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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.
Read Part 1 here.
Part 2: 11 – 14 years old
The short summary:
Elliot has friends throughout this period, but he is unsatisfied, as he really wants the admiration and status that would match his fantasy version of himself. He resents the popular and cool kids, and begins to annoy them on purpose.
This invokes a reaction in him, and he finds himself teased. This invokes a greater reaction, and he begins to resent the world as an unfair and cruel place. He busies himself with playing computer games with his friends, but remains unsatisfied.
During this period, Elliot goes from seeing girls as “other” and fairly pointless to seeing them as status symbols, and therefore objects he desires to possess.
The long summary:
At 11, Elliot discovers status chiefly relies on being popular with girls. At this point, he is not attracted to girls, and does not understand their appeal, but he desires their attention as it will affirm his fantasy of being ultimately superior to his peers.
“My whole world had changed. The ‘cool’ thing to do now was to be popular with girls. I didn’t know how to go about doing that. Skateboarding, I was able to do… Dressing well, that was simple… But attracting attention from girls? How in the blazes was I going to do that? I didn’t even understand what was so special about it either, but everyone seemed to place so much importance on it.”
Uncertain how to go about acquiring girls, Elliot focuses on his skateboarding, which does help him make friends.
“Once again, I used skateboarding as a way to increase my standing, telling the skateboarder kids that I knew how to skateboard and that I could do some tricks.”
The other children are mostly friendly towards him, even the cool kids and the girls.
“Girls actually paid attention to me. They knew who I was and I didn’t feel like I was completely invisible. I was extremely shy with girls and could barely have a conversation with them, but I still interacted with girls more during this year than I would for any following year. The cool kids treated me nicely, despite my reputation as the ‘quiet kid’. I always felt like a loser compared to them, and I hated them for it, though is till wanted their approval. I wanted to be one of them… I wanted to be their friend.”
Elliot, at this point, doesn’t really see the appeal of girls, and doesn’t like the cool kids, “I thought all of the cool kids were obnoxious jerks” but he is determined to be accepted and admired by both. It remains clear that it’s not friendship he craves; it’s admiration and status.
“Whenever a so-called popular kid would say a word to me or give me a high five, I felt immense satisfaction.”
“The girls don’t flock to the gentleman. They flock to the alpha male. They flock to the boys who appear to have the most power and status. And it was a ruthless struggle to reach such a height.”
“he really looked up to me. We got along well.”
Elliot’s desire for luxury and inherent snobbery is apparent when he is embarrassed to admit his mother’s house is “poor” (it’s not). Later, when his mother moves into a flat, he is mortified and no longer invites friends over, as he cannot accept them seeing him in such a lowly living arrangement. (The flat has two bedrooms – he is given one while his sister and mother share the other. He mentions this as if it’s the most natural thing in the world for him to be given special and better treatment.)
Elliot reveals his snobbery again when his father and step-mother take him to Morocco.
“For one thing, I was never enthusiastic about Morocco. The country is very backwards, and that made me uncomfortable. They didn’t even have the latest video games.”
Indications of Elliot’s jealous nature continue, and he begins to insult anyone who he is envious of, calling them obnoxious.
“I met Pascal and his clique of friends. I immediately took a disliking to them. Pascal was cocky and popular, so I felt intimidated.”
He particularly dislikes anyone who is better at skateboarding than he is, and anyone who is more popular with girls than he is. He shows definite racism, and will mention someone is “half-Mexican”or “half-black” as a reason why he believes they deserve less status and respect than him.
This quote about his sister’s birthday party displays both his particular need to show off his status to his family, a trend that carries on throughout the manifesto, and his hypocrisy – when Georgia’s friends attend his birthday, he is upset. When his friends attend her birthday, he does not even for a moment consider it unusual or potentially upsetting for Georgia:
“My sister Georgia’s birthday was in November, and on that day my father hired a limo to pick up Georgia and her friends from mother’s house. Charlie and Elijah came over, though John Jo was absent that day. When the limo returned, we all celebrated Georgia’s birthday at the house together. I introduced my father to my friends. It was a very happy experience.”
Elliot is introduced to sex mainly through catching a glimpse of an explicit porno.
“I barely even knew what sex was. I was slowly starting to develop sexual feelings for hot girls, but I didn’t know what to do with them. To see this video really traumatized me. I had no idea what I was seeing. I couldn’t imagine human beings doing such things with each other. The sight was shocking, traumatizing, and arousing. ”
This incident deeply upsets him and he cries, but does not talk to his parents about it.
When Elliot is not elevated to the superior social position he feels he is owed, he begins to react by annoying people on purpose to get attention. This causes him to go from being known as the “quiet kid” to the “weird kid”, and he begins to be teased and bullied, though never physically.
During this time, a few girls begin to tease him. Elliot’s description of his first crush almost perfectly captures his relationship with women for the rest of his life. As Monette is nasty to him, Elliot despises her, but he also has a crush on her. For the rest of his life, Elliot will hate the girls he desires, and then wonder why they do not desire him back.
“One of these girls was Monette Moio, a pretty blonde girl who was Ashton’s younger sister. She must have thought that I was an ultimate loser. I hated her so much, and I will never forget her. I started to hate all girls because of this. I saw them as mean, cruel, and heartless creatures that took pleasure from my suffering.”
“The way I was treated by girls at this time, especially by that evil bitch Monette Moio, sparked an inherent fear of girls. The funny part of this is that I had a secret crush on Monette. She was the first girl I ever had a crush on, and I never admitted it to anyone. To be teased and ridiculed by the girl I had a crush on wounded me deeply.”
Elliot becomes more and more attached to online gaming, particularly ‘’World of Warcraft’’, which he plays with a few friends, and focuses a great deal of his time and energy on this. During this time, he conflicts with his step-mother, who tries to limit his time playing on his laptop. He prefers his mother, who never restricts him.
Up until this point, Elliot mostly makes friends when they approach him, or when a parent helps arrange it. When people stop actively approaching him to make friends with them, he becomes resentful at the lack of attention, and treats the world as brutal. His comments upon entering Highschool:
“As expected, I failed to make any new friends. I was so overwhelmed by the brutality of the world that I just didn’t care anymore.”
An incident that almost perfectly describes Elliot’s priorities and expectations:
“Finally having something to brag about, I told everyone at school the next day that I went to the premiere because my mother is friends with George Lucas. The problem was that most Eighth Graders thought of Star Wars as being a ‘nerdy’ interest, and they didn’t really care. I was left frustrated and disappointed by their reaction.”
Continue to Part 3 here.
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This summary is divided into five parts.
Read Part 1 here.
Part 2: 11 – 14 years old
The short summary:
Elliot has friends throughout this period, but he is unsatisfied, as he really wants the admiration and status that would match his fantasy version of himself. He resents the popular and cool kids, and begins to annoy them on purpose.
This invokes a reaction in him, and he finds himself teased. This invokes a greater reaction, and he begins to resent the world as an unfair and cruel place. He busies himself with playing computer games with his friends, but remains unsatisfied.
During this period, Elliot goes from seeing girls as “other” and fairly pointless to seeing them as status symbols, and therefore objects he desires to possess.
The long summary:
At 11, Elliot discovers status chiefly relies on being popular with girls. At this point, he is not attracted to girls, and does not understand their appeal, but he desires their attention as it will affirm his fantasy of being ultimately superior to his peers.
“My whole world had changed. The ‘cool’ thing to do now was to be popular with girls. I didn’t know how to go about doing that. Skateboarding, I was able to do… Dressing well, that was simple… But attracting attention from girls? How in the blazes was I going to do that? I didn’t even understand what was so special about it either, but everyone seemed to place so much importance on it.”
Uncertain how to go about acquiring girls, Elliot focuses on his skateboarding, which does help him make friends.
“Once again, I used skateboarding as a way to increase my standing, telling the skateboarder kids that I knew how to skateboard and that I could do some tricks.”
The other children are mostly friendly towards him, even the cool kids and the girls.
“Girls actually paid attention to me. They knew who I was and I didn’t feel like I was completely invisible. I was extremely shy with girls and could barely have a conversation with them, but I still interacted with girls more during this year than I would for any following year. The cool kids treated me nicely, despite my reputation as the ‘quiet kid’. I always felt like a loser compared to them, and I hated them for it, though is till wanted their approval. I wanted to be one of them… I wanted to be their friend.”
Elliot, at this point, doesn’t really see the appeal of girls, and doesn’t like the cool kids, “I thought all of the cool kids were obnoxious jerks” but he is determined to be accepted and admired by both. It remains clear that it’s not friendship he craves; it’s admiration and status.
“Whenever a so-called popular kid would say a word to me or give me a high five, I felt immense satisfaction.”
“The girls don’t flock to the gentleman. They flock to the alpha male. They flock to the boys who appear to have the most power and status. And it was a ruthless struggle to reach such a height.”
“he really looked up to me. We got along well.”
Elliot’s desire for luxury and inherent snobbery is apparent when he is embarrassed to admit his mother’s house is “poor” (it’s not). Later, when his mother moves into a flat, he is mortified and no longer invites friends over, as he cannot accept them seeing him in such a lowly living arrangement. (The flat has two bedrooms – he is given one while his sister and mother share the other. He mentions this as if it’s the most natural thing in the world for him to be given special and better treatment.)
Elliot reveals his snobbery again when his father and step-mother take him to Morocco.
“For one thing, I was never enthusiastic about Morocco. The country is very backwards, and that made me uncomfortable. They didn’t even have the latest video games.”
Indications of Elliot’s jealous nature continue, and he begins to insult anyone who he is envious of, calling them obnoxious.
“I met Pascal and his clique of friends. I immediately took a disliking to them. Pascal was cocky and popular, so I felt intimidated.”
He particularly dislikes anyone who is better at skateboarding than he is, and anyone who is more popular with girls than he is. He shows definite racism, and will mention someone is “half-Mexican”or “half-black” as a reason why he believes they deserve less status and respect than him.
This quote about his sister’s birthday party displays both his particular need to show off his status to his family, a trend that carries on throughout the manifesto, and his hypocrisy – when Georgia’s friends attend his birthday, he is upset. When his friends attend her birthday, he does not even for a moment consider it unusual or potentially upsetting for Georgia:
“My sister Georgia’s birthday was in November, and on that day my father hired a limo to pick up Georgia and her friends from mother’s house. Charlie and Elijah came over, though John Jo was absent that day. When the limo returned, we all celebrated Georgia’s birthday at the house together. I introduced my father to my friends. It was a very happy experience.”
Elliot is introduced to sex mainly through catching a glimpse of an explicit porno.
“I barely even knew what sex was. I was slowly starting to develop sexual feelings for hot girls, but I didn’t know what to do with them. To see this video really traumatized me. I had no idea what I was seeing. I couldn’t imagine human beings doing such things with each other. The sight was shocking, traumatizing, and arousing. ”
This incident deeply upsets him and he cries, but does not talk to his parents about it.
When Elliot is not elevated to the superior social position he feels he is owed, he begins to react by annoying people on purpose to get attention. This causes him to go from being known as the “quiet kid” to the “weird kid”, and he begins to be teased and bullied, though never physically.
During this time, a few girls begin to tease him. Elliot’s description of his first crush almost perfectly captures his relationship with women for the rest of his life. As Monette is nasty to him, Elliot despises her, but he also has a crush on her. For the rest of his life, Elliot will hate the girls he desires, and then wonder why they do not desire him back.
“One of these girls was Monette Moio, a pretty blonde girl who was Ashton’s younger sister. She must have thought that I was an ultimate loser. I hated her so much, and I will never forget her. I started to hate all girls because of this. I saw them as mean, cruel, and heartless creatures that took pleasure from my suffering.”
“The way I was treated by girls at this time, especially by that evil bitch Monette Moio, sparked an inherent fear of girls. The funny part of this is that I had a secret crush on Monette. She was the first girl I ever had a crush on, and I never admitted it to anyone. To be teased and ridiculed by the girl I had a crush on wounded me deeply.”
Elliot becomes more and more attached to online gaming, particularly ‘’World of Warcraft’’, which he plays with a few friends, and focuses a great deal of his time and energy on this. During this time, he conflicts with his step-mother, who tries to limit his time playing on his laptop. He prefers his mother, who never restricts him.
Up until this point, Elliot mostly makes friends when they approach him, or when a parent helps arrange it. When people stop actively approaching him to make friends with them, he becomes resentful at the lack of attention, and treats the world as brutal. His comments upon entering Highschool:
“As expected, I failed to make any new friends. I was so overwhelmed by the brutality of the world that I just didn’t care anymore.”
An incident that almost perfectly describes Elliot’s priorities and expectations:
“Finally having something to brag about, I told everyone at school the next day that I went to the premiere because my mother is friends with George Lucas. The problem was that most Eighth Graders thought of Star Wars as being a ‘nerdy’ interest, and they didn’t really care. I was left frustrated and disappointed by their reaction.”
Continue to Part 3 here.
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