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  • 2026-03-03 - The Psychology of Columbine (Ch 2 - Eric Behavior) - full (prem).mp3
  • 2026-03-03 - The Psychology of Columbine (Ch 2 - Eric Behavior) - full (prem).mp3

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Stefan and Erin S

There’s a guy on the Columbine Reddit, Randy. He’s a survivor from the school. He says this massacre was driven by humiliation. He doesn’t ever defend the killers but he has talked over and over again about how toxic the school culture was, how severe the bullying was, and how much the school staff just let it happen. It sounds like it was a really horrible dynamic in the school where the athletes were heavily favored by staff and allowed to abuse whoever they wanted. I think the bullying was probably every day, constant. The people who say it wasn’t were likely the lucky ones who didn’t experience it personally.

Stefan and Erin S

I also wonder if it was easier to dehumanize their victims because they were dehumanized when bullied publicly, people did not stand up for them. And they had likely done the same to other kids in the past. A culture of seeing others as not worth defending makes them seem easy to discard. I don’t think bullying caused this crime but I think it made it really easy for them, because they were already conditioned to accept the way they were all treated at the school.

Alex (they/he)

i've never been violent against anyone but myself but i will say that moving from Pennsylvania to California at the age of 12 fucked me up baaaadd. i do think there were experiences of social othering that happened from when i was very young, so it's not the solitary factor that determined my psychology/attachment, but it was absolutely devastating at the time and it actually took years for me to accept that there was nothing i could do to get my parents to send me back. we did move around a lot, and even though we were in Philly from when i was about 5, i struggled socially probably until the year before we moved so i think that was part of it, too: the injustice that finally i had found my people and i had to leave them for a place where it was incredibly difficult to find that again. i wonder if Eric felt similarly. like i wonder how alienated he felt beforehand if the two years in New York are described as his strongest memories of connection to a place. that kind of stand out to me—i think i also at least felt connected to Philly because most of my true childhood memories were there. 5-12 feels like you've been somewhere forever. i also wonder if it was extra hurtful because they weren't forced to move that time by his father's work—i feel like it was a bit of a cope for me to know that my we had to move for my dad's work. it would have felt like an even bigger betrayal i think if my parents had just elected to uproot me because of their own preferences. (not saying that was objectively the case for his parents, but it may have felt that way to a tween.)

Alex (they/he)

but also i think a big split between Eric and i's mentalities is this idea of power and entitlement. like i do think that for me it was about this never-ending grief at the loss of connection and never really about being at the top of a power structure or seeking revenge on others for belittling me. so i do wonder about factors like male entitlement and the normalization of violence + firearms. also the influence of a military father. these are all factors in which we differ. (i didn't come out and transition until my late 20s, so while not all transmasculine people feel this way, i would say that i was socialized the way most girls are + my parents are both academics & i've never even touched a gun.)

Anna Furleta

Oh, I had friends from the radio station and I got to see pre-screening of the Matrix 🎥! Good times 😎 we were only 10 or so people in the whole movie theater