Well, the Dyleski murder has morphed in "goth murder madness," thanks to Fox News. This is pretty classic media moral panic, when the press builds up an exaggerated panic with sketchy facts. Yes, Dyleski may have worn black and experimented with style and identity, as do many teens. But no, the "goth movement" is not corrupting teenagers and inducing them to attack and murder innocent people. Instead of blaming Marilyn Manson (as the press felt obliged to do in the wake of Columbine), however, Fox News turned to goth musician and artist Voltaire to be the spokesperson of the supposed "movement" (better known by adherents as the "scene"). Voltaire, aside from being at least moderately articulate, presents himself as clean, well-groomed and reasonably mature -- to say little of his commercial success in music, comics and animation. And unlike Manson, Voltaire is actually sort of a goth, and his music, though really more folk in influence, appeals to and is consumed by the goth scene. It seems like Fox is undermining their own sensationalism a bit by presenting this well-spoken and attractive man (albeit with a devilish goatee) as a figurehead for a "movement" that supposedly engenders "murder madness." But maybe that's just me.
goth murder madness -- and Voltaire?
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What's curious is that the choise of Dylesky's clothing has received summarily more attention (appearing in the headlines no less) than circumstances of his family (death of his sister, a strange family arrangement, mother as "remote healer", father and step-mother divorcing, all of that during the time when he is trying to figure out his place in the world). Although some SF newspapers have tried to question the focus, others have pressed on, with brave pronouncements of "darkness" "satanism" and "goth-cult-status". Excellent.
Have you had much psychology? There is this nifty concept of a "fundamental attribution error". Probably my favorite psychology theory, which suggests that when we try to figure out why we, ourselves screw up, we attribute our failure to external causes (its' the societie's fault!), while when others do something, we attribute their failure to intrinsic causes (they are stupid!). Reverse for success. In this case, we certainly do not want to attribute any fault to anyone or anything but some bad evil cult-thing that teenagers and crazy people do... besides, they like wear black, have been depicted in movies as evil and satanist, and most of us don't get the whole idea anyway. So... attributing this whole cause for murdering someone to ummm... bad environment and oversight would make everyone feel bad, attributing it to some cult-brainwashing-type-thing nobody else understands really anyway, well that's just jolly!