1999 - The Matrix, Columbine and the Imperial Long Coat

I thought I'd better put up something here following Jason's Louv's remarks in his interview with Gyrus. Plus I'll pop in some stuff on the film, The Matrix - I did have a pretty garbled response to Grant Morrison's chat about this on Barbelith, but I'll clarify it here and try to keep it brief. For those not in the know, both men have suggested a link between the prediction of a hostile strength youth trend for 1999, to The Matrix (Grant) and the Columbine massacre (Jason) that took place in the same year. So here goes:

I think Columbine was caused by lax gun-control, institutionalised persecution of marginalised pupils, lack of social responsibility, lack of fair authority, along with a lack of love and guidance in the boys' own families. The killings had nothing to do with a 'failed' storm trend.
But supposing a full-blown hostile-strength youth trend had occurred around the same time as Columbine, isn't there a similarity in Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's behaviour to extreme, imbalanced hostile-weakness - I'm not okay (dead) and you're not okay (dead)?
Alternatively, for an example of hostile strength, think of a gardener trying to cross pollinate Wagner's Seigrune with the Spice Girls - something to counteract people who use the word 'girl' as a term of abuse. Think pig-tail power rather than insecure boys hiding behind macho guns. Think multi-racial supremism as cultural playfulness rather than bland racism.
Given the wrong background, any weak punk can don a leather long coat and shoot people on Adolph Hitler's birthday, but it doesn't amount to hostile strength (or anything special). Take away their guns and where's their leadership skills?

Bullies don't make good leaders for the simple fact that they don't accept feedback from the very people they claim to lead. They cultivate slimey servility rather than self empowerment.

I think it's also ironic that despite all their claims to 'social darwinism' and 'survival of the fittest', school killers of this type don't last too long after their murders. I'd like to stress here that I've never promoted such views myself, either in personal terms or in relation to the ideas presented in this website. If it wasn't for hostile strength there would be no nurses, no police, no carers, no teachers etc. I think hostile strength translates in terms of - I'm ok (I'm in charge), you're not ok (you have a problem), and therefore - I'm here to lead and help you.

I don't think we should project imbalanced, teenage killings onto a hidden hostile strength trend in 1999 anymore than your average Christian fundamentalist looking for an answer to the killings in Dark Wave or German Techno. We don't let fundamentalists get away with such superstition so let's apply the same ruthless approach to our own ideas. I think it's also telling that no one out there would try to compare Oprah Winfrey's empowering Leadership Academy for Girls to major youth trends, but Jason takes up Columbine's uninspiring rerun of 1930's Führer (Leader) worship as having a link to global youth culture. The Trenchcoat Mafia offshoot have nothing whatsoever to do with any atavistic youth trends (anymore than Oprah's academy), so why does Jason even waste his time on the idea?
Back in 1999 a then teenage Jason found himself being harrassed in the wake of Columbine for wearing black and being punk or gothish in his ways. So he's got something personal going on back then with regards to the Columbine tragedy - maybe that's why he's projecting it onto the topic of atavistic youth trends, just a guess.

Months earlier, Grant sat down in a cinema and watched The Matrix only to discover the Wachouski brothers had ripped off some obvious motifs from his Invisibles series. Probably annoying for him when you consider they'd asked him to contribute to their website before releasing the film. Notice the similarity to the imperial long coats posing in The Matrix to the group of youths at the end of The Invisible Kingdom. The one where Grant is happily ranting away about the future solar eclipse of 11:11, 1999.
When it became apparant that storm culture wasn't happening he then said in an interview (see link above) that The Matrix could be viewed as a kind of replacement for the storm trend. Actually, I've only just realised that could be a warped joke that tribal youth culture is dead, so now we're only left with a cinematic, virtual version of atavistic trends. What a horrible thought.

As Jason and Grant have both said, there was no artistic-musical melting pot going on in '99: no disturbing sense that the freaks were on the move. So I put their remarks on 1999 down to the symbolic long coat (and other imperial keys) being caught up with their own experiences back then.

To Jason and Grant - thank you both for the feedback, but I think the Sekhmet hypothesis has long been dead, along with its daft solar connection. And I'd rather see this old solar theory die off rather than blame its failings on a 'failed' youth trend in '99.

2011 Update - Grant Morrison presents a wider case for his idea of cultural trends in his latest book Supergods. So he's not joking above after all. I'll open up to the thought just a little but as I suggest in reply to Klint in his blog, introduce too many wider cultural factors into the trend equation and you quickly get lost in the noise. Without any solar connection to the hypothesis I'm happy to wait with patience for a hostile strength youth trend to emerge when it's ready to give birth in its own time.

When they come I'm sure the NS scene will be attracted to the music - as will rare creepy characters with guns. But I disagree with Jason that gun yeilding sociopaths could play a shamanistic role in instigating such a scene.

Return to New Stuff