um, but first, let's say hello to my co-host Karen.

SPEAKER_05 2:36

Hello and Stephanie. What up, girls? Not much.

SPEAKER_03 2:47

Are you ready to learn about all this stuff? I'm I'm scared. Sounds horrifying. I have to say, I was like feeling a little down yesterday and looking forward to this, and then you warmed us up with that enlightening opening, and I'm like, oh good.

SPEAKER_06 3:05

I think it's still gonna be fun because learning is always fun.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Wow, what a true education!

SPEAKER_05 3:14

What a loser.

SPEAKER_06 3:21

Okay, so let's jump into this week. Um, there are strange, and I mean strange things on the internet. Um so I, for one, am welcoming this Karen section to help cleanse me of the media I just consumed over the last 48 hours. So who's kicking us off?

The iPad Zombie Parent Fight

SPEAKER_02 3:44

If you're looking for a cleanse, I think maybe Karen should go first.

SPEAKER_03 3:50

I have to, I always have to consult my notes. Um okay, so my story is actually one that I heard on the radio, which like radio. I know. I think who needs a radio in the car. I am a millennial.

SPEAKER_06 4:07

Wait, time out, time out, time out, time out. Both you guys didn't recognize that quote.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

I didn't hear it.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Radio, who needs a radio?

SPEAKER_06 4:17

Yeah. Ready, Harry? Mock. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bird. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Karen's still trying to figure it out.

SPEAKER_02 4:33

Wait, you know that one though, right, Karen?

SPEAKER_06 4:36

Come on, Karen, please. Oh.

SPEAKER_04 4:40

Please.

SPEAKER_06 4:41

Please.

SPEAKER_04 4:41

What is it?

SPEAKER_06 4:43

No, don't tell her. Don't tell her. What if I actually do know it? Then you would have got it by those clues.

SPEAKER_03 4:54

Can you just tell me? Alright, fine, Steph.

SPEAKER_06 4:57

You can tell her.

SPEAKER_03 4:58

Dumb and dumber. Oh, yeah. I don't know dumb and dumber.

SPEAKER_06 5:03

What a disappointment. I fear you're not a real millennial.

SPEAKER_03 5:09

Yeah. If you don't know dumb and dumber. I don't know how my ADHD was never diagnosed when I was a young child.

SPEAKER_06 5:16

That is not ADHD. I have tons of friends who are ADHD who know Dumb and Dumber.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

No, actually, I feel like my ADHD friends know the the know the quotes like they better than I do.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

Yes. I just mean sit through movies ever. Like this was not a new phenomenon in my adulthood. I've never been.

SPEAKER_06 5:38

I'm just saying I don't know if that's a characteristic. Okay. Because I have friends who are diagnosed and they can they could. Anyway, what's your Karen of the week?

SPEAKER_03 5:49

My Karen. On the radio. Um, okay, so the story was roughly this. There was like uh there was two women and they had children who were like friends. They were like the same age and friends at school. And the one daughter would go to the other daughter's house. I'm gonna call them, um, I can't come up with current names. I'm gonna call them Karen and Jessica. So Karen would go to Jessica's house, and Jessica was like always on her iPad. And so Karen would go home and tell her mom, I don't want to go to Jessica's house anymore because all she does is like sit on her iPad. And so uh Karen's mom was like, fine, you don't have to go to Jessica's house. And then Jessica's mom calls Karen's mom and she's like, um, you're, you know, Jessica really wants Karen to come over. Uh, and she's like always making excuses for why she can't. I I, you know, I think we should get the girls together. And then Karen's mom, I'm trying to keep everyone straight, was like, listen, I'm gonna be really honest with you. Jessica is uh an iPad zombie, is the words she used. And then Jessica's mom got mad, and Karen's mom got mad. And so I was listening to this story because at first I thought it was gonna be super clear that Jessica's mom was the Karen, but then I was like, is Karen's mom the Karen? I think they were both Karen's. Like one was confronting because the kids weren't playing together, like just mind your business. And then the other one was like, Oh, I'm gonna take this opportunity to tell you you're a bad parent.

SPEAKER_04 7:39

Like I was listening to this with Max while in the car, we were going, I don't know where, and I was like, Oh man, I've got my Karen's story.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

But yeah, let someone call me and say my kid is an iPad zombie. Like, first of all, you probably know, and you're probably already beating yourself up about it.

SPEAKER_07 8:00

That's true.

SPEAKER_06 8:02

Yeah, and also I would say I I love my kids and I do think that they're honest, but sometimes they exaggerate they don't, they they yeah, they exaggerate. So, like a plain example of like when I was like, oh man, I really um had a distorted uh sense of time when I was younger, because like Millie, every time we pass this one grocery store, she's like, remember when we used to go there every morning at like six o'clock in the morning on the weekends? And I always had to be like, Yeah, and we did it like once. And she recalls it as like always, you know, like that's how she's like in that's how she's interpreting her childhood. It's like this one memory that we did one time is what we always did. Yeah, it's a good point, you know. So I just I would be careful about the evidence, like they they have they're like such, yeah, like their testimony is unreliable sometimes, even if they have the best of intentions.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

So their sense of time is always Maxwell's always like last week when we did X, Y, and Z, and I was like, baby, that was three years ago.

SPEAKER_04 9:18

Like, what are you talking about?

SPEAKER_02 9:20

Yeah, Quinn's trying to understand like yesterday or like everything was yesterday and like we did that yesterday.

SPEAKER_06 9:29

Everything was yesterday at one point. Yeah, so I think to answer your question, I would just hesitate to tell another parent what my child reported back. If it and you know, and just let it be.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Just like, I don't know, she's just having like blame it on you or the kid, or you know, or if like your actual if the moms were actual friends, it's one thing to be like, listen, I don't know what the truth is, but Karen said this.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Yeah, and so I'm sure there's something else. She says that when she comes over, this is what's happening. Like, do you have any insight? Like, do you is that do you feel like that's happening? Do you feel like or do you think you know there's something else? Like, play dumb. Yeah, yeah, exactly. This goes back to um what we said, what, season one? Like um curiosity, like open with curiosity and asking questions. Like she went straight to accusatory and and jumped in with like an assumption. And so you have any questions. Right.

SPEAKER_03 10:40

Yep, good point. Yeah, all right, verdict's in. Karen's mom is the Karen. By the way, I don't know if you caught I intentionally picked Karen and Jessica because do you hear lately Jessica's the new Karen? Yes, no, she's I did know that's nice try.

SPEAKER_06 10:56

Nice try, Karen.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

Did did we already have this conversation? Because a bunch of people sent it to me. Yeah. And um I laughed so hard because in college, if if somebody approached me in a bar that I didn't want to talk to, I told them my name was Jessica. It'll never escape you. It you are destined for this.

SPEAKER_06 11:23

All right, Steph, what do you got?

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Um,

ICE And Political Rage Check

SPEAKER_02 11:26

my Karen of the Week is not like I'm like I'm hesitant to even say it because like I know we are trying to like not trying to, but we're choosing to keep it light this season. But and I hate to be political, but my Karen of the Week is Ice and Donald J. Trump. So fuck ice and fuck Donald J. Trump. Mm-hmm.

unknown 12:00

That's all.

SPEAKER_06 12:01

I love how you're like back, man. Yeah, like I just can't.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

I feel I'm feeling real heavy today, and I am have been, you know, just consuming a lot of social media posts about the recent um killings plural of citizens on the street. And I just, and I know like this isn't new, especially to black people. So I I'm not shocked, but I'm just frustrated and I am sick of seeing um political figures like posting like this needs to end. No, no. What I I've seen posts that have said, I don't want to see a post with some sort of statement. It should say, today I propose this legislation. Like I don't want to see a post from a senator saying, you know, the occupation of ICE in Minnesota needs to end. No, what are you doing to end up?

SPEAKER_03 13:01

Yeah, because if you're not doing anything, nobody is.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

If you're an elected official, something just fell off the wall.

SPEAKER_04 13:08

Um disagree with you.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Yes. So um, so anyway, my Karen of the Week is the federal government. Period. Period.

SPEAKER_06 13:19

That's all there's no need to elaborate. I love it. Thank you. Thanks for that one.

Five Calls App And Accountability

SPEAKER_06 13:24

So um, I will say with that, our friend um Celia has recommended a really great app. Um sorry, it's called the Five Calls app, um, where it gives you like a script for you to call your senator. Um and um it gives you like directions for how to um, you know, hold them accountable. They are your elected officials. Um, she made a really good point of like, um at first she was scared, but then she was like, they work for me, so why am I scared? Um so the five calls app, um, I think she posted it on her stories, but thank you, Celia, for that information. Um, if you two are feeling um in any way uh outraged, discouraged, and want a like way to be able to speak to your legislators, please use that app. And um hopefully when we come back on for our next episodes um in the future, we will have heard some sort of progress towards this because this has to end. All right, those are um those were good Karen's ready to jump into it.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

You

Send Us Your Karen Stories

SPEAKER_02 14:35

just heard our Karen stories, but we can't be the only ones. If you've had a Karen or Chad encounter or confessional, you've been a Karen yourself. We'd love to hear from you. Wherever you listen, click on the link in our show notes and text us your Karen stories.

SPEAKER_06 14:53

We are into the into the and to the darker side, the light topic. No, I think I think I think we'll be fine. You guys didn't, you guys, you I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 15:04

Plus just I hate to give I hate to like steal your thunder, but the first line of yours is the topic this week. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 15:17

Rough, yeah. Okay. As an investigative

Columbine Memories And Media Myths

SPEAKER_06 15:21

journalist, it was a little rough. Um like real dark, incredibly strange, and full of conspiracy theory and theorist. I've emerged from this research um with an entirely new perspective of the impact that Columbine had on America, including a whole new subculture online who glamorize and memorialized the two shooters. Um one thing I have found out for sure is that no matter how divided we all are, us millennials can agree that Columbine radicalized our generation. It's a day that will live vividly in our minds, which unfortunately was the wish that came true of the two murderers who aimed to blow up their school on April 20th, 1999. So, in true you can call me Karen Fashion. You know, we always start these episodes out with memories from the date, but there's so much I want to get into here, so I'm just gonna skip over all of that. Um, like we all remember Calumbine back in the day as America's first school shooting. Um, it was full of propaganda with the trench coat mafia. Bullying is bad and can lead to school shootings. If you don't believe in God, you might get shot, as was originally claimed to one of the um to be one of the motives of the killers, but has since been debunked. Um and uh perhaps most the um the most impressionable one on me would be Eminem's lyrics of when a dude's getting bullied and uh shoots up his school and they blame it on Marilyn and the Heron. Where are the parents at? And look where it's at. Middle America. Now it's a tragedy. Now it's so sad to see an upper class city.

SPEAKER_05 17:03

I used to love that lot.

SPEAKER_06 17:06

Um but today I want to explore its legacy. I mentioned some terms in the beginning of the episode that I want to start with. So, um, to help our listeners get a better understanding, I want to play a clip from uh Threads by Barrett Paul. Am I saying his last name right? Pal. Paul? Didn't say Paul. Paul, which I found on Threads. Um, we will watch it and then I want to get your um reaction. So I think Steph, you have this queued up and um ready to play for everyone. It's like a two-minute clip, so we'll just uh listen. All right, bear with me.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

It's technology.

SPEAKER_06 17:47

No my dear she's geriatric, people. She's an I thought it was unnecessary.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

That was unnecessary.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Charlie Carpenter in Quentez, who you just watched, trans Tell me if this is weird to you, and then we're gonna talk about it. And as always, please don't forget to save and share this as a help that is an important message read in this digital world. That person that was just talking is this person. While you may be laughing at him, he has millions of people that listen to him, mostly young boys and men. Please ask your sons or brothers or fathers if they know who that is. There's a pipeline to the alt-right, and he is a part of it. We now need to connect some very important dots, and we're gonna be talking about Charlie Kirk, Nick Fuentez, who you just watched, transmaxing, fanboy culture, and incels. And of course, everyone's favorite red pillar, Andrew Tate. And if you're like Barrett, I don't know what any of that means. Well, welcome to the Love Army. Please make sure you hit that follow button because I've been talking about this stuff for over five years, warning people that this is where we were gonna get. Nick Fuentez has millions of followers, as I said in that video from 2022. Those followers are called the Gropers, and this comes from a toad meme that you can look up easy, and they are largely incels, which means involuntarily celibate, meaning these are young men who can't have sex. So they turn to Femboy transmaxing. This is now where it gets real dark and links back to the original video that I just played for you from 2022. Transmaxing is a subgroup of incels and gropers who are looking to transition not because they are in fact trans, but because they think that women have life easier than them and think it will up their social status, their ability to have sex, their ability to exist in this world in an easier way, which is crazy. But the thing that you have to remember here is that this is a ton of young, pre-pubescent boys, maybe just hitting puberty, that don't really understand the real world and are sitting on technology listening to someone like Nick Fuentes, who is 27, tell them how life is from his own mother's basement. And now I'm sure you're like, where does Charlie Kirk come into all of this? Well, Charlie Kirk is someone that Nick Fuentes and his gropers have strongly disliked because he wasn't far right enough. And what we know about the alleged person who Charlie Kirk is that he was a groper, meaning that he was a follower of Nick Fuentes and got a lot of his ideology in the groper in cell super far right movement. And this is where we get back to why this is so important. Because all of this focus on trans people is the wrong group of people as a whole, where we need to be looking at these young, mostly white boys who are on their phones endlessly taking in super content. This idea that it's gay to have sex with women seems like a kookie. However, to these 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14-year-old boys who are being actively radicalized by people like Andrew Tate, dang by people like Nick Fuentes, they are listening to this, taking it in, and already being rejected from women. So this gives them an easy answer in their very short, little lived lives, to not feel as if they're wrong. And this is why I say that the answer to patriarchy is not matriarchy. I love matriarchy, I'm here for it, but it's queerness. And I believe that within queerness, women lead as well. I think we need more female leaders as a whole period. Within queerness, you get to define yourself not in this binary of like straight and gay, but as in a fluidity that allows you to safely identify how you want for yourself. And in a space where possibilities are endless for yourself and others in a safe way, means that you can't be preyed upon by people who want to put you into these little cages of masculine and feminine, male and female. Because at the end Of the day, none of us are 100% anything. Again, this is why I've warned about the dangers of the red pill movement and people like Andrew Tate, because it's a pipeline to ultra far-right ideology. There's so much more to this, but I'm going to stop here for now so I don't overload you with information. But I am curious, had you heard about all of this? Is this all new to you? Please engage in this conversation. And if you're new here, welcome to our love army. Much love, y'all. Tell me if this is weird to you, and then we're gonna all right.

SPEAKER_06 22:25

Thanks, Steph. Um, so we'll start with his the question that he ended with. Um, prior to me sending you this reel, prior to you guys watching this, were you guys aware of this online culture and all the various subcultures that exist on the alt-right?

SPEAKER_03 22:42

No. I definitely knew about the incel uh is it a movement? I don't know, culture culture, yeah. Um but like that groper thing was new to me, and transmaxing was new to me.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

I saw the word groper, I want to say groper because it has a Y in it, but anyway, um that it might be that. I think I saw in the comments that he mispronounced it, but oh it might be okay, because I saw that word come up when um uh after Carly Charlie Kirk, whatever, and I didn't know I didn't like investigate it because they said that I I did see that people say that the guy who like killed him was a grape, but I didn't know. Like yeah, I didn't know that either.

SPEAKER_06 23:33

I will say that that I believe has been debunked. Like, I don't think that that is true. Um I've saw a couple of articles come out, which like brings me to like why I

Debunking Trenchcoat Mafia Narratives

SPEAKER_06 23:44

brought that up. So I wanted to start here because the TikTok post that I referenced in the beginning that led me down the spiral mentioned all these subcultures and that the Kirk shooter wasn't any of these, but he was part of something on along the lines of nihilism. The post mentioned that nihilism culture actually started with the Columbine shooters and not the recent new age Republicans in the Trump era. I wish I saved the post, but um, it said that the coverage of Kirk was eerily similar to what the media portrayed the Columbine shooters as, and that is what piqued my interest. Um, so this led me to go um first online and find um out the myth busters of the Columbine like uh story that I have been told. And I discovered that the shooters were never bullied and that the shooters were not a part of the group called the Trenchcoat Mafia, nor did they listen to Marilyn Manson. So um, Karen, if you're in the document, um, I'd love for you to read the epic excerpt from um the Guardian article, uh, The Truth About Columbine that I have here, to just give us some context for our listeners of what I saw.

SPEAKER_03 24:53

Sure. Much of what we reported, though, was simply wrong, as attested by tens of thousands of official documents and other evidence that has at last seen the light of day after years of suppression by the local authorities. As the Colorado-based journalist Dave Cullen tells in his gripping and authoritative new book, Columbine, Harris and Clebold had plenty of friends, did pretty well in school, were not members of the trenchcoat mafia, did not listen to Manson, were not bullied, harbored no specific grudges against any one group, and did not, quote, snap because of some law, uh, some last straw traumatic event. All those stories were the product of hysteria, ignorance, and flailing guesswork in the first few hours and days. The truth was more sinister. Their ambition harbored for about a year and a half and chronicled meticulously on Harris's website and in the boys' private journals, recovered after their deaths, was to blow up the entire school, not to get to not to get anyone in particular, but because they hated the world and intended to have fun annihilating as much of it as they could.

SPEAKER_06 26:10

Yeah.

What Nihilistic Violence Means

SPEAKER_06 26:12

So that last piece was what unlocked the term nihilism for me. And when I decided to extend my search, and and that's when I decided to extend my search. So among all these growing online subcultures, gripers, and sales transmaxer, transmaxers, there is also a true crime community noted as TCC and a no lives matters community that glamorizes violence similarly to what we just read. So, Steph, I have another blurb from um ISD Global, uh, and an article called Terror Without Ideology. So, this really helps us to define uh nihilism. Would you mind reading that uh one that you see, and then we can get into it all?

SPEAKER_02 26:56

Sure. ISD defines nihilistic violence as violent acts lacking on ideological motivation and driven by a misanthropic worldview. Our research has linked the two most prominent contemporary subcultures of nihilistic violence, the true crime community, TCC, and the pseudo-satanic No Lives Matter, to at least four school shooters and five disrupted school shooting plots and two Swedish stabbing sprees in 2024 alone. While these acts of violence outwardly appear similar to extremist violence, they lack the political or ideological dimension that drives typical extremist acts. Nihilistic violence is an expressive misanthropic act that seeks to fulfill an inward-facing emotional need andor garner notoriety or acceptance in nihilistic communities. Those who carry out nihilistic violence are not seeking to change society or promote a specific ideologic outcome. School shootings committed by participants in the TCC fandom are among the most notable examples of nihilistic violence in recent history. Manifestos left by attackers, social media and analysis and existing secondary research are devoid of evidence that these school shootings are carried out to promote an ideological objective. Instead, perpetrators of these attacks are deeply enmeshed in subcultures that share misanthropic and nihilistic worldviews, promote antisocial behavior, and encourage violence as an outlet for their emotions and personal struggles.

SPEAKER_06 28:43

Right. So I just want to get your reactions to that terminology. Have you guys heard of it before? Does that differ from the story that you all know to be true of what happened in April and Columbine with regards to the two killers' motives? Like, what are we getting from any of that?

SPEAKER_03 29:03

It's definitely different for me. Yeah. Like I um I think a few weeks ago I asked you what nihilism was because it was on our list. And so I had to start looking this up a little bit to understand. But I did not make the connection or understand the connection to Columbine. I definitely thought those still like until this moment, those kids were this like trench coat mafia, they were outcasts, they were loners, they were bullied, they were all of the things that are listed there. And so this was their way of like getting back at the people who hurt them, essentially. Um, so this concept of no lives matter, which is terrifying, uh, yeah, that's new to me.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

And uh for I think what's like the craziest in reading that is that there's really no like central cause. Like I feel like everybody was like set out to figure out like what caused it. So if you are bullied and you're sad, you're then gonna go to this dark place and want to kill people who are cool, or if you are, you know, or if you belong to this group. And I feel like you know, since 1999, Columbine, um like, you know, I'm a teacher, so I feel like a lot of programs um that we have in place are centered around being inclusive and you know, social emotional learning and all this stuff, which I think is important, and I think maybe you wouldn't have a no lives matter view if you felt like you belonged or if you felt value. So I'm not devaluing it, but I feel like it's centered from the idea that if everybody doesn't if no one's bullied, then maybe you won't like shoot of the school. But that's that's not what it sounds like that is. So it's just it just kills me. Like, is yeah, you know, see something, say something, and we have like say hello week and all these things. And right.

SPEAKER_06 31:27

Here we are. Exactly. And I think um one of the things that was surprising to me, like when I was looking up all this stuff, like there is so much Columbine stuff.

Planned Bombing And Online Glorification

SPEAKER_06 31:38

Like that's when you guys opened up the article, um, the document today, and you saw like all the articles that I had linked. I actually got rid of two. Um uh, but like I started this research a couple of weeks ago because yeah, there's just so much there, and I wanted to be able to like fully tell a story. One of the things that I noticed with regards to what you were just saying, Steph, is that this was like a three-part phase that they tried to plan out, and it was never about shooting up the school, it was actually about blowing up the school, which like that that difference makes um or that uh detail makes all the difference in how we consume this story because um they wanted to kill as many people as possible, and they knew they couldn't do that just by shooting up the school. They had they had um their first phase was to um have a bomb go off, I want to say, like almost like a mile or so away from the school, so that it would distract the um law enforcement, and they would go to there, and then they were gonna have one detonate at the school, and those two uh bombs failed, and that's when they then went to shooting up the school. Oh my god. Yeah. There was also a girl who they were 17 at the time, um, and they couldn't buy rifles. So there was a girl who was 18 at the time who took them to a gun shell and purchased the rifles for them, like a day or a week or two before, or something like that. Yeah. Um, so um, anyway, I say all that because like to your point of like the root of the problem was not what we were told, and and we carried that up until just like what I heard you say, Karen, up until just now.

SPEAKER_03 33:40

You know, well, and I think Steph, your comments about what you teach in school on social emotional learning and inclusiveness. It's like not only is it my ignorance, I'm one person, but it's like the entire society's ignorance. We are we we have incorporated all of these elements into teaching our children to try to avoid these situations, but we're we're focused on the wrong thing.

SPEAKER_06 34:06

We're focused on the wrong thing, exactly. Um, so as I mentioned, all this came up from me after the shooting of Charlie Kirk, and that is when uh we were deciding about episodes, and I knew I wanted to intertwine this topic here because I see something that not many people are talking about, kind of like the trad wife topic. Um, and but it's happening in spaces that we might not be tuned into. And this is like to what you guys are just saying of like we're focusing, we're our eyesight is on the wrong like space, and that it once we can look at the right space, then I feel like we might have a more productive conversation. Um so anyway, they these these subcultures somewhat exist on TikTok and Instagram, but even when I type in incels or grapers on TikTok, it says that this violates community agreements and you can't pull up any videos on that. But the columbine stuff does come up. Um so, Karen, here's another expert to explain a little bit better. Do you mind reading this for um our audience? Sure. To give them a fuller picture.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

Sorry, let me just make sure I got it. Um in many respects, the Columbine shootings are considered as foundational, uh, are considered a foundational event for supporters and content producers of mass casualty attacks. References to Clebold and Harris, including the music they listened to and the clothing and haircuts they wore, are commonly referenced and admired across an online ecosystem that has remained active across a range of social media platforms. There have been 394 school shootings since Columbine, and more than 360,000 students have experienced gun violence in schools. Yet many of these online users revere the Columbine shooting as an inspirational generational event. ISD found the most watched video in the data set was a TikTok video using fictional Disney posters of Eric and Dylan, coupled with a similar poster of a Brazilian school shooter. The video amassed more than 399,000 views in three months. The glorification of mass casualty shootings and the perpetrators of these heinous acts has been a perennial problem for social media platforms. Despite numerous reports about the prevalence and impact of mass casualty shooting glorification on Meta, TikTok, and X, formerly Twitter, there remain significant gaps in the abilities of companies to curtail the proliferation of content dedicated to the perpetrators of a range of mass casualty attacks globally. Instrumental to many of these reports are the effects of the videos on minors who may be interacting with and even producing content supportive of these mass casualty perpetrators and specifically the role social media may play in radicalizing young people.

SPEAKER_06 37:19

Yeah, so that was a lot.

Fame Seeking And The Human Condition

SPEAKER_06 37:22

I I guess my my question here, we've talked a lot about like social media and like social media for young people in these, um I I I know we've we've uh uh brought that up in previous seasons. So I my question isn't really about the social media and the legislation. My question is like like how almost like how do we get here, you know, like what equivalent would this be like for us millennials? You know, like we have a new wave of teenagers who are engaging in something that uh is like online and dangerous, like like did was uh were these two shooters like the um like founders almost of this nihilism, or did this exist for millennials and we didn't uh like I'm trying to piece together. Did any group, did we have any group that glorified mass killings like this? Is this is this human tendency, or did the media birth this phenomenon?

SPEAKER_03 38:26

I was I was actually kind of wondering this, um, you know, in in my typical fashion, I didn't read your questions in advance. But like in uh one of the prior quotes, I was thinking exactly that. Like, is this just the human condition in the modern world? Um, and I know I've talked about uh at least to the two of you, if not on this pod, uh, listening to a podcast called Empire, which I highly recommend.

SPEAKER_06 38:56

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:57

Um, but it's uh it's a history podcast, you know, so it goes through some of like the most horrific times of human history where um and it, you know, it covers topics of slavery, it covers topics of uh colonialism. Um, and I don't I I think I'm debating in my head of like, is this genuinely a new phenomenon, or is this just a modern version of uh I'll say the human condition in some weird way?

SPEAKER_06 39:31

Like the Roman Empire, like like the Coliseum.

SPEAKER_03 39:35

Yeah, that's a good parallel. Yeah, like the Coliseum where they used to bring people in to murder them, and like and the spectators would bring in their grills and you know have a party and watch murder all day. Yeah, yeah. I think that's a really weirdly accurate comparison. I I hate to sound so pessimistic, but I I think it's sadder to me to think that this is the first time in history that people are doing terrible things to one another. Like it's almost easier to digest if it's you know a reality of humanity as sad as that is. I don't know if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_02 40:28

I have a lot I have I have like weird, I don't know, I'm not it's like am I understanding I'm not sure I'm understanding the definition really then of nihilism. Like, is it just like no central cause for destruction kind of a thing?

SPEAKER_06 40:42

Is that yeah, like no, like they're like they're not so this is why like if we were to take the Kirk example and they were saying like um it was a gr a griper, groiper, whatever, um, and it's been like debunked or whatever. Um, like the the me so I'll back up a little bit. Like they the post that I saw said something about like meme culture. So like using those memes is like a way for this culture, the nihilistic culture, to like not talk about anything. Like they're not on the so far on the right, they're not alt right, and they're not on the left, right? Um, like that's where like the transmaxing piece kind of comes in, right? Of like, but you're also not like defining yourself an LGBTQ, like they're not fitting into these uh cultural definitions that we have used to define um sexuality, our political affiliations. Um, and so when we're looking at why, what's the motive for this? Um, there is none. Their their motive is to um almost like um almost like put on a show for the media.

SPEAKER_02 41:54

Like that's why it was like in the live in infamy, like they just want to be like infamous, like yeah.

SPEAKER_06 42:00

So the thing that I didn't I'll I'll I'm sorry, I'll let you explain your uh or answer the question in one second, but uh just slight thing that I missed in the beginning was the the Oklahoma City bombing happened a year prior to Columbine. And one of the things that was picked up in, I think it was Eric. Um Eric uh what's his last name? Um, I don't, it doesn't matter. Um, his journal was that he wanted to be more famous than the Oklahoma City bomber, which is why they wanted to bomb the school and not shoot it up. They wanted to have more casualties than Oklahoma City. But remember, Oklahoma City was politically. Yeah, that was politics.

SPEAKER_02 42:49

Okay. And his and it seems his motive was just simply the fame for doing something horrible, not right, making any sort of statement. Right.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

Okay. Um I think the description, quote, no lives matter, helped me a lot. It's like it does it just like nothing matters, you know, and so I'm gonna do the most damage I can because nothing matters. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

So do you think then that like there still is value in folk like you know mental health and you know, like do you think that there's would still then be some sort of um benefit to therapy and you know, knowing like or do you think that or can you be meant like are you mentally healthy and believe no lives matter? You know? No, I don't I mean I I don't think so.

SPEAKER_06 43:56

Because in that case said that.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

What? Oh Yeah, 'cause in that case, you know, I 'cause I like I like I said at the beginning, like I don't want to dismiss I you know, I feel like I love like my s you know, I have students who, you know, have anxiety or depression or whatever, and they'll be like they'll openly be like, Yeah, I was talking to my therapist yesterday and you know, they were telling me but whatever, or I have to um almost as though I have an appointment later, um, cannot I um I have therapy later. So can you give me the worksheet for it? It's just like a casual, everybody is just comfortable with you know what they need to do to be healthy, and that's part of the whole the your whole health is not just physical health but mental health. And so I don't want to dismiss that. I love that. Like that was not like that when I was a kid, and but yeah, so does that but is that part not part of it?

SPEAKER_06 44:52

So let's wrap with my final question.

Parents Perspective And Silent Warning Signs

SPEAKER_06 44:55

Um so the final players of this story of today are the parents of the killers. Um, have either of you ever considered them or heard about their perspective of that day? No. Okay. You mean like of column the Columbine shooting kids? Parents? The parents who shot up the the parents of the kids who shot up the school. Like parents of mass killer of school shooters.

SPEAKER_03 45:24

Have you guys ever I've thought about them, but I've I've not done any, I don't know anything about them.

SPEAKER_06 45:30

Okay, so Steph, um, can you read this blurb from Sue Sue Cleebold, who was Dylan's mom? So the way that the story kind of unfolds, just to like provide a little bit more texture, um, is that Eric was like the one who was like the mastermind and Dylan was just kind of like going along with it. That's kind of what the narrative is online. Um, and so Eric's parents have like, I feel like they've um changed their names and have like disappeared, like they are not, they do not want to be. Sue Cleboid um actually has a TED talk and has yeah, gone. Uh I think she has a book, maybe. I'm not sure. But anyway, um, so she's done a lot of interviews on this. So um the one article that I found is also something that I found on like one of her interviews or a TED talk. So uh, but this article is is from Windsor called Mother of Columbine Shooter Reflects on that day 19 years later. So um, Steph, do you mind reading this as the final blurb? Um can you read this for our listeners? I feel like we might be able to get some, I don't want to say understanding, but maybe perspective about the mental health piece that you were talking about. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 46:52

Um, it says, I can't say that I had any any indication that I knew what he was going to do. Dylan behaved very much like any other teenager that I had ever known. I was a teacher for years. I taught in a community college. I was an educator. I had a master's degree in education. I can't say that there was ever anything that Dylan did that worried me except in his junior year. He got into some trouble for the first time in his life. He had a couple incidents all at once. He scratched a locker at school. He and his friends hacked into the computer system at that school because he was one of the computer technicians at the school. And he and his friend Eric were arrested for stealing something. That happened in a cluster in his junior year, and I was very, very upset. I didn't know what it meant. The boys were put in a diversion program rather than going to jail. They had counseling, they had classes, they had to pay money to compensate, they had to pay money to compensate their victim. So all these things were occurring, and I remember asking the diversion counselor, this is so out of character for Dylan. What could this mean? Because could this mean something? And we talked with Dylan and he said, Dylan, do you think you need counseling? And he said, No, I don't, but I will prove to you I'm fine and I'll get my life back on track. And he did over the next 14 months. Even in the days preceding the shootings, he went to a prom just a few days before the shootings. He came home at four in the morning and we talked. He told me, Thank you for sending me. I had the best time of my life.

SPEAKER_06 48:38

Yeah. So that that didn't really um cover it, but he did have um some of the stuff that I saw that Dylan did have depression and they were aware of it. Um, so to tap into the mental health, they they were aware of it. They the parents were um Sue says that like in the morning of the shooting, he just left at like 5 a.m. and was just like, I gotta go bye. And she was like to her husband, he seems off today. Like, you want to check, circle back to that when you get home with him and have a conversation about that because he just left without like kissing us goodbye. And so um, I think he's having some sort of whatever. Um, so I really don't have any question. I guess I just want your reflections on as a parent, well, like what are we to do? Um, how do we monitor our teens in these spaces? Or is this seriously a silent killer? One that has no symptoms, no branding, no evidence that anything could go wrong.

SPEAKER_03 49:45

I feel speechless. Um I mean, immediately I'm thinking of like Maxwell on his iPad and he's seven years old. Like, what could he be watching that I don't understand um like the underlying implications of, you know, what kind of subliminal messaging is out there? I mean, I know this is uh just another thing to add to my anxiety, I suppose. Um but yeah, I mean, like the words from the mom are gut-wrenching and also made me for the first time realize that like she also lost her son that day. And yeah, while he was the cause of a lot of pain, that's still really sad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 50:39

Yeah, she said in one of her interviews, like she was in denial for several days of like that wasn't my son. Like, I don't I mean, not to like I don't yeah, I because I this story is so complicated, you know. And again, if you it were to ever explore it, um, you know, the obviously that really hurts the victims' families as well to hear that, right? So um, but yes, to your point, Karen. I I've never tried to look at it from the position of what it might be like to be a parent in that situation until now because of how it seeped into the minds of it, like it just feels so like unpreventable. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 51:26

Like I Yeah, you know, it's like you think there's a solution for every problem if we could just figure out what the source of that issue was, but it based on you know one paragraph of her commentary, it sounds at least like they were doing the things that you would expect a quote good parent to be doing.

SPEAKER_06 51:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:52

And that wasn't enough.

SPEAKER_06 51:54

Yeah. Steph, what were you gonna say?

SPEAKER_02 51:58

Yeah, like it sounds like you know, he they knew he ha was depressed. They did did the uh was that to understand he did see a counselor? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um and she even uh you know, even saw, like noticed he was notices when he's off, not necessarily knowing that that kind of off meant what would happen that day, but like you know, it seems like she was an in-tune parent, or like right, and so like it's not like the neglectful I had no idea thing that you sometimes hear, you know. Yeah, so that's crazy. So that's something sucks because it's like because you know sometimes you're like, where are the parents? What are the parents doing? Well, she's where are the parents at? And look where it's at um it is interesting, like you know, um it is interesting to know that one of the two boys was depressed for sure, and like we don't have any, I don't know if we have information about the other. And you said that this was the one who kind of followed along, maybe wasn't the mastermind, but was, you know, and you know, could that the not manipulation, but just like the um what's the word? Like he naivety and um like for him to just kind of fall in line or maybe looking for acceptance or meaning, um, connection, you know, because when you are depressed, you feel disconnected, you you'll lose joy in things, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_06 53:55

Yeah, but then there's also the yeah, they like wanted they knew they planned also to die. Like they planned like phase three was like after after the bombs go off is phase one, after we shoot up the school is phase two, and phase three is we're gonna like kill ourselves. Yeah. Or because we mission accomplished, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 54:21

I guess that but that's I guess that's what I'm saying is like there's still that that's you know a symptom of depression too. So like the most severe.

SPEAKER_06 54:32

Yeah. Um yeah, but yeah, I I I don't know. I I still don't know. I think um what the reason why also we don't know is because these records were concealed for such a long time. I think it wasn't until recently that they've become um released to the public, and that's when the most recent book, Columbine by David Cullen, which is one of the quotes that you guys read, um, I think it was the guardian from the Guardian article. I think that's why um uh that the the myth busters are coming out is because the FBI files are now being unsealed.

Race Policing And Public Health Failure

SPEAKER_06 55:10

Um so any final confessions? We're at like almost at the top of the hour.

SPEAKER_03 55:18

I have a uh confession for levity, if that's appropriate. But today, in reading quotes out loud for uh without pre-reading them, I realized that I still have uh anxiety about reading the words right, just like when you were little and you stand up in class and read out loud, and you're like, oh my gosh, I need to get this right.

SPEAKER_04 55:46

Or like you count, like, okay, so this person is in paragraphs. Yeah, everybody reads a paragraph or something.

SPEAKER_06 55:54

You know, like, all right, so I gotta memorize. Are there any words in this paragraph that I don't uh it's like yeah, it's kind of nerve-wracking. You had every opportunity to read the notes beforehand so that you didn't have to do it.

SPEAKER_02 56:10

You're right, yeah. I also I also did not pre-read it, and I also was nervous to read my words aloud.

SPEAKER_04 56:19

So um good to know there's some things you just never grow out, you just never grow out of.

SPEAKER_06 56:25

It's a universal anxiety, it's a collective fear that we all share, which I love. Um, I think my confession after doing this research is um I was thinking about this yesterday, and it popped up a little bit for me today when you guys were reading. Um, it's kind of two-prong. One, the way we treat white boys versus the way we treat black boys is a completely different reality. It is bananas to me. The way that white boys are brought up in this society versus black men, school shootings happen all the time in black neighborhoods. All the time. Um, but black students don't shoot have mass casualties like this, and we're and uh and yet we police them more than we do white schools. So that would be my first, which brings me to my ultimate always comes back to slavery. Um, we did not address the violence of slavery, and since then we have bred a culture. I feel like Columbine is that it's the equivalent to slavery of like we did not address this issue. We lied about it, we created up facts, and now we have had 396 shootings since then. We've breeded a whole culture of hate since then. That's why I put that question in there of like, has this always been it might have, but it didn't look like killing children like this. Um and it's the same, it's the same um phenomenon of slavery. Like we just put a band-aid over it, we didn't really ever repair what was broken. And I I don't know, I don't mean to end on such a sour note, but like it just is making me realize of like how deep our wounds are in this country. And um, you know, we to to how Steph opened up, you know, the conversation of like, man, guys, we gotta, we gotta wake up. We gotta wake up. This is not normal.

SPEAKER_02 58:59

Like when you said that, it reminds like I always bring this up, so I feel like I've said this to you guys before, even on the pod, but like, you know, after Sandy Hook, President Obama, you know, tears rolling down his face talking about it. And, you know, he expressed his frustration with the continual like um mass shootings at schools continuing to happen. And he said that he wasn't able to declare mass shooting a public health crisis, which would have helped have people research at like the root cause. And so because when you declare it a public health crisis, then scientists can then get to the core. And I feel like if he had had the opportunity, scientists would have been doing this research that you were doing and maybe gotten to the bottom of groups that you know, and could and then maybe there could have been legislation in place for organizations, you know, like you know, we've talked about the fact that the internet is the wild, wild west in the United States, because we it it blew up before we could ever catch up with um the information that is being put out there, and there's no there's no laws in place to protect people. And if you know, and I think it's because the people committing these school shootings are white boys.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:42

That part. Whoa, okay. Well, we are one minute away from the hour. That really had me. I'm sure it really had you guys. Um, I kind of feel like I have Stockholm Syndrome. Like I am very much attached to this, like scrolling and finding out more information, but um I'm I'm happy to be done. I also feel like I kind of my algorithm I was gonna say, like, what are you seeing?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:10

You're gonna be getting some awful shit for a while now. We'll keep sending you the humor to help you.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:15

Thank you. Um, and I hope I I also like hope the FBI agent who surveillances me knows that I was just looking up all these terms for funsies and that I really love people, all people, even white people.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:29

You don't you don't fit the mold, I'm afraid. You're not the demographic they are worried about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:39

Okay. All right. We love you, Karen's, and we'll see you next week where we'll talk about forest jump. Yes. Bye. Bye.

Final Wrap And Where To Follow

SPEAKER_02 1:01:51

Bye.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:51

Hey, bitches, that's a wrap on another episode of You Can Call Me Karen. If you liked what you heard or didn't, go to our show page and leave a review. Just know, we will call you out. And if unlike my two co-hosts, you find yourself scrolling endlessly on TikTok, follow us at you can call me Karen. And if you're still living in the 20th century like a boomer, don't worry. You can find us on Instagram and YouTube at you can call me Karen underscore pod. We love you for listening.