Hey, guys! So, it's been some time since I posted here. During this time, however, I've been working on another linguistic profile essay; this time, it's on Elliot Rodger, the perpetrator of the 2014 Isla Vista shooting that tragically saw the deaths of six individuals.

What is often discussed about Elliot is his unusual manner of speaking and writing. Keeping this in mind, I broke this topic down into several subtopics. The following displayed below is an excerpt from my essay on what I found so far from analyzing Elliot's manifesto, My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger (2014). More will be coming, but in the meantime, I figured I'd share a portion of my findings. These may or may not change in the final draft.

Disclaimer: I, in no way, know Elliot, nor do I know what truly went through his head over the course of his life. Rather, the point of this is to provide conjecture and a rough framework, so as to help prevent future tragedies from occurring.

Of course, comments and feedback are greatly appreciated.

Randy Stair Essay

Analysis of the Manifesto

Status

Elliot’s overall character centered around status; he made this very clear through the manner in which he spoke, his choice of people whom he associated with, and the recurring topic about his family and personal activities that he mentioned throughout his manifesto. On the very first page, he wrote of his first vacation to France, which took place a couple days after his birth; not long after this, he made two others to Greece and Spain, and it is by this point that he proudly described himself as a “world traveler” (Rodger, 2014, pg. 3). He made no mention of the events preceding this, or the nature of his parents’ marriage during this time, save for the likeliness of their happiness about his birth. What appears clear here is that he perceived the activity of traveling to many different countries as something of a starting point for establishing status for himself. And while impressive in and of itself, it becomes clear from the rest of the manifesto that this aspect of his life is part of something bigger – a certain character that he wanted to convey to his readers.

Another way in which Elliot wanted to convey this air of sophistication in himself has to do with the way he described those he knew. One example of this was at a birthday party for a friend of his by the name of [REDACTED]⁴ circa 2010-2011; he noticed one girl sitting at the same table he sat at, and as he recalled, “One of them was pretty, I believe she was the daughter of [REDACTED]⁴, a renowned film editor; she had very sexy eyes, and she was tall… I always had a thing for tall girls, and this one was almost taller than me” (Rodger, 2014, pg. 80). Here, the first thing he noted about the girl other than physical attractiveness was the fact of her (possibly) being the daughter of [REDACTED]⁴. Yes, while any normal person may note similar aspects about whom they know, this is something that is a recurring theme throughout the manifesto. In another instance wherein he introduced his step-grandparents, Elliot wrote:

“Soumaya’s mother, Khadija, has a small but elegant house, and her father, Abdesalem, has a very large, almost castle-like house that is famous for being a location where a scene from James Bond: The Living Daylights was shot. This fascinated me, as I was a huge James Bond fan at the time” (Rodger, 2014, pg. 14).

Much like his earlier descriptions of his vacations to France, Spain, and Greece, this mentioning of his step-grandparents’ respective homes in and of itself is perfectly innocuous; just about anyone would mention this fact in casual conversation. And yet, it is imperative to keep in mind that these instances are part of a longer pattern of behavior wherein Elliot defined people either by whom they knew or what house they lived in; here, he never mentioned how his relationship was with his step-grandparents, whether it might have been a positive one or a negative one. Moreover, there is his description of his first friend that he made in the U.S., [REDACTED]⁴; aside from noting that she was his first and only female friend, the first thing that he mentioned about her is the fact that she is the daughter of famous British musician, Paul Humphreys (Rodger, 2014, pg. 5), thus further indicating his fixation on status.

Perhaps cementing this argument is when he first ostensibly “realized” how social hierarchies work towards the end of his fourth-grade year, when he noticed the so-called “cool kids”. While Elliot never provided a specific definition of the term, “cool”, he instead wrote, “They were cool, they were popular, and they always seemed like they were having a good time” (Rodger, 2014, pg. 17). Elliot’s definition of the term, “cool”, comprised of two things – the state of being popular, and having an overall visible sense of satisfaction. Gathering from this, it becomes all too clear that Elliot equated a satisfactory life with one in which a person is widely known by many. Now, this begs the question – how does one become widely known by many? Elliot’s answer to this question laid entirely in the material – what clothes to wear, how hair should be styled or, as was noted earlier, whom one knew or where they lived.

Elliot’s first attempt to look “cool” saw him bleaching his hair (i.e., dyeing it blond). In his first visit to a local hair salon, only the top of his hair was bleached, and not the rest of it. And while this initially outraged him, the next day saw him in school garnering the attention and “popularity” that he craved (Rodger, 2014, pg. 17). The second time saw his retirement from Pokémon, which he greatly enjoyed in his early years of elementary school. However, what prompted him to quit, as he noted in his manifesto, were his many other classmates associating it with the “nerd” crowd, which he very much wanted to avoid being associated with (Rodger, 2014, pg. 18). As an alternative to this, he took up skateboarding, as well as “hacky-sacking”, which consists of keeping a small sack filled with beans in the air for as long as possible through solely kicking it (Rodger, 2014, 22).

In all fairness, however, it must be conceded that these are juvenile, and do not attest to the entirety of Elliot’s life and motivations. On the other hand, it cannot be emphasized enough that they are part of a long line of consistently conformative behaviors, fueled (in part) by the distance established by his father via his film career and, ostensibly, his mother, who raised him under a coddling lifestyle to the detriment of his social skills, among a plethora of other factors. An example from Elliot’s later years can be found in his car choice, which he mentioned toward the end of his manifesto; specifically, his mother, Chin, bought him a BMW coupe after much complaining to her about his other car (Rodger, 2014, pg. 128), and in another instance, his family once bought him a pair of Gucci sunglasses, along with a Georgio Armani shirt (Rodger, 2014, pg. 99). Both of these things in addition to his descriptions of those he knew point to someone fixated on status above everything else. His overall opinion is best summed up in one section toward the end of the manifesto, when he wrote:

“I wished there was something I could talk to my relatives about that would make them proud, but there was nothing interesting or impressive about my life to talk about. I wished that I could show my grandma that I was thriving in Santa Barbara; that I had a girlfriend and I was enjoying a full and healthy life. But no, that is something I was never able to do. I felt so ashamed of myself.” (Rodger, 2014, pg. 96)

In essence, Elliot deeply held the poorly conceived notion that having a girlfriend would give him the approval that he desperately craved. On the other hand, he hoped to acquire said girlfriend by merely having his parents pay for various things for him, indicating a refusal to put in real, direct effort into his romantic aspirations.

Footnotes

[4] Name was redacted out of respect for the individual.