Share

Summary of Elliot Rodger's manifesto - Part 1

On Friday the 23rd of May, Elliot Rodger went on a killing spree in Santa Barbara, shortly after making this video and writing his 137 page manifesto. I spent three days reading and summarizing his “life story” so you don’t have to. 

This summary is divided into five parts.

Part 1: Birth – 11 years old


The short summary:

Elliot reveals that he is spoiled and entitled, and has been from a very young age. He develops a fantasy version of himself, in which he is superior and most worthy of admiration, and he begins to show resentment and anger towards anything that contradicts this fantasy.

He becomes obsessed with trying to force reality to match his fantasy. He tries to identify what will make him popular and admires and attempts to acquire these things.

His shows a tendency towards throwing temper tantrums, sulking and whining as techniques to get his own way, and he also spends a great deal of time indulging in fantasies of the life he desires.

During this time, Elliot sees girls as “other” and has no interest in them, though he has no hatred for them either.  

The long summary:


During this period, Elliot Rodger does not resent or hate girls. He has no interest in them. This is his experience with girls:

5 years old: He has a female friend named Maddy, a fact that he now considers ironic. She is the first and last female friend he’ll ever have.

7 years old: His father finds a new girlfriend quickly. Elliot assumes this means his father is a man worthy of respect and admiration. This is the first glimpse of him considering women, and having a girlfriend, to be a status symbol.

He has a little sister who he never seems to bond or play with. Instead, he views her as competition, and throws tantrums when she affects his life: for example when he is told he has to share his Playstation 2 with her.

Generally, this is his view on girls:

“Girls were completely foreign creatures to me. I never interacted with them… I wasn’t expected to. In Elementary School, boys played with boys and girls played with girls. That was what I was used to. That was my world.”

Elliot’s early years are marked by a sense of entitlement which is indulged by those around him.

As early as the age of 3, he objects to being treated as anything less than the most important person in the room, and throws a temper tantrum when he is not. An anecdote:

“The first birthday I remember was my 3rd birthday. My parents threw a party for me in our field. I had a helicopter birthday cake. I can remember one of my friend’s parents cutting off the first piece and giving it to my friend. I threw a tantrum because I was expecting to get the first piece…”

Elliot insists on getting his way, and his desires are not simple. As he says himself, he’s always loved “luxury and opulence”. Often, his demands are rewarded.

When his father buys a new house, Elliot tells of throwing “a huge crying tantrum” when his father and step-mother at first (for practical reasons involving his little sister) did not want to give him the room he had picked out for himself. After a lot of sulking, they give in, and Elliot gets the room he demanded.

Later, Elliot explains why he prefers spending time with his mother than with his father.

“At mother’s house, all my needs were met with excellent precision, whereas at father’s house, there would always be a time delay.”

He also complains about his new step-mother, as she does things like make him drink milk. At first, he is used to feeling admired and validated. At the age of 7, when his favourite meal was lobster, he was accustomed to having temper tantrums rewarded, and he was admired for having the best collection of Pokémon cards, (something you can’t have without mommy or daddy’s money,) he considers life fair.

Elliot also shows off a nasty, vindictive nature. His first act of pre-mediated revenge occurs when he is six, when he purposefully excludes a boy he dislikes from his birthday party. When he is nasty and spiteful towards other children, he seems genuinely surprised when they feel upset or insulted. He tells this odd story,

“I had a conflict with my friend Shane during this time. Because of some arguments we previously had, I started to play a game with him in which he would become my enemy and rival at school. For me, I was just playing with him, but he took it seriously and the conflict escalated a lot more than I thought it would.”

He starts to realize life is unfair when he discovers he is shorter than other boys, even other boys that are younger than him. 

For the rest of his life, Elliot is obsessed with particularly mentioning when other boys who are more talented, luckier or happier than him are younger than him. He never stops considering this an injustice.

Elliot’s desire to be admired as better than everyone else very quickly translates into an intensely jealous nature. He is jealous of his friends when they praise each other rather than him. He is jealous of his sister when friends play with her. He is jealous of children that are taller than him, and he takes up basketball to increase his height. When he realizes other children are better at basketball than he is, he is jealous and discouraged, and quits.

“Jealousy and envy… those are the two feelings that would dominate my entire life and bring me immense pain.”

Elliot also expresses an intense hatred for being embarrassed in front of people; for example, if he is punished in front of his friends. He wants to be praised and admired, never disgraced.

At about 9, Elliot realizes there’s a hierarchy – that some children are considered “cool” and others aren’t. He realizes he is not considered “cool”, and this really bothers him a lot.

He resolves to become cool. Not simply accepted by the cool kids, but the coolest kid of them all, admired by all, and envied by all.

He sets to work. He quits Pokémon, despite enjoying it, because he realizes it’s not considered cool. He notices skateboarding is cool, so he takes it up. He changes his wardrobe and hair.

He becomes insecure about being half-Asian among whites. This will later develop into an intense racism towards anyone less white than he is.

He feels that his transformation earns him instant acceptance and praise. This expectation of praise is a characteristic that marks him for life.

“For the first week of Fifth Grade, I was at my mother’s house. I considered myself to be very “cool” by now. I had gotten better at skateboarding, I had blonde hair, and I dressed like a skateboarder. I felt great anticipation for what the cool kids would think of me once they saw my transformation.”  

“To my disappointment, no one really cared. They were all in their own worlds. I don’t remember any kids showing recognition of my new “coolness”. Eventually, I was regarded differently than I was in Fourth grade, which I became content with. The cool kids talked to me more, and I started hanging out with them during recess and lunch.”


He is not ostracised, ignored or bullied, he is simply not admired on the level he expects.

Elliot’s friendships are marked by his competitive, bad winner, sore loser nature.

He has no genuine affection for the cool kids, because he views them as competition.

He develops what he calls a “genuine interest” for skateboarding when he begins to desire to become a professional skateboarder, and fantasizes chiefly about being admired and adored by fans.

“James had become really interested in skateboarding too, or so I believed. I was always better at it than him though, and I liked it that way.”

For a while, Elliot loves his identity as a skateboarder. It gives him something to show off, something to boast about, and something to be admired for – all the desires he has in life.

Elliot loses interest in skateboarding when he discovers other kids, most notably younger kids, are better at it than he is. Seeing children perform tricks he couldn’t master makes him angry.

At this point, a new mark of status amongst boys appears: Girls liking you.

Continue to Part 2 
here.

Follow Women24 on Twitter and like us on Facebook.   
We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred
Who we choose to trust can have a profound impact on our lives. Join thousands of devoted South Africans who look to News24 to bring them news they can trust every day. As we celebrate 25 years, become a News24 subscriber as we strive to keep you informed, inspired and empowered.
Join News24 today
heading
description
username
Show Comments ()
Editorial feedback and complaints

Contact the public editor with feedback for our journalists, complaints, queries or suggestions about articles on News24.

LEARN MORE