A New Celebrity

I'm sure the person who opened the package at NBC that contained the above picture, several video clips, and an 1800 word diatribe must have felt like they won a horrendous lottery. The fact that Cho Seung-Hui was prescient enough to shoot two people, return to his dorm room, send out the package that is now being shown and played on every news station on cable, and then continued on his spree is a testament to exactly how cold blooded he was.

But it's also a testament to something else.

Much like at Columbine, when it was revealed that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had recorded many of their actions and plans in the year leading up to the attack, it is evident that Cho was in search of some kind of celebrity that he couldn't get in life.

Perhaps I'm cynical, but it seems to me that celebrity is a great wish for those who perform school shootings. And if this hypothesis is true, it means that the media, and we as everyday Americans, fall into the hands of these crazed lunatics and create from them vicious celebrity.

There isn't a single person in America who doesn't know the name of Cho Seung-Hui. Because of the package he sent NBC, I'm sure there isn't a single person in America who doesn't know his face, or hasn't heard his voice. Fox News, NBC, CBS, CNN--all have made celebrity of this monster.

While I, when speaking with a friend yesterday, jokingly suggested that American News agencies are in a sad state of affairs when it takes something like this to get Anna Nicole Smith's Baby off the news, the type of coverage is no different.

Cho is America's next Don Imus. For weeks to come his face, his words, his actions will dominate the airwaves, and his final wishes will come true. He is no longer a loser...he is the most famous person in America. The most infamous.

And this can only lead to a bad, horrible place. Cho himself, in one of his video clips, referenced the "martyrs" Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. He idolized them. And some future shooter, years from now, will idolize Cho, and that is a scary thought. I cannot help but to feel somewhat responsible for that future day, because I know who Cho is. I know his name. I know his face, and his words, and his actions.

The celebrity that has been created from this horrendous event, may one day come back to haunt us.

Perhaps it would be better, to leave him faceless, nameless, and buried in the most ignoble of manners.

Perhaps, it would be better, if Cho had asked for celebrity, and we all forgot his name.