Commenters on various blogs and discussion boards about the spree shooting near University of California at Santa Barbara campus allude to the alleged shooter, Elliot Rodger, being a closeted gay.
Across the reports by many Web sites about the spree killing by alleged suspect Elliot Rodger, many commenters are trying to understand how an otherwise handsome young 22 year old man could still be a virgin, unless the real reason that women "rejected" Mr. Rodger was because of the fact that he was gay, according to these comments.
On one Web site, post-attack criticism of Mr. Rodger not only attempted to shame him about his sexuality, but questions were also raised about his economic status. One commenter wrote, "Most women probably assumed he's gay," on a post that noted that Mr. Rodger's guilt was assured because of "affluenza," a term coined to define the reckless behavior of children of the affluent class. Mr. Rodger was the child of Hollywood assistant movie director Elliot Rodger, who worked on the popular movie, "The Hunger Games."
Some of the "gay" comments appear to be bullying in nature, like one comment, originally posted on PUAhate but reprinted on the Business Insider Web site, which may allude to the kind of online scrutiny Mr. Rodger must have faced while alive. According to the comment, every level of Mr. Rodger's face was deconstructed for sex appeal, and one commenter found that the center part of Mr. Rodger's face was deemed "gay," despite this conclusion being solely based on biased and subjective stereotypes.
One one posting of the shooting on Hollywood Life, which had some early inaccuracies due to the fast-breaking news aspect of the spree shooting story, one commenter wrote that Mr. Rodger "was openly gay," adding that, "I don’t think people would have had any idea of his sexual frustration with women when he claimed to be gay."
Many aspects of Mr. Rodger's life are undergoing intense scrutiny, especially after he wrote what many people are describing as a troubling manifesto, adding to people's impression that the young Mr. Rodger was .
On The Conservative Treehouse blog, one commenter wrote that Mr. Rodger was "gay and really didn’t want to have sex with a girl," a conclusion reached after the commenter had visited Mr. Rodger's Facebook page and viewed Mr. Rodger's spooky, fuck off YouTube video.
Even worse, on a lunatic, conspiracy Web site, Mr. Rodger was deemed a "closeted," self-loathing misogynist, which elicited the fair retort that the homophobic answer to everything is always that a criminal is "gay."
On Facebook comments last night, as word of Mr. Rodger's video and manifesto spread, LGBT activists were troubled by Mr. Rodger's tone, arguments, and motivations. One gay member of Facebook went so far as to compare Mr. Rodger with Luka Magnotta, a Canadian star of gay porn movies, who has been accused of murdering and dismembering a Chinese international student, Lin Jun.
It's too soon to know if Mr. Rodger was actually gay, or whether all of these online comments represent the kind of intense peer pressure and bullying Mr. Rodger must have faced or perceived during his brief, sexually-frustrated adult life.
