Honest Ape

I’ve been hearing a lot about the things that Cho Seung-Hui (The man responsible for the deaths at VT) wrote in his past that foreshadowed his acts of murder. Well, there must be something more incriminating than these two plays, because no one in their right mind would consider these the works of a psychopath. A horrible, horrible writer, sure. Weird, yes. Homicidal, no.

Listen, everyone. This is how humans work. We see something horrible and terrifying, and we have to find the root cause of it. Our loved ones die, and we want a reason. Which leads us to blaming video games or music or the people who supposedly saw this coming and did nothing. There’s one reason why people do what Seung-Hui did. They are bat-shit crazy. Absolutely, fucking nuts. There’s your reason. It’s true for him and it’s true for all mass-murderers.

People who commit suicide do not do so because Led Zepplin or Metallica made them do it. They do it because they have crushing depression, despair or guilt. People do not kill people because the violent video games they play encourage them to do so. They do it because they are insane or vengeful or angry.

How do I know this? Well, I play violent video-games and listen to metal and hard rock. I do all of the things that supposedly lead you to a life of violence and crime. Guess what? Even doing all that (while suffering from crushing depression, I might add), I haven’t done a violent thing in my life. The only crimes I’ve ever committed were speeding, stealing some candy when I was 9, grabbing mail out of a few random mailboxes and tossing it the ground one day when I was 13 and smoking the herb. Considering I’ve never played a game called “Mary Jane’s Speeding Misdemeanor Mail Thief,” I think it’s safe to say that video-games have nothing to do with the bad things I’ve done in my life.

Sure, if you’re nuts to start with, playing GTA might make you think of killing people and stealing cars. If you’re already suicidal, the right lyrics might push you over the edge. If you’re sane, then they’ll do nothing.

Back to the issue of things one writes indicating future action, let me give you an example of something I’ve done that would, by some people’s rationale, single me out for a trench-coat and an automatic weapon. I’ve written a story about a man who heard voices telling him to rape and kill, fighting it until he couldn’t and ending with him poised to kill a young women. What sounds worse? That story or Seung-Hui’s play about wanting to kill his step-father who he thinks killed his dad?

One thing does not indicate the other, no matter how much people want it to. You can be crazy and write violent things and you can be sane and write violent things. Look at Hostel! Some very violent and disturbing things happen in that movie. No one is calling the screen-writer insane. But, if he went nuts and took out a group of kids at a Tasty Freeze, the press would be parading his film around, wondering why no one saw it as the warning sign that it must have been..

And, bringing us full-circle, I want to talk a bit about Seung-Hui’s plays. Regardless of whatever omens they may, or may not, have contained, his plays are so laughably bad that they’re enjoyable. Don’t take this as being insensitive. Seung-Hui was a fucked-up psychopath, but that doesn’t mean I can’t objectively critique his works. Here are some quotes to show you what I mean when I say laughably bad.

Are you a bisexual rapist murderer?

I wish that old fart would have a heart attack and drop dead like old people are supposed to.

He ass-raped you. He’s such a rapist. He ass-raped probably half the kids in the class. He ass-rapes us all. Isn’t that what high-school teachers do?

But don’t take my word for it. If you’re not offended by the idea of reading a mass-murderer’s plays for laughs, you can check them out here.