Like Begets Like

I have promised myself to curtail entries related to the Medicine Hat triple homicide, but it is a hot topic, and a quick blog search has found a lot of bloggers are discussing this, and some of it I found to be unsettling.

According to Carnacki, one of the authors of The Mystery of the Haunted Vampire, explains the two alleged killers initially met online at a Goth/Industrial friend-finding site (not unlike mySpace or Buzznet) called Vampire Freaks.

I am a bit of a curious sort, so I navigated to the Vampire Freaks site, and went hunting for profiles belonging to the accused. It didn't take long to find them. Their profiles did little to excite me, interests were riddled with violence, hatred and other ilk associated with the Goth subculture. Had the events of this week not transpired, I would have dismissed their interests as fiction. It bothers me to think that these two people might have been so impressionable that they actually believed in the demented messages of the artists they admired. My opinion is purely subjective, as I have never met the accused murderers; I have no idea what drove them to (allegedly) murder three people in cold blood.

These profile pages a not much different than sites of similar ilk. There is room for registered members to leave messages for everyone to read. Both his and her profile had very few messages on their profiles -- that is, until news of the slayings became national news. Then the comments flowed like the blood that must have soaked that living room floor red.

Vile and abusive comments were plenty and frequent. Many comments threatened bodily harm, even death as a means of vengeance.

I don't know why people do this... Are they really that stupid? Are they really that angry at the accused? Or is it because the anonymity of the internet allows people with no common sense to act so childish? Furthermore, there is little point in leaving these abusive comments, as the accused do not have the means (anymore) to read them.

If people feel the need to vent, they should do so constructively. Why do you think I've been blogging about this all week?