Dead Pretty Young White Girls and the Love of Torture

There are few greater popular misconceptions, than the idea that USA media coverage of dead pretty young white girls, arises from a high public value for their lives. Quite the opposite is true. People feel no pain, and rather enjoy the story, of a dead pretty young white girl.

Back before the Internet, guys would read Playboy Magazine. The joke was, they would tell you they enjoyed the magazine for the articles, the written content, not the naked pictures. Like the emperor’s new clothes, nobody will dare tell you that they think a dead pretty white girl deserved it, or tell you they don’t care if a young white girl was murdered. But they would not be clicking on it, if it made them at all queasy.

People don’t read articles about their football team the day after a loss. They read articles that make them happy, the day after their team wins. And nobody clicks on stories about dead puppies.

The common thread is a love of torture. People will read an article the day after their football team has beaten and abused the vain and uppity team from another town, the Dallas Cowboys. People will link to an article about dead puppies, but only briefly and one time, to display their own moral superiority, by advocating that people who hurt dogs should themselves be tortured.

And people will use any anecdote about violence against women, to the extent it enables them to vent their own anger, and advocate for the torture of others. They will say men are violent, Republicans and rednecks are violent, businessmen are violent, and need to be arrested and tortured. They will say we need more police arresting and torturing people. Violence against women is such a strong lever for advocating for torture in general, people will use the story of a dead young white girl to advocate for torture, while concealing that they secretly enjoy and are fascinated by her death, with no empathy whatsoever.

I remember when Sarah Palin ran as Vice President, some said it would get the women’s vote. My friend from Russia pointed out this was incorrect, because women do not support pretty women, but rather see them as undeserving competitors and want to see them suffer. And he was right.

Women have to say they are against other women being murdered, because otherwise they would undermine their entire lifelong campaign for torture in general. Everyone pretends and even believes, that everyone else is opposed to dead white girls. So they all promote and seize on the dead white girl, as an opportunity to collect eyeballs and focus attention and advocate for torture.

So it is a popular lie that the mob values the lives of dead pretty young white girls. Because perpetuating this lie has some value to everyone. And any time there is some opportunity to claim to be moral and advocate for torture at the same time, the world will line up to participate.