Section 23.5. Columbine


23.5. Columbine


Slashdot has moved away from its technology roots only gradually, and only where a new topic clearly connects to its core audience. There is a "Book Review" section, but its focus is on computer books. Sections like "Your Rights Online" branch farther afield, but are still rooted in topics of concern to the technically inclined: the SCO lawsuit, the legality of file sharing and peer-to-peer networks, or the status of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Slashdot has never tried to be a general news site, and events of general interest typically are not covered. In this regard, what arrives in the Slashdot submission bin and what is published to the front page differ substantially.

On Wednesday, April 21, 1999, a number of Slashdot readers submitted reports of a shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Ultimately, it would emerge that fifteen people died, including the two teenage boys who were the shooters. Twenty-three other people were injured before the two boys ended the massacre by committing suicide. These details were far from clear as the first submissions arrived at Slashdot that Wednesday.

A breaking story like Columbine brings out the best and worst in Internet news reporting. The Internet has an unprecedented capacity to cover events in real time, and to draw from a widely distributed network of sources. At the same time, standards for journalism and fact checking are largely undefined in this new medium.Rumor is reported as fact, and the distributed nature of information flow makes correction in light of new information difficult.

When the Slashdot staff looked at the submissions regarding Columbine that Wednesday, it seemed clear that first of all, the story did not tie directly to the technology topics that are the core of Slashdot's coverage, and second, that the story was still an emerging one with important facts still unknown. Without much discussion, the staff decided not to post the story, and leave coverage of Columbine to the mainstream media.

Columnist Jon Katz, however, saw a different story emerging over the next two days. Katz had been hard at work on his book Geeks, and indeed it was this research into geek culture that had drawn him to Slashdot in the first place. An important part of that research concerned the isolation and alienation felt by geek teenagers simply because they were smart and different. Katz was appalled by the quick move of mainstream media to stereotype the Columbine shooters as a deranged byproduct of a violence-desensitizing subculture of hard rock, computers, and video games.

On Friday, April 23, Katz used his column on Slashdot to voice a response. He published a piece titled "Why Kids Kill." Katz's main point was to counter the stereotype. He argued that youth violence was dramatically on the decline, and that there was no research to establish a correlation between violence in movies, music, games, or television and violent behavior among youth. He also raised the question of why our expectations of who violent youth would beurban, disadvantaged, and ethnicdo not match the reality of who violent youth actually aresuburban, middle class, and white. The suggestion, though subtly stated by Katz, was that stereotypes provided a convenient alternative to confronting the fact that today's parents do not understand today's youth. If technology was responsible for anything, it was for widening that gap in understanding.

What followed was unprecedented in the history of Slashdot. Most Slashdot readers view the site and comment from somewhere other than a home computer. Either they are at work, or they are students using a university computer. Consequently, traffic on the site, and number of comments, tend to decline on the weekend, with a big drop-off starting on Friday. Katz's column was posted at 11:00 A.M. on Friday. It received over 1,000 comments (see http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/04/22/2136230&mode=thread).

The comments included some from parents, teachers, and other adults. But the vast majority of comments were from teenagers. They spoke out not to defend the shootings at Columbine, but to express their own feelings of alienation. Much of this alienation was rooted in the struggle to grow up in a world of rapid, technology-driven change to which the adults in their life could not relate. The comments are heartfelt, surprisingly articulate, and seemingly countless (footnote: the "countless" part is, in some sense, true. Slashdot does not archive comments moderated below zero, so while we know that more than 1,000 comments moderated zero and higher, there is no record of the total number of comments posted).

It's worth quoting a representative example:

When I was growing up, I wore a lot of black, I studied explosives and bomb-making, I learned how to shoot, and I memorized complete copies of _Jane's Infantry Weapons_ and various army and special forces survival manuals. It was a funky hobby that never really went anywhere. I've worn a black trenchcoat almost every day for ten years, I've played DOOM-like games since they first appeared, and I'm a big fan of John Woo films. To the best of my knowledge, I never went nuts and killed anyone.

I also graduated at the top of my high school class and graduated with honors from an ivy-league college, and I'm now happily married and managing the support team for a successful tech startup. I give credit for all of my success to my parents, who took an active interest in what I was doing and why, without trying to control my life.

Katz and the others at Slashdot were stunned. While the site didn't crash, the volume of comments put the site under an unprecedented load. Katz's personal email was flooded with messages from young people contacting him directly to tell their own stories of alienation and ostracism. Everyone at Slashdot realized that they had tapped into a deep sentiment in urgent need of expression.

On Monday, Katz posted a new column, "Voices from the Hellmouth" (see http://slashdot.org/articles/99/04/25/1438249.shtml). Katz could have tried to assert himself and lead the discussion at this point. He chose not to. Instead, he recognized a stillpent-up need for the discussion to continue, and recognized that the most useful thing he could do was facilitate, rather than lead the discussion. His Monday column contained very little of his own words or opinion, and was instead his attempt to relay the most insightful or poignant stories he had received. More than 1,200 comments were posted in response to "Voices from the Hellmouth."[3]

[3] The name Hellmouth derives from the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." The series is set in the fictional town of Sunnydale, mainly at Sunnydale High, which sits atop a nexus of power drawing everything evil toward it; this nexus is known as the Hellmouth.

Monday's comments continued the themes of Friday. Young people expressed how frustrated they were that parents and teachers disapproved of their interests, their community, and their culture simply because it was something adults did not understand. Young people expressed how isolated they felt when teased and persecuted by their peers for dressing different, acting different, and worst of all, being smart.

On Tuesday, sensing that the discussion had not yet run its course, Katz posted another column, titled "More Stories from the Hellmouth" (see http://slashdot.org/features/99/04/27/0310247.shtml). More than 500 comments were posted in response. It's interesting to note an update that Rob Malda inserted into the story late in the day (around 7:45 that evening): "Sharon Isaak from Dateline NBC wants to get in touch with folks to do a story on this subject for this show. She's specifically seeking Jay of the Southeast, Anika78 of suburban Chicago, ZBird of New Jersey, Dan in Boise, Idaho, but she'd also like anyone who's been targeted as a result of this thing to contact her. Wonder if they make ya wear pancake makeup..."

The Columbine story was now a week old.

Two facts about Slashdot are easy to overlook in the course of more-routine day-to-day content that appears on the site. First, Slashdot is a discussion site, not a news site. Breaking stories are seldom reported on Slashdot, and while a great deal of news coverage is presented on the site, fundamentally the purpose of the news is to seed discussion. Second, the audience of Slashdot is not so much an audience as it is a community.

Before Columbine, even Slashdot's regulars may not have realized the extent to which they were a community. Rob Malda and the other Blockstackers had elevated themselves from an isolated community of geeks in Holland, Michigan, to a global community of like-minded peers. The "Hellmouth" series on Slashdot affirmed that it was not just the staff of the site that could make this transformation, but the audience as well. Over the course of that post-Columbine week, teenage geeks became the voice of Slashdot, speaking many to many. They recognized and celebrated that they were not alone, but were part of a larger community. The site, like Katz, receded into the background, and communication was direct between those who came to the site and posted. Nor was the discussion that week merely a collective pat on the back. Practical, meaningful advice was asked for, offered, and shared: crisis centers to contact, teachers to recommend who had been particularly understanding, programs and opportunities that catered to the aspiring geek.

That practical dynamic is an essential ingredient of community, and had been a characteristic of Slashdot for some time. Those who think of the site merely as a news site have overlooked a small but important section of the site called "Ask Slashdot." Debuting in May of 1998, this category of posts was not affiliated with any seeding news story, but instead was a direct plea for advice from the community.

At times the "Ask Slashdot" posts have looked suspiciously like questions that Rob or other staff members would like to have answered: how to set up a local wireless network, or wire a home theater system. This is part of the meaning of like-minded peers, however; questions of interest to one member of the community are usually of interest to many others as well.

Over the years, the archives of "Ask Slashdot" have grown to an impressive respository of advice and how-to information for those immersed in the geek lifestyle. More than any other section, "Ask Slashdot" exemplifies the community aspect of the site, with the audience speaking directly to each other, unfettered by any lead-in story.

The week following Columbine exemplified the finest characteristics of that community spirit.



Open Sources 2.0
Open Sources 2.0: The Continuing Evolution
ISBN: 0596008023
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 217

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