I’ve read through all of Elliot Rodger’s “manifesto”. It’s long, tedious, monotonous, and frankly boring. It’s a self-written delusion about a rich boy who cries and throws temper-tantrums when he doesn’t get things like a large fucking bedroom with a bathroom and balcony. You know me, I hate the word privilege, because I hate the polarized discussion that comes with it, but this document is both the most fascinating and horrifying look into the mind of someone who chose to stab and shoot people to death simply because he feels wronged by society, wronged by the little people he views through his own special myopic lens given to him by parents who obviously came from the same background and wouldn’t know the wiser.

The entire document is segmented into sections by age, starting from his birth. I am not really certain if he speaks with first-person knowledge from memory of his childhood, or if he pieced it together from his parents, family, and friends. He name-drops quite liberally, using either full names or partial names, noting each and every friend, family friend, last name of the person whose parties they attended, or any other important name, like George Lucas, whom he says knows his mother and got them premiere tickets to the new movies. The entire document is written with an obvious sense of financial privilege, being born to fairly wealthy parents, and traveling to other countries before the age of five. Each house or apartment he describes is much larger than the typical household anywhere else, and he describes his lifestyle as being very-obviously high-class and high-brow. Often, he would refer to many people, places, and things, as low-class, scum, or beneath his “superior intelligence”. What separates this shooter from previous shooters is we’re often treated to middle or lower-class kids who either have mental health issues, or were bullied in school. Elliot, on the other hand, potentially had every opportunity afforded to him to change everything, and either chose not to, or believed that he was so special that everyone had to change for him.

His childhood is described as being a wondrous time, where he is innocent and carefree, and without the social torments that he would later describe in great detail throughout the document. Most of these events revolve around childhood friends, school, and hobby experiences like video games and activities. As this takes up half of the 130-some page document, it’s safe to assume that he describes his childhood in great detail because it is important to his cause, that being a child is innocence itself. He firmly believes that as children, you aren’t constrained by society’s need for one-upmanship, or social hierarchy. While true, he fails to miss the point that those things still occur, only they occur in children’s parents. Subconsciously, they wish a better life for their children then they had, and they will often compete with other parents to ensure their children get better things than the rest. But psychologically, children have no concept of the real world. Their concern is playing, having fun, learning, and understanding. He covets all of his childhood memories because they represented a time when he felt he could live without the world judging him, and especially without girls judging him.

The tone gets progressively darker as he slides into his pre-teen and adolescence years. Due to his parents divorce when he was seven, his father continued to own their large house in an affluent section of town while his mother was forced to buy a smaller house in a less-affluent neighborhood. Despite this, he talks about how the time spent with his mother and sister was more enjoyable than with his father, because his father was never around and always away on business, and his stepmother had different ideas about how children were raised, which he venomously opposed. He uses tempter-tantrum quite often in his childhood days to talk about the fits he threw when he wasn’t given what he wanted, and that really just cements his rich-boy persona for those of us reading this damnable thing. It’s incredibly hard to sympathize with a child throwing a fit because he isn’t getting an expensive toy, or a large bedroom, or any number of things not afforded to the rest of us. But since his myopic view places him in a point where he wholeheartedly believes most people are beneath his aristocratic heritage, this doesn’t even cross his mind as he continues to ramble on about “playdates” and experiences with his Nintendo 64, Pokemon, and World of Warcraft. But his parents divorce would really define most of this document in later sections.

World of Warcraft played a large part in his story in his teenage years. As he hits puberty, he finds that his social awkwardness is preventing him from talking to girls or effectively communicating with other boys, due to his perceived notion that they’re all super-popular boys who get all the girls. Being unable to cope with these emotions, he turns to playing WoW religiously as often as possible, clashing with his stepmother who doesn’t agree with it, and causing concern for other family members over his withdrawl. He changes schools multiple times due to having meltdowns over being in rooms with other girls who won’t pay attention to him, or other boys who tease him, often indirectly, just by being cool and popular. News reportings after the killings said he was diagnosed with “high-functioning” Asperger syndrome, and that he had been seeing therapists frequently after the divorce.

The last half of the document slides further into a pit that no one in their right mind wants to read. His extreme jealousy over boys with girlfriends, and girls with boyfriends, eats away at him as he tries to cope with reality. He manages to graduate high school, but has difficulty taking college classes or working any sort of job, because he encounters couples everywhere and it reminds him of how he has no girlfriend or obligatory sex he believes comes with a relationship. He becomes extremely fixated on courting “tall, blonde women” that are “pretty” and will “give him sex”, so much that he masturbates frequently to fantasies of said women. He refuses to work menial jobs or anything low-class, instead continuing to mooch off of his parents money and homes, much to his dismay. He gets into frequent fights with his stepmother, to the point where his father sides with her, and he refers to him as “weak”, where he once thought his father to be strong and powerful as a child for courting his stepmother not even months after the divorce. To make matters worse, his step-brother, the son of his father and stepmother, grows up to be more socially adjusted and popular than he was, making him jealous to the point where he named him and his stepmother as targets in his “Day of Retribution”, the day he would carry out his plans.

The end of the document focuses heavily on his extremely misogynistic views of women, so far as to illustrate a wild fantasy where he “rounds up women in concentration camps, killing them mercilessly from a tall tower he lords over, while retaining a few for breeding purposes.” He believes a proper, strong society is where only males grow up, free from “sexual urges” in a “fair-and-balanced world”, which I can presume is modeled after his view of childhood being innocent and carefree. He then outlines his plan to kill his roommates, random students, his stepmother and brother, and finally himself. He firmly believes that if girls will not talk to him or give him sex, he does not believe his life is worth living. Worse still, he frequently mentions that if any girl were to choose to be with him, his plan would not go forth.

Where do I begin?

I mean, where does anyone begin?

It was a frankly horrifying experience to read. I don’t say this lightly. People who know me know that I often play devil’s advocate, especially with events like this, because I firmly believe that we need to understand any single bit of information people like this have to say. We need to acknowledge these killers as people. I know everyone’s first reaction is to not watch the videos, not read the manifestos, and shut out any mention of his name or family, because we believe copycat killers who thrive on attention will continue the field of tragedy, but the truth is those determined to carry out these acts will do so anyway, and very few, if all, have been copycat incidents. These kids have real problems. Elliot Rodger is one of the first to actually document everything about himself beforehand, including giving us a rare glimpse into why he convinced himself he had to do this. We will all surely disagree with why he did it, as well we should, but it’s an important piece of information to have in order to understand mental health and actually help other people like Elliot, instead of just waiting until it’s too late, and casting another human soul into the dark box because they snapped and went apeshit.

The times he spoke about social anxiety, awkwardness, being shy, and difficulties with guys and girls, they’re all issues close to my heart. I’ve never been diagnosed on the Autism spectrum, but I imagine if my parents tried, I might’ve landed on it. I had a great deal of social difficulty when I was a pre-teen, teen, and young adult. I still have a great deal of social difficulty. I was bullied in school, I couldn’t make many friends, I had difficulty paying attention, girls didn’t like me, I was jealous of cool kids, I tried to be a cool kid, and I very nearly failed to graduate high school due to extreme depression I had after my parents divorced and feeling physically and mentally stranded in a state I wanted no part of. I fought with my parents, my sister, friends, and others, for a number of years. I really did feel for this kid when he described these things, because I’ve experienced them, I’ve lived them, but I survived them. My hate, anger, sadness, and regret, went into every new action I took with the purpose of doing better by myself. I didn’t just take up a new hobby or go lift weights for three hours to make myself believe I was a different person. I genuinely tried to break out of my comfort zone in order to change who I fundamentally was. It hurt, and it hurt a lot.

But on the topic of women, I simply could not stomach his insane bullshit about being depraved and deprived of love and intimacy. To convince yourself that all women are just objects to be used for sex, money, or power and status, is revolting as it is stupid. He wrote that his mother not marrying a rich man was a stupid decision and that she should do it for his sake, regardless of how she felt. It’s damn obvious that he views women as nothing more than objects under his thumb, and represents the worse of the male gender. I certainly do not share any of those notions, not now, and not even back then when I struggled for female attention. I lost my virginity around 20-21. Would it have been better to have years before? Sure. I am a guy, I have no problem admitting it would have been great to have done so sooner, but I was awkward, I didn’t know how to approach girls like that. It took me those extra years to observe and understand some of the ways people tick and how relationships are formed. I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs, but I think it worked out for the best. I honestly don’t understand what drives a kid like this to believe he is completely above conventional thinking. He routinely calls himself a “superior gentleman” and believes that the men these women date are sub-human apes who breed further sub-human apes. Even being half-Asian, he belittles other races and believes they are impure to be with white, blonde women he believes he deserves. This section of the manifesto is easily the most vile, disgusting thing ever written, and really makes me wonder if he really wrote it, or if any of it is real. I guess I refuse to believe that someone is capable of this, that someone is capable of this much despair and torment that they would believe humanity deserves to die simply because they’re better at socialization than he is.

By the end, it became difficult for me to stomach his insane ramblings and his vitriol towards women. I can already hear the sounds of keyboards of the Tumblr Social Justice Warrior clacking away at the injustices this man has brought forth on the entire male gender. But let’s be real, not all men are like this. Not even by half. Sure, there is a lot of shit out in the world that men do to perpetuate injustice, but there is also quite a bit of it coming from women as well. But regardless, women should never be brought to the level of Elliot Rodger, ever. Women are not objects, or blow-up dolls, or anything that reduces them to the sub-human level Rodger believes them to be. Rodger thinks himself as an alpha male, and thinks people who cater or capitulate to women’s demands, as being weak and inferior, like his father to his stepmother. I am a weak individual. I don’t deny this. I’m not a manly-man, I don’t drink beer and shit gasoline. I don’t go to bars and hit on women left and right. I clean, cook, do laundry, grocery shop, all of the things we define as being in a “woman’s domain”. But I also fix things, do yard work, move boxes, and a number of other things we define as being in a “man’s domain”. Am I domesticated? Sure. That has always been why I was picked on years back, because I wasn’t trying to ram my penis into every walking vagina. I respect women for who they are, not how they look. I may be fat, overweight, and not particularly good-looking, but I respect myself enough to be confident in myself to others. I believe most women seek confidence in men over looks or abilities, it just so happens many “macho” men are confident with their looks or abilities. There is nothing wrong with this. It’s not my place to judge another person’s relationship. I married my wife because she was, and still is, a very strong individual. She is the opposite of myself, a very weak individual. What she does best, I do worst, and what she does worst, I do best. We balance each other out. I think that is a the foundation for a good marriage, and good parenting. Hopefully.

The important takeaway from all of this though, is that in order for us to understand mental health issues, and prevent tragedies like this from occurring, we seriously need to start paying attention, and getting involved. Divorce is the most prevalent thing ever in society today, and we do not spend any time addressing it properly. Liberals want to ignore it and sweep it under the rug, while conservatives want to legislate traditional marriage hell-or-high water. Neither approach will work. We need to accept that divorce can and will happen, and to find ways to help children of divorced families cope with the loss of structure. I resented my parents for years after their divorce, mainly for the fact I was stuck in this state where I could have maybe done something differently with friends or family where I came from, but eventually I understood that most of my feelings weren’t permanent, that they represented a temporary view that would change as I got older. Divorce is not as cut-and-dry as people think it is, and even teens or young adults can be emotionally affected by it.

Emotions are a real thing, and I often think they are underrepresented in the male gender. We’re told we need to be strong individuals who protect our wives and children, whom we provide for financially and securely. But I will be the first to tell you that the emotional toll on a guy can be brutal. Most respond by drinking, or gambling, or cheating on their wives, but I believe it can be dealt with like anything else. I believe emotions can be understood and processed. There will be pain, and men do not like pain, hence shutting away emotions, but they’re necessary to advance. We need to make a society that is willing to shoulder the complete burden of itself on everyone, not just select people. But more importantly, we desperately need to be a country that pays attention to, and helps everyone, in need. We’re heading down a destructive path I feel will break apart this country because we have no desire to take responsibility for our own. We blame guns on these tragedies when the real killer is an emotionally broken young adult with absolute resolve and nothing to lose. No amount of gun control will stop someone that far emotionally-detached from carrying out their intentions. We’ve become a society that cannot accept responsibility for our own, and would instead legislate and litigate away our values and integrity for personal glory or profit. That is the true tragedy, every, single, time, these shootings happen. They’ll continue to happen until people like Elliot Rodger are fully understood, and not dismissed casually because he snapped and committed the ultimate act. We cannot continue marginalizing killers believing them to be the very same sub-humans undeserving of our pity because of their acts, because frankly that makes us no better than he who looked down on us believing we all to be low-born scum with the express purpose of denying him a rich and fulfilling life through power, money, and sex. Religion will say that he should be forgiven because he sinned, or that Jesus simply forgives because that is his purpose. We don’t need religion to have some basic human compassion for others, even if they have done bad things.

If you truly want the killer to not be memorialized, eulogized, or achieve martyrdom, treat him like a victim, and not a monster. You’re only feeding narcissists one more bite.