Cute mass murderer alert!
A woman tells Salon she regrets tweeting that James Holmes is attractive, but says she doesn't deserve threats
By Tracy Clark-FloryTopics: Internet Culture, james holmes, Editor's Picks, Life News
James E. Holmes appears in Arapahoe County District Court, Monday, Centennial, Colo. (Credit: (AP Photo/Denver Post, RJ Sangosti, Pool))On Monday while watching CNN coverage of Aurora shooter James Holmes’ court appearance, “Sarah” tweeted something about James Holmes being somewhat attractive.
She got little response until the following day when Jezebel published a post titled, “Disturbing: Women on Twitter Think James Holmes Is ‘Hot,’ ‘Sexy,’ ‘Cute.” Her tweet, along with 10 others, was screen-capped alongside the piece, which detailed the many serial killers who have attracted female fans. Then came the threatening tweets, emails and phone calls, she says. “I’ve received hateful tweets ranging from ‘You should be ashamed of yourself’ to “You should get sterilized’ to ‘I hope someone kills your family to see if you’d still think he is cute.’” Someone called her house just to tell her “that they knew where I lived,” she says.
“Sarah,” who spoke to me on the condition that I leave her real name, Twitter handle and tweet out of this article, describes the past 24 hours as the worst of her life.
“Just so you know, I am not one of those crazies who actually gets off on psycho killers or anything like that,” she said. The tweet was taken out of context, she argues: Her other live tweets that day speculated on whether or not he looked drugged up during the hearing. “All I wanted to point out was that appearances can be deceiving,” she says.
And so too can tweets, apparently: Many, myself included, read her tweet as making light of the tragedy, but “Sarah” says, “I feel terrible about what happened in Aurora and I certainly do not think that what he did could ever be considered OK,” she says. “But what happened in Aurora and how I feel about that most unfortunate tragedy doesn’t change the fact that this is an attractive, educated young man with a nice family who at first glance would be hard to peg as a serial killer.”
Should people be able to make such a simple observation — that a mass murderer may be a monster but doesn’t look like one — without being heaped with opprobrium? Absolutely. Although it seems they rarely manage it with nuance or sensitivity in the land of 140-characters.
Tracy Clark-Flory is a staff writer at Salon. Follow @tracyclarkflory on Twitter and Facebook. More Tracy Clark-Flory.
Related Stories
More Related Stories
-
New York's most persecuted subway artist?
-
What's the Eiffel Tower doing in China?
-
Top 5 investigative videos of the week: Nailing a dictator
-
Will you marry me -- once you're done peeing?
-
My crushing student debt
-
Pollution as ancient Chinese art
-
Chimp's blurry pictures to fetch six figures at auction
-
Can playing Dots on your iPhone make you smarter?
-
Print your own gardening accessories
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Temple Grandin on DSM-5: "Sounds like diagnosis by committee"
-
Stop comparing everything to "Girls"!
-
Is killing a fetus murder?
-
New DSM, new debates over ADHD and autism
-
Berlusconi's parties featured women dressed as Obama
-
Should graduation ceremonies be multi-faith?
-
Federal government is letting us eat metal shards, pink slime
-
Photographed secretly at home: Is it art?
-
Obama pledges to end "scourge" of sexual assault in the military
-
My "truly remarkable" cancer breakthrough
-
I think this guy is stalking me
Featured Slide Shows
The week in 10 pics
close X- Share on Twitter
- Share on Facebook
- Thumbnails
- Fullscreen
- 1 of 11
- Previous
- Next
-
Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
Credit: AP/LM Otero -
Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
Credit: AP/Matt Rourke -
A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher -
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
Credit: AP/Molly Riley -
Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite -
Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster -
O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid -
Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield -
When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin -
A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin -
Recent Slide Shows
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Mobile Entertainment: 9 Amazing Drive-In Movie Theaters Still Standing
-
The week in 10 pics
-
- Share on Twitter
- Share on Facebook
- Thumbnails
- Fullscreen
- 1 of 11
- Previous
- Next
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Mobile Entertainment: 9 Amazing Drive-In Movie Theaters Still Standing
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Netflix's April Fools' Day categories
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Slideshow: Nerd Obama
Related Videos
Most Read
-
Revenge, ego and the corruption of Wikipedia
Andrew Leonard
-
Obstruction will ruin GOP
Jonathan Bernstein
-
Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class
Scott Timberg
-
Is Reddit censoring openly racist users?
Fidel Martinez, The Daily Dot
-
We're living in an Ayn Rand economy
Paul Buchheit, AlterNet
-
The man behind Abercrombie & Fitch
Benoit Denizet-Lewis
-
My "truly remarkable" cancer breakthrough
Mary Elizabeth Williams
-
When the IRS targeted liberals
Alex Seitz-Wald
-
Krist Novoselic: My plan to fix Congress, curb obstruction
Krist Novoselic
-
Will you marry me -- once you're done peeing?
Tracy Clark-Flory
Popular on Reddit
links from salon.com
From Around the Web
Presented by Scribol
-
Diane Gilman: Baby Boomers: A New Life-Construct -- From "Invisible to Invincible!" -
Susan Gregory Thomas: Why Divorced Boomer Moms Don't Deserve The Bad Rap -
British Nanny Offered An Annual Salary Of $200,000 -
Arianna Huffington: What I Did (and Didn't Do) On My Summer Vacation -
Vivian Diller, Ph.D.: Maybe Happiness Begins At 50




30 Places You'd Rather Be Sitting Right Now
Comments
37 Comments