Is there a reason for a RL section?: For The Evulz

I'm going to delete the section if nobody objects.

Let the record show there was no objection in the several hours of this threads existence.

... seems that I'm too late. Well, I suppose it would still be available in the page history if we're to change it back, right?

I think the real-life example list would have been worth keeping there, if only for how interestingly it reflects on the trope concept. It certainly makes people think about the logic of it, probably more so than the description itself.

In any case, let's see what others have to say about this.

^

* Serial killers in general, especially the subset known as "thrill killers." A thrill killer is literally into murder for the hell of it. There are other subsets, with more Freudian motivations, but thrill killers are possibly the most terrifying kind - at least you can kind of relate to a former abuse victim. More examples follow below.

• The infamous Zodiac killer in the '70s. While at least one of the messages he left behind claimed that he was killing people in order to make them his slaves when he dies and is reborn in "paradice", the prevailing opinion among investigators has been that he was being intentionally misleading, that he was far more intelligent and educated than some of the letters he sent made him appear, and that he was killing simply because he believed he could do so and get away with it.
  • Dennis Rader, the BTK killer, seems to have had similar beliefs.
• Likewise, Mr Starkweather.
  • They declared me unfit to live said into that great void my soul'd be hurled/ They wanted to know why I did what I did/ Well sir I guess there's just a meanness in this world.
    — Bruce Springsteen, "Nebraska"
• John Allen Muhammad is on record saying that he did his crimes "for the sheer terror of it."
  • Although there has been suggestion that it was part of a crazy plan to murder his ex-wife and make her look like just another victim of a serial killer so the crime couldn't be traced to him.
• More people know that Brenda Ann Spencer had no more reason for her crimes than "I don't like Mondays" than know who she is or what she did, thanks to The Boomtown Rats. For context, she used a rifle to shoot a bunch of elementary school students and other random people from her bedroom window, killing two men and injuring eight children. She later professed to actual motives in the Freudian Excuse category, but all indications are that she's just making this up to try to excuse herself from her actions, and she was just a good-old-fashioned sociopath. She also claimed to have been on PCP at the time.
• Anonymous, a faceless army of Internet trolls with minimal hacking expertise out to cause grief "for the lulz". The bulk of their antics are meanspirited but ultimately-harmless pranks (Your Mileage May Vary depending on whether a given prank actually is harmless how seriously YOU take the Internet, you liberal nazi), but they did put flashing strobe-type graphics on an epilepsy website at one point. That said, characterizing Anonymous as a whole this way is tricky business, given just how many people are a part of it — members of "Anonymous" have also helped track down and stop child molesters and protested Scientology, although in some cases, this could be interpreted as simply taking out their impulses on Acceptable Targets.
• Cheyenne Cherry the 17 year old girl who threw a kitten into an oven because she doesn't like them, and she thought it would be funny. What the hell?
  • In a similar vein, the two guys who posted a video of themselves lighting a cat on fire on the internet, eventually leading to the YTMND fad "NEDM", "Not Even Doom Music" can make setting a cat on fire cool justify voting five for lighting a cat on fire.
• The Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs, also known as The Ukrainian Thrill Killers, are a group of three young Ukrainian men who killed 21 people at random, filming and/or photographing most of their crimes. They claimed to have an interest in making snuff films, and even a prospective buyer for their films, but there's a strong possibility that's just an excuse, and not a very good one at that.
• Robert Hansen, who played Hunting the Most Dangerous Game with his victims.
• Serial killer Edmund Kemper claimed that he killed his grandparents "just to see what it felt like".
  • This is referenced in the The Silence of the Lambs, when Jame Gumb did much the same thing.
  • Ted Bundy said the same thing when asked why he chose to take a bite out of one of his many female victims.
  • Robert Berdella once offered a similar explanation ("to see what would happen") when asked why he tried gouging out the eyes of one of his victims.
• Aaron Joseph Streets, who believed he was going to prison, figured he may as well go down for something significant and bashed and murdered a defenseless old man. When caught by police he talked about the high he got from the murder, better than any drug to take someone's life away.
• Cats and bottle-nosed dolphins tend to kill, and sometimes play with the corpses, for fun. In the latter's case some males even rape for fun.
• Leopold and Loeb murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks just to see if they could commit the perfect crime. They couldn't.
• 15-year-old Alyssa Bustamante murdered her 9-year-old neighbor Elizabeth Olton and buried her in a shallow grave that had been dug a week earlier. The reason? She wanted to know what it felt like to kill someone. Alyssa later admitted to digging two graves, leading police to theorize that she had initially intended to kill her twin brothers.
• Many dictators follow this trope. The most notorious example of recent times is Saddam Hussein who ran what amounted to “a pornographic theme park”. Saddam and his goons were always thinking up new ways to gruesomely murder people for no apparent reason and not only made family members watch, but made them applaud. If the family members were not available at the time the event was recorded and the video delivered to the family. Wow.
  • “There was nothing in the realm of torture and humiliation he didn't try. You can look up what Human Rights Watch (…) has produced about Iraq for many many years and you'll read stuff that will freeze your blood, you won't be able to get it out of your mind what it was like to be a prisoner in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. It was almost like a theme park.” – Radio interview with Christopher Hitchens.
• Mary Bale, a woman recently and widely vilified in the UK for being caught on camera stroking a cat before dumping it in a wheelie bin and walking away. Apparently it was supposed to be a joke.
• The Hungarian AVO, later renamed AVH, as well as the Romanian Securitate, now known as the SRI, were primarily drafter from people like this. The SRI that exists even now, however, is little more than a bogey man by now
• Oftentimes, those who commit random acts of violence are doing so out of boredom. One need only reflect on the notorious "wilding" case in New York City in 1989. The story goes that a large group of young men went on a spree of wanton violence throughout Central Park that culminated in a "gang-bang" on a female jogger; the woman was raped repeatedly, bludgeoned with various blunt objects, and stabbed in the skull several times, experiencing permanent brain damage as a result. When the boys were arrested and brought to the nearest precinct, they did not seem remorseful about what they had done, concerned about the fate of their victim, or even worried about what their punishment would be! When asked to account for their actions, one of the boys said: "It was something to do. It was fun." Many years later, it came to light that these young men weren't even the ones responsible for the assault and rape, and had falsely confessed! One can only imagine that they were so desperate for attention that they were willing to go to extreme lengths to get it.
• In a mild example, crossing over with Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat, the 2007 New England Patriots were caught filming the hand signals of opponents in the first week of the season. They went on to break several NFL records, win 18 of the 19 games they played, the only loss being Super Bowl 42 to the New York Giants, and have won 63 of the 78 games they've played since the start of that season. As Cracked put it, when comparing a Russian fencing team who were in a similar situation, even if you vastly outclass your opponents in pretty much every way, cheat anyway just for the thrill of it.
• The above premise would also have to apply to professional wrestler Kurt Angle, at least when he's a heel. Even though he's probably the most superior athlete to ever compete in WWE, he cheats when he wrestles anyway because he's just that much of a Jerkass.

[[/folder]]

edited 19th Feb '11 10:41:13 PM by Deboss

It's hard to see why that would have caused problems; the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgement seemed in effect and the more debatable examples (football? Really?) seemed to avoid a nasty tone. It should at least be preserved on the discussion page for For the Evulz - something I've seen with other deleted RL examples.

Well, it's like having a Real Life section on Card-Carrying Villain, it doesn't really happen that people do things just to be more evil. There's always some kind of justification.

Do you think some of those could go on It Amused Me?

Most likely.

I'm thinking of YKTT Wing For The Rush or For The Adrenalin.

edited 19th Feb '11 11:59:34 PM by Deboss

Putting Anonymous on anything negative is already contentious. If you think people who want to stop Scientology are doing things for the purpose of being evil, you are likely a Scientologist. There's pretty much consensus everywhere else that the "religion" is a scam.

The idea that Anonymous exists to be evil is silly. It's a group of Well Intentioned Extremists.

edited 28th Feb '11 10:35:42 PM by BigT

For the Evulz? Real Life section?

No. Just... No.

^^ Hardly. But they don't exist to be evil.

I see no reason why this page should have a Real Life section.

Well, it's gone now. Go ahead and lock.