Copycat Effect - How Media and Popular Culture Trigger Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines

315 Pages·2004·41.375 MB·English

by  Loren Coleman

THE
COPYCAT
EFFECT
How
THE MEDIA AND
POPULAR CULTURE
TRIGGER MAYHEM
THE
TOMORROW'S HEADLINES
IN
Loren Coleman, M.S.W.
"A convincing case." —Publishers Weekly
THE
COPYCAT
EFFECT
How
the Media and ^
j
Popular Culture
*
Mayhem
Trigger the
in Tomorrow's Headlines
Loren Coleman,
M.S.W.
f 4
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Copyright © 2004byLoren Coleman
Portionsofchapters 1, 5, 8, 12, and 15 appearedin LorenColeman's Suicide
Clusters, publishedbyFaberandFaberin 1987.
Allrights reserved, includingtherighttoreproduce
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LibraryofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Coleman, Loren.
Thecopycateffect howthe mediaandpopularculturetriggerthe
: —
mayhem intomorrows headlines/byLorenColeman 1st Paraview
Pocket Books tradepbk. ed.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferences andindex.
ISBN 0-7434-8223-9 (alk. paper)
— —
1. Mass media Socialaspects. 2. Popularculture Psychologicalaspects.
3. Imitation. 4. Contagion (Socialpsychology) I. Title.
HM1206.C6462004
303.6—dc22 2004050139
FirstParaviewPocket Bookstradepaperbackedition September2004
987654321
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For
Nellie Gray,
the grandmother never knew,
I
she was shot during a murder-suicid
and died on Valentine's Day, 1940.
Contents
Preface: Windowto the World ix
Chapter 1 : Beyond TheSorrowsofYoung Werther 1
Chapter 2: Death Sells 6
Chapter 3: Snipers Fall 75
Chapter 4: Planes into Buildings 24
Chapter 5: In Search ofAncient Clusters 34
Chapter 6: Fiery Copycats 48
Chapter 7: Cultic Copycats 67
Chapter 8: Teen Clusters 94
Chapter 9: Murders and Murder-Suicides 135
Chapter 10: Going Postal 148
Chapter School Shootings 165
1 1 :
Chapter 1 2: The Message in the Music
and the Musicians 181
Chapter 13: Cobain Copycats 192
vii
viii • Contents
Chapter 14: Suicide.Squeeze 204
Chapter 15: Celebrity Deaths and
Motion Picture Madness 217
Chapter 16: The Magnetism ofMilieg and Moment 236
Chapter 17: Coming to Grips 251
Appendix: A Comparative List ofEvents 263
Bibliography 277
Acknowledgments 297
Index 299
PREFACE
Window World
to the
You may vaguely remember the incident. It came over the
television and radio as a "news bulletin." The dateline was
Washington, D.C. The details, viewed in retrospect, are
shocking.
Frank Eugene Corder, who was immediately dubbed a "lone
nut" bythe media, had stolen a single-engine Cessna 150L plane
from an airport north ofBaltimore. He then headed south to the
District ofColumbia, flew over the National Zoological Park and
down to the Mall, and apparently used the Washington Monu-
ment as a beacon. As he closed in on that Masonic obelisk just
offthe Beltway, Corder banked his plane into a U-tum over the
Ellipse and flew low over the White House South Lawn, clipped
a hedge, knocked some branches off the magnolia tree planted
by President Andrew Jackson, and crashed the plane into the
—
White House two stories below the presidential bedroom. This
all began at 2300 hours military time, according to the White
House.
There was an attack on the residence of the President and
First Lady. And it happened not long ago. But few people today
remember when the pilot of that Cessna launched his attack at
ix
X • Preface
—
the heart ofour nahon. It happened in 1994 on September 11.
Do you remember it? The incident obviously made quite an
impact in the minds ofsome people. Coincidence? Conspiracy?
Or something else?
In the wake ofFrank Corders crash and the resulting public-
ity, the White House was the focus of a cluster of attacks. On
October 29, 1994, Francisco Martin Duran, a convicted felon,
pulled a semiautomatic rifle from under his trench coat and
fired at least twenty-nine shots as he ran down the south side-
walk of Pennsylvania Avenue, spraying the front of the White
House with bullets. In December 1994 the White House saw
five incidents. Four ofthem involved breaches ofthe mansions
grounds and ranged from fencejumping, to threats ofa bomb in
a car, to a homeless man waving a knife on a sidewalk outside
the White House. That individual was shot by police and later
died ofhis injuries. Then, on December 17, an unidentified per-
son fired at least four bullets at the White House. One went
through a dining room window, while others hit near the presi-
dents bedroom windowon the second floor.
If you are surprised by the Corder story, you will likely be
shaken by many ofthe other events recalled in this book. What
is going on here?you wonder.
In short, we are living in times strongly influenced by "the
copycat effect."
CHAPTER ONE
Beyond The Sorrows
Young Werther
of
From the blood which flowed From the chair, it
could be inferred that he had committed the rash
act sitting at his bureau, and that he afterwards fell
upon the floor. He was found lying on his back
nearthe window. He was in full-dress costume.
—Johann Wolfgangvon Goethe,
TheSorrowsofYoungWerther
pattern underlies many ofthe events we hear about in the
A
news every day. But the pattern is not openly discussed on
your cable news network, over your twenty-four-hour news
radio station, or in your newspaper. It is either overlooked or ig-
nored.
The pattern is called the "copycat effect." It is also known as
"imitation" or the "contagion effect." And what it deals with is
the power of the mass communication and culture to create an
epidemic ofsimilar behaviors.
The copycat effect is the dirty little secret ofthe media. That
doesn't prevent the media from calling the various epidemics of
similar behaviors the "copycat phenomenon," often for shock im-
pact. But, curiously, theiruse ofthe phrase seems toput adistance
between the events and the reporting media, and allows them the
stance thatimplies they are notpartoftheproblem. Buttheyare.
1
—
2 • THE COPYCAT EFFECT
Sociologists studying the media and the cultural contagion of
suicidal behaviors were the first to recognize the copycat effect.
In 1974, UniversityofCaliforniaat San Diegosociologist DavidP.
Phillips coined the phrase Werthereffect to describe the copycat
phenomenon. The nameWertherc6mes fromthe 1774novel The
Sorrows ofYoung Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the
authorofFaust. In the story, theyouthful characterWerther falls
in love with a woman who is promised to another. Always melo-
dramatic, Werther decides that his Hfe cannot go on and that his
love is lost. He then dresses in boots, a blue coat, and a yellow
vest, sits at his desk with an open book, and, literally at the
eleventhhour, shootshimself. Intheyearsthatfollowed,through-
outEurope, somanyyoungmenshotthemselveswhiledressedas
Werther and seated at their writing desks with an open copy of
The Sorrows ofYoung Wertherin frontofthem thatthe bookwas
banned in Italy, Germany, and Denmark.
Though an awareness ofthis phenomenon has been around for
centuries, Phillipswasthefirsttoconductformalstudies suggesting
—
that the Werther effectwas, indeed, a reality that massive media
attention and the retelling ofthe specific details ofa suicide (or, in
somecases,untimelydeaths) couldincreasethenumberofsuicides.
The August 1962 suicide of Marilyn Monroe presents a classic
modem-day example ofthe Werther effect. In the month that fol-
—
lowedit, 197individual suicides mostlyofyoungblondwomen
appeartohaveusedtheHollywoodstarssuicideasamodelfortheir
own. Theoverallsuiciderateinthe U.S. increasedby 12percentfor
the month after the news ofMonroes suicide. But, as Phillips and
others discovered, therewas no correspondingdecrease in suicides
after the increase from the Marilyn Monroe-effect suicides. In
other words, the stars suicide actually appeared to have caused a
whole population ofvulnerable individuals to complete* their own
"This book is careful in its use oflanguage with regard to suicide and other
events under discussion. I refrained from using the words "successful" or
"failed"astheseareconnotationsonthevalueoffinishingtheactsnoted. In-