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When a 39-year woman went on a shooting spree in YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno, California, the first thing many conservatives thought to themselves was: “please don’t let it be a conservative.”
If she had been right wing, there would have been no end to the leftist rants about how violent and dangerous conservatives are, and it would have been exploited for all it was worth to dismantle the Second Amendment and take away the guns from honest, stable, peace-loving conservatives.
Against the media narrative
It turns out that we dodged a bullet this time. The woman – who will remain unnamed in this article to stop the vicious cycle of news-driven mass shootings – was a vegan animal rights activist – typically a left-wing political cause. Also, she was a woman, so toxic masculinity cannot be the culprit. Finally, she was a minority, a woman of Iranian descent.
This shooting will likely quickly fade from the news cycle because it goes against the media narrative. Nothing to see here; move along.
A disturbed individual
We at Liberty Nation are not going to make the mistake of ascribing her actions to her political beliefs. She was a disturbed individual, who displayed such alarming behavior in the days before the shooting that her father apparently called the police to warn them. She must have had serious problems in her personal life to motivate such a vile action.
YouTube censorship
Although we can never be completely safe from crazy outliers, there are still a few lessons to learn from this incident, which may help reduce the probability of similar actions in the future.
First, the shooter had been vocal about YouTube censorship and demonetization prior to the attempted killing spree. YouTube’s censorship has angered many content producers, as they feel the company has been fraudulent in its marketing. The slogan “Broadcast Yourself” has in practice been “Censor Yourself, or else…”
That is, of course, no excuse for murder. However, when society moves in a totalitarian direction and freedom of speech is threatened, some people may feel cornered and do awful things. This Iranian woman was apparently opposed to the dictatorship in Iran. We may speculate that one of the things that drove her to this act was a feeling that what she escaped in Iran was catching up to her in America.
Mass shooting as an advertisement campaign
Second, it appears that part of her motivation for taking such drastic measures was the feeling of not being heard. The mainstream media has done nothing to expose the censorship and totalitarian actions of companies like Twitter, Facebook, Google, and its subsidiary, YouTube. So how do you get the media to focus on the topic?
Her awful answer was to attempt a mass shooting.
She has learned what many a deprived wannabe celebrity has already picked up on: if you initiate a mass shooting, the media will splatter your picture and name all over the news. It’s an instant path to fame.
In this, the mainstream media must take full responsibility. Only months before the Parkland shooting, the sick young man commented on another mass shooting and said: “I could do so much better.”
Experts have warned the media about this for a long time: Do not show the name or face of the shooter. Don’t turn him or her into a celebrity. Don’t talk about body count. Don’t show graphic pictures from the shooting. Don’t make it into a big sensational story. Do, however, whenever possible, turn those who stop the mass shooters into heroes.
If the media did this, they could contribute in a meaningful way to prevent mass shootings far more effectively than any gun control law ever could. So far, however, they have shown little interest in choosing lives over ratings.
