Does the RS Tsarnaev cover piss you off?

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/130717062056-rolling-stone-tsarnaev-story-top-or-smaller-story-top.jpg

http://www.morethings.com/images/charlie_manson/charles-manson-rolling-stone-cover.jpg

yes

least of all because I get Syd Barrett vibes which FUCK YOU ROLLING STONE FOREVER

i was going to say, made him look like one of those crazy folk heroes

Poll options?

when I had only read about it and not seen it, no ... now that I see it, yeah kinda

I thought he had more of a young Strokes drummer vibe

Explosions at the Boston Marathon

newest anco member THE BOMBER

who the fuck is rolling stone's audience anyways? teenage girls who are obsessed with classic rock?

that would be a cool demographic, but my guess is no

as for the cover, i can't say it pisses me off necessarily but i do find it rather tasteless.

rolling stone publishes stupid shitty cover, i can't believe it, what a shock for this reputable magazine of high quality journalism

well michelle bachmann is a worthless piece of shit, but that doesnt mean i can't get pissed when she does something stupid

it's not rs's fault he's so cute

I wonder if people got mad after the Manson cover in 1970? Charlie looks as much of a rock star of his era as Tsarnaev does now.

I'm kind of starting to think Tsarnaev is becoming a bit of a romantic mad rebel Manson figure for lost kids now.

tbf the manson cover doesnt make him look like a dude you want to cuddle

He's much better looking than Manson. They are different though, in that Dzokhar seems to have been roped into this by his brother, at least according to the dominant narrative, and so isnt really a mastermind or diabolical figure... More of a victim, or casualty, of vague cultural forces. Thats the image i see projected in that cover anyway.

what exactly are they supposed to do to this guy's appearance to demonize him again?

I dont think they "should" do anything.

draw angry eyebrows on him

give him harelip and droopy eye

make his eyes glow red and shoot lasers

It sure does have folks talking!

http://www.fair.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/theweek1.jpg

yeah that one is actually way worse altho for different reasons

waaaaay worse

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BPVeH-rCIAEoGdc.jpg:large

context of cover of the rolling stone is pretty different than NYT though - dr hook never sang about NYT for one thing

Maybe, maybe not. RS cover calls him a "monster," NYT refers to a "dark side."

I know why people are upset over this but at the same time I kinda resent the idea that we're supposed to equate being a mass murderer with looking "threatening" or unattractive. Is this really necessarily a glamorous photo?

Don't really see this differently to any of the other fucked-up teenager features RS has covered over the years.

Syd wasn't even on Dark Side, shows you what NYT knows.

syd was way cuter too

Dreamy <3 <3 <3

http://www.sydbarrett.net/images/74-Now/bikebarrett.jpg

Dzhokar Tsarnaev
HOT
READY
LEGAL

nyt putting the selfie above the fold was seriously jarring and hard to process.

Looking forward to

Tamerian Tsarnaev
He's Hot
He's Sexy
He's Dead

https://twitter.com/BostonGlobe/status/357541839961718784

‏@DennisThePerrin
Calm down, Internet. Rolling Stone has featured many terrorists on its cover -- Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Bob Hope.

this controversy is stupid

I look at both of those RS covers up there and I see Jim Morrison.

I think his appearance, and who he seemd to be from what we can glean from his online persona, is a legit part of the story so using the selfie in the NYT and RS does have a logic to it.

The Manson one actually seems like a much more concerted effort to present him as a rock star/mad prophet... but then I guess Manson made a much more concerted effort at that himself.

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18lqvlgrtm5p2gif/k-bigpic.gif

Can we get a site-wide script to automatically replace any Dennis Perrin tweets with a comical fart noise?

xp From that thing Max wrote about Dzhokar Tsarnaev fangirls.

If a bunch of midwestern teenage girls jump on the religious extremism bandwagon, all the religious extremist bros will decide it's passe = everyone wins.

The young Tsarnaev family looking like a Diane Arbus photo.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/feature/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2013/04/2013-04-22T154536Z_01_MAK05_RTRIDSP_3_USA-EXPLOSIONS-BOSTON-SHOOTING_image_1024w.jpg

http://sprocketink.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/tsarnaev-family-photos1.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/cmAhgbQ.png

lol

dying @ weiland speaks

this controversy is stupid

― ⚓ (elmo argonaut), Wednesday, July 17, 2013 1:10 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also this is otm

this controversy is stupid

well I for one can't see any consequences in treating terrorist bombers like rock stars

i didn't think you were the type to get all uptight abt this shit, frogs

well I for one can't see any consequences in treating terrorist bombers like rock stars

varg thread is thataway

RS Tsarnaev sounds like the name of a mid-20th c. russian sci fi writer

i am angry about the depiction of the space octopus on this new RS Tsarnaev cover

I can understand why some people think the cover is in poor taste (the Rolling Stone cover, not the space octopus one) - but all the rage also feels a bit over-the-top, people blowing off some pent-up anger or something. Maybe Zimmerman verdict has people on edge, and the sight of another cute, normal-looking teenager at the center of a horrible story just sent people around the bend?
I mean there's some legit "I don't want Rolling Stone using Tsarnaev looking like that" but there's also "I don't want Tsarnaev to look like that" going on.

I'm going way out on some made-up half-baked limbs here, forgive me.

I think that is pretty OTM

no

i agree with brio.

Well, it's RS after all...I've never looked to their covers for civic edification. So there's only so much outrage I can muster for this (not to mention, we've had some much larger outrages to confront in recent days).

That said, this must suck for the families of the dead and the maimed, and it doesn't exactly quell the "copycat" phenomenon.

I think it's bad taste and a poor choice, but it doesn't really make me angry so much as just a smh "there they go again" kind of thing.

fwiw I think he looks more like a 90s grunge hero on the cover

treating terrorist bombers like rock stars

i'm astounded that people think that's what is happening

i don't know what could be gained by demonizing this kid any further. he is going to be in jail for the rest of his life. articles about him are rife with comments saying that he shouldn't be granted the dignity of a trial and that either the state or some renegade citizen should just summarily execute him. his name is a rallying point for anti-islamic and anti-immigrant sentiments in right wing circles. he is literally 19 years old.

i am not comfortable calling any person a "monster." he is a person who committed a very serious crime and so doesn't deserve to be a part of american society anymore. this is guaranteed to be what happens to him. the teen romanticization of him seems like a marginal, unserious phenomenon compared to the phenomenon of people hating him and dehumanizing him. the rolling stone cover, to me, signifies the fact that he is a person and not an inhuman cretin who nobody could ever relate to and in this sense it is an accurate depiction. the article is about his life, and what led him to what he did so a mugshot or something wouldn't be the best representation of the dzokhar they are writing about. if somebody wants to copy what he did there is nothing rolling stone could do to prevent that.

some ppl think "being on a magazine cover" is a prestigious accomplishment

rolling stone magazine

I think the RS cover perfectly captures why Dzokhar is an intriguing and enigmatic figure, and why people are interested in reading about him.

xp treeship I basically agree with that, but I think the "how did he go wrong" narrative is a bit presumptuous, and it does seem like the idea that this was just a nice, smart, popular kid who took a wrong turn somehow is influenced by his photogenic quality.

is the problem that he is a young attractive man whose outward appearance doesn't match the brutality of his crimes? if he didn't appear to be attractive, would that help quell the outrage?

my problem is the same as Charles Manson being on the cover

he killed a bunch of people, you can write about him all day long but putting him on the cover of a magazine that is usually reserved for musicians and ppl who tend not to go around killing people, well it is just kind of a thing that bothers me

i am not marching in the streets about it, and maybe mostly everyone's cool with it and don't see what the big deal is, but personally, it annoys me

xpost
i don't know if it would quell the outrage but I do think it would be easier for people to process if he looked like the Unabomber or even his brother. He just looks kind of harmless and innocent, which causes the dissonance.

also idk the manson thing i sorta get since dude was the boogeyman of scary hippie for most of the establishment media, and at that point RS was sort of the counterculture voice, so doing an article abt him made sense - tsarnaev isnt really the posterboy for anything unless RS is trying to demystify the dewy eyed selfie generation.

The Manson cover was an exclusive interview with Charlie himself.

also i am not sure what revelations a story on dude is going to bring since basically all this heres where he went wrong narrative is based on idk random ass speculation?

maybe they are drawing on new info gained from interviews with family members? idk, i am not that interested.

i think they are probably drawing on new info gained from marketing trying to figure out how to sell copies of a failing magazine

lol. they have had some interesting pieces in the past few years, like the hastings one on that general and matt taibbi's coverage of wall street -- while i don't like him as a person/media personality -- were of a higher caliber than most things about that topic

i'm astounded that people think that's what is happening

not that I know exactly what goes through the mind of someone like this, or James Holmes, or Adam Lanza, but I feel we're making one thing clear; if you murder a bunch of innocent people, everybody will know your name, everyone will see what you look like, everyone will know your story and analyze your life, and you might make the cover of Rolling Stone. yet only those who have an interest in finding out will know who the victims were. obviously there is an inevitability in all this (gotta report the news, y'know) but if we're asking what can we do to stop these kind of shootings/bombings then guaranteeing the killer some degree of infamy and immortality is not a good step

It just seems to make it sound like it's a tragedy that this kid's potential was wasted or something. That's not a tragedy imo, it's the result of a deliberate choice he made to end a bunch other people's lives. I don't give a flying shit if he would have made a good marine biologist or whatever. His peers were surprised. So fucking what? Everyone is always surprised that someone they know turns out to be a terrorist. No one ever says "I figured that sooner or later he would plant bombs at a public sporting event."

sorry but i don't buy into that argument at all

the problem is market saturation; I can't remember what any of last year's mass killers looked like.

what can we do to stop these kind of shootings/bombings

ban guns

I think the lengths that some will go through for even a small degree of infamy has been well documented by now

"make sure people who commit acts of sensational violence do not themselves become infamous"

seems doable

we should make bombing illegal

if you murder a bunch of innocent people, everybody will know your name, everyone will see what you look like, everyone will know your story and analyze your life, and you might make the cover of Rolling Stone. yet only those who have an interest in finding out will know who the victims were. obviously there is an inevitability in all this (gotta report the news, y'know) but if we're asking what can we do to stop these kind of shootings/bombings then guaranteeing the killer some degree of infamy and immortality is not a good step

This is such a fucking bullshit argument. If there's any copycat effect at all it's so miniscule that it can be handwaved away without consequence.

people will go to great length for infamy but if you say that this magazine cover itself is going to set into motion a series of events that will result in similar terrorist acts, i will respond: nope

xps

The concept that being on a famous magazine cover is such a great and awesome goal that it is obviously motivation for terrorist acts / school shootings / violent anti-social behavior is more offensive to me than this cover. That the media thinks so highly of its own importance in sad cases like this just always puts me off. That everyone seems to buy into that mindset is more upsetting to me than seeing this guy on the cover of a magazine.

i mean, you don't like it & you find it offensive, fine. but arguing that images of morally repellent subjects are uniquely compelling by nature, SO compelling that they have the power to replicate those immoral acts in their viewership? i mean i dunno, that sounds like you're making a case for obscenity

Dzokhar incited confused emotions from the get-go, at times murmured with a degree of shame... “He’s just a kid too, how sad”. Heard versions of this several times, mostly from mothers (of various ethnicities, in the Boston area).
That grainy photo taken at his capture, with him lying on the ground, ribs sticking out behind a young boy’s belly, epitomized this aspect of his “portfolio”, not easily “otherized” in the typical War on Terror fashion.

xp's: the copycat effect is real. its actual prevalence may indeed be miniscule, but so is the act in question to begin with. should we "handwave away" (to use Phil D.'s phrase) any consideration of preventive measures against the latter? If not, then why of the former? (Of course, you still need to weigh whether you will actually implement such measures, given potential costs, liberties curtailed, etc.).

The concept that being on a famous magazine cover is such a great and awesome goal that it is obviously motivation for terrorist acts / school shootings / violent anti-social behavior is more offensive to me than this cover. That the media thinks so highly of its own importance in sad cases like this just always puts me off. That everyone seems to buy into that mindset is more upsetting to me than seeing this guy on the cover of a magazine.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, July 17, 2013 3:16 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean, you don't like it & you find it offensive, fine. but arguing that images of morally repellent subjects are uniquely compelling by nature, SO compelling that they have the power to replicate those immoral acts in their viewership? i mean i dunno, that sounds like you're making a case for obscenity

― ⚓ (elmo argonaut), Wednesday, July 17, 2013 3:21 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

cool arguments, but there's some serious research that says otherwise. Obviously a single cover doesn't directly create clone killers necessarily, but there is some pretty good evidence that glamorization of mass murders encourages already troubled and alienated people to go that route.

glamorization of mass murders

Consider nearly every person named in Western history.

I feel bad but the first photo I saw of this was cropped and my initial reaction was "wtf happened to Willie Nelson?"

srsly though, kinda wasn't sure what to think but a lot of good points made itt. I mean, yes, magazine sales is a target, but merely running a story on a bomber isn't glamorization, as ignoring the topic in the media leads to pure tunnel vision.

A few friends were arguing about this passionately and it boiled down to one person thought it was 'glamorization' because the photo appeared Instagram-filtered and designed to make him look 'cool'. But said person also compared this ot the Hitler "Man of the Year" article, mistakenly thinking said article ran after World War 2/Holocaust.....so take that with a grain of salt.

xpost
troubled and alienated people can be set off by any number of things - and we can't order society on the basis of what troubled and alienated people might do

there are many more pervasive & compelling aspects of american culture that glamorize and glorify indiscriminate violence that it seems the incredibly myopic to blame a magazine cover for it

xp brio: i don't think saying that a magazine made a wrong (in the ethical sense) decision is the same as 'ordering our society'.

troubled and alienated people can indeed be set off by any number of things, but some are more preventable than others, and some of these have smaller downsides than others. in this case, the downside of not splashing DT on the front cover mostly amounts to RS sales. it's a decision the editors could have arrived at. i wouldn't want to live in a society where they were compelled by law to put something else on the cover, but i still think it would have been the right thing to do.

and it seems incredibly strawmanny to say anyone is "blaming a magazine cover" for the larger phenomenon, and it seems dodgy to say "well there are other things that are even worse." I mean if it were a rapist on the cover, made to look sexy and like a promising person gone wrong, wouldn't that in a small way contribute to rape culture, even if there were other greater culprits?

RS has probably done that, too at some point.

http://img2.bdbphotos.com/images/orig/e/i/einsucs56y7cusse.jpg

but merely running a story on a bomber isn't glamorization, as ignoring the topic in the media leads to pure tunnel vision.

well, consider the implications of "I'm on the cover of Newsweek" vs. "I'm on the cover of Rolling Stone"

nyt putting the selfie above the fold was seriously jarring and hard to process.

― goole, Wednesday, July 17, 2013 11:55 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^ what i meant by this is that RS doing it months later is really all too easy to process. it's trolling!

plus on a technical level the NYT had some vestige of journalistic strictness -- they ran the entire picture, in all its necessarily odd framing. RS cropped the thing to look like a portrait; doing that is not entirely on the level of "darkening OJs face to look more sinister" but it's not a "pure" representation of the source photo either.

xp: elmo: what is the scope of blame you're speaking of? nobody is arguing that a cover is going to inexorably result in a copycat bombing within a fortnight. we're (or i'll say "i'm" so as not to presume) talking about something that could increase the probability of such an (improbable to begin with) event to recur.

if you're an editor at RS, should you throw this minimal ethical consideration out the window? we're not talking legal censorship here, just editorial ethics.

you have to weigh the ethics of glamorizing a domestic terrorist v. getting sweet buzz

(oh and by jove i mistakenly wrote "were" instead of "where" upthread. i think that's the first time in my life i've done that)

xxp exactly - I'm not trying to say that Rolling Stone is going to have blood on their hands for crying out loud. my concern is the ultimate effect of a society where everyone knows who the killers are but nobody knows who was killed. how many Columbine copycats were there in the years that followed?

i don't agree that the cover of rolling stone is qualitatively different, insofar as the copycat effect is concerned, than the cover of NYT or newsweek or yahoo! news

someone should ask the troubled youth of america where they'd rather see their glamorized portraits published

yeah Jahar fits right in here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_on_the_cover_of_Rolling_Stone

I'm more worried about the impressionable youths who will look at a Rolling Stone cover and end up as the bassist of Staind

You guys realize paper money has iconographic portraits of national leaders who owned slaves and ordered genocide.

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/jahars-world-20130717

i don't really get this thing abt "knowing who the victims were." the victims were human beings--what life stories or data points make them more or less important?

i also think people are vastly overstating how much the cover "glamorizes" him -- because he is young photogenic man and no one bothered to make him look evil? i dunno

yup

Alternate cover:

http://a.abcnews.go.com/images/Entertainment/ht_cassidy_060504_ssv.jpg

i've seen many pics of DT, and that one is by far the most "glamorous". so to the extent that they selected the most glamorous (among many i presume would have been available), to that extent, yes, they are glamorizing him.

he's photogenic and this is evident in many of his photos, but this is the one where he most looks like a rock star. is that just random coincidence?

Boston mayor's letter to RS:
http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Original_PDF/2013/07/17/Menino_to_Rolling_Stone__1374089137_4526.pdf

also - it appeared on a magazine where the overwhelming majority of the cover shots consist of A-list celebrities. in many ways it IS (or was) the hype train - being on the cover meant you had finally "made it", whatever that means to you. obviously the editor is gonna try to explain this away but at the end of the day, if it's not exactly "evil", it's at least a terrible display of self-awareness

I'm more worried about the impressionable youths who will look at a Rolling Stone cover and end up as the bassist of Staind

― crüt, Wednesday, July 17, 2013 4:04 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

irl lols

xp how about it's just wrong?

think the solution to this problem is when putting evil dudes on the cover, shd only use pics of them on the toilet...

did they put Chris Brown on the cover after he beat Rihanna? should they have? would it have sent the right message despite almost certainly increasing his profile and album sales?

don't really feel like these have the same magnitude tbh

a story of a terrorist bombing that may have only directly impacted a specific area of the country but whose fear resonated throughout the country is of greater national magnitude than a celebrity who (abhorrently) beat his girlfriend. As such, there would be more interest in examining one of the central figures in the bombing to get a better understanding of why it happened, to understand it in its current cultural context. Whereas that is quite unnecessary in the Chris Brown case.

That being said, I ain't read this article, so who knows how well they achieve their goal....and I do see both sides of the argument, to varying degrees.

its not really an issue about the story itself, rather that you're putting him in a highly visible space in a trashy music magazine that's reserved for high-profile celebs or flavor-of-the-month types 98% of the time.

Haven't seen a controversy like this one since Richard Ramirez appeared on the cover of RIP.

like i said, i completely understand if people don't like the fact that he's on a magazine cover, it's bound to stir up reactions because this guy did some heinous shit. i'm not arguing against their right to be indignant or angry or saddened at the sight of him. i'm just saying that i don't find the moral argument that "this image glamorizes violence / encourages violence / will lead to more violence" to be compelling at all -- i personally think that line of reasoning could have, as they say, a chilling effect. also it just feels like it's a particularly weak rhetorical veil for the raw disgust and outrage they understandably feel at the murderous acts he committed.

Haven't seen a controversy like this one since Richard Ramirez appeared on the cover of RIP.

― pplains, Wednesday, July 17, 2013 4:51 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hahaha

i'm confused elmo. are you saying that (a) this type of image does not encourage violence; or that (b) if we do think it encourages violence, we will (or are likely to, or some version therein) end up doing things that have a chilling effect; or (c) both?

as to your "rhetorical veil" hypothesis: think what you want, but what i'm really interested in here is how we talk about ethics and ethical responsibility in the news & entertainment media. itt i've been more interested in clarifying concepts and trying to speak about the ethical than i have been to express outrage. i can't get very worked up about what RS chooses to put it on its cover (as i stated at the outset), but that doesn't mean i don't think there's anything of moral consequence at stake here.

leave it to frogbs to be the first to compare a black performer to a murderer for no reason

did they put Drake on the cover after he murdered Byne's vag?

why do you mention that he's black, Whiney?

http://data.whicdn.com/images/29369525/epic-table-tennis-volley._large.gif

clearly we can't compare two people who have been demonized and the effect the media has on their public image without RACE RACE OH GOD RACE CAN WE TALK ABOUT RACE

oh please don't let this thread devolve into that now

cg, i view the suggestion, somewhat roughly expressed itt -- that journalistic images of a terrorist could reasonably have real-world violent consequences -- with extreme suspicion and distaste. i don't think the argument is sound to begin with, and i feel it's one that lends itself to censorship -- which is what I was trying to get at upthread when i compared it to legal arguments against obscenity.

this cover is brilliant imo. it's not trolling, it's provocative. and that it provoked the exact reaction it intended to sorta proves its point.

how many Columbine copycats were there in the years that followed?

Gee, that's a very good question, to which I assume you have the answer or you wouldn't have asked it. So how many?

whether it "has real-world violent consequences" or not is beside the point for me, I'm not for making celebrities out of criminals, esp those whose crimes were heinous. on a socio/psychological I find them fascinating tho so...

The deontological argument

xposts ok elmo, thanks for the clarification. i won't rehash how i disagree; you've heard enough from me.... and i need to bid adieu for now.

if he wasn't already famous he wouldn't have made it onto the cover! it's not like they published a list of "10 dreamiest terrorist boys you've never heard of"

"celebrities," "glamorization," lots of words being thrown around without any parameters or specificity whatsoever. What counts as "glamorizing?" What counts as "making celebrities?" Reporting the names? A segment on the news? A segment on Dateline NBC? A segment on MTV News? The cover of the NYT? The cover of Time? The cover of People?

no one is to blame because everyone is to blame eh

Would an identical news story with identical photos be "glamorization" if it ran in Rolling Stone or Slate or the Wall Street Journal?

let's ask Justice Stewart to define it

"10 dreamiest terrorist boys you've never heard of"

lol

i'm not worked up over it but also RS never has cover photos that don't look like that tsarnaev photo, which means of course that if such a photo of him didn't exist he wouldn't have been on the cover. there needed to be a modelesque pic of him. something grainy or unattractive wouldn't have worked for their purposes.

i still think there are real interesting questions and discussion to have about this but 90% of the frenzy around this is slow news day + displaced post-zimmerman edginess

(talking qbout the general frenzy, not this thread - people are being pretty reasonable and chilled on all sides of the discussion here, I think)

http://i.imgur.com/7RgkLqM.jpg

Would it have been ok for 1968 Rolling Stone to put James Earl Ray on the cover? What drove this ordinary, god-fearing heartland veteran to kill?

I'm not "pissed off" about it, RS can do (virtually) whatever they want with their covers, I didn't even realize people still paid attention to them. It's not one article or TV feature that you can necessarily point to as celebritizing or glamourizing vile criminals, it's the accumulation, a snowball effect. AP wire report to "breaking news" on cable news to a 20/20 profile to RS cover, it all adds to it. Saying "well he was famous already!" is missing the point, no one is saying this has made him famous. It's another flake in the snowball.

is the story itself well done?

eh, i wasnt too knocked out by it.

i'm not worked up over it but also RS never has cover photos that don't look like that tsarnaev photo, which means of course that if such a photo of him didn't exist he wouldn't have been on the cover. there needed to be a modelesque pic of him. something grainy or unattractive wouldn't have worked for their purposes.

I'm sure RS have a custom set of Photoshop actions that automate it. Most likely, it's a full-out plug-in with x/y controls along axes of authenticity and enigmaticness.

I started reading it and it seemed kind of predictable, by the numbers, but with an "I'm excited to be working on my big story" kind of enthusiasm.

xp Perhaps they could have had anonymous male hands coming from behind Tsarnaev, clasping his bare breasts.

ha thats pretty much dead on xp

DT is a special case, though, isnt he? because his face was actually known before his name; grainy, blurry photographs of him & his brother were released to the public as a means of discovering his identity -- urgently, precisely because it would help prevent more violence.

so, i guess where i'm going is: what is legitimate reportage in the public service and what is just "making someone famous" and by what means do you distinguish those things?

crüt OTM

Would an identical news story with identical photos be "glamorization" if it ran in Rolling Stone or Slate or the Wall Street Journal?

― it itches like a porky pine sitting on your dick (Phil D.), Wednesday, July 17, 2013 2:58 PM (1 hour ago)

no offense, but this is silly. would an identical news story with identical photos be glamorization? hard to say, but probably not. people who show up on the cover of the NYT or WSJ are not, generally speaking, pop celebrities. they're simply figures in the news, some glamorous, some not. responsible journalism may enhance notoriety, and even celebrity, but it isn't specifically designed to do that.

people who show up on the cover of the rolling stone, however, are almost always pop celebrities. what's more, the decision to place them there intends to help cement and burnish that celebrity. the photographs chosen are typically glamorous and flattering. they're the work of skilled professionals whose entire job is the enhancement of celebrity. that's the context, and the dzhokhar picture chosen hardly runs counter to it. it's not a super-polished professional shot, of course, but it's certainly flattering, even sexy. it makes him look like a rock star, an impression the context amplifies massively.

it doesn't upset me or anything, but the rolling stone cover obvious helps build a glamorous, tragic myth around the dude. coupled with text that frames him as a victim, it it seems like a deliberate attempt to earn him public sympathy.

he is a kind of tragic, mysterious figure though. he is compelling for all the reasons that rolling stone article says he is compelling.

otm contends

Is his lawyer billy flynn

xp that's entirely relative tbh. I dont think he's either tragic or compelling, he's just a bomber who happens to be hot.

i was talking more about how out of the blue the attack was, and how he seems to have been so easily influenced by his embittered brother, who had a much harder time fitting into american life than he did. at least according to what we've heard. maybe it would be better if people just didn't care about him, or why he did what he did, but i also think that's unrealistic. i get why people are interested in him.

If he looked like an orc not a single fuck would be given that he was a good boy well on his way to success until brotherly influence tho, and certainly not by rs. The narrative is being prompted by the image imo.

it's a part of it. but regardless, this interest was there before rolling stone decided to exploit it. i don't think their article is making an impact on that.

Why sure it is. Cover story of an intrsting indiscriminate killer couldnt be more directly an example

the photographs chosen are typically glamorous and flattering. they're the work of skilled professionals whose entire job is the enhancement of celebrity.

This is special pleading of the worst kind. Do you think Time and the NYT draw their cover photos out of a hat?

Coverage of handsome criminals is pretty much always unduly favorable, and tbf, it's probably one of those ingrained biases that's hard to get the media to correct. The other day a lunchroom conversation about Aaron Hernandez took about five seconds to devolve into people talking about him being hot.

Pic?

[joke redacted]

you can google him, he's an NFL player. FWIW I think he has a dumb face.

i agree

I kid

Politicians appear on the RS cover all the time. (Probably not criminals though tbf.)

(And, yeah, it's already been demonstrated that the NYT used the same photo with a cover story.)

i just don't think the world would be better if people hated him more. i don't think that would solve anything.

http://i.imgur.com/xGABr47.jpg

how long until someone stencils tsarnaev's face into the che image on t-shirts and stuff?

This is special pleading of the worst kind. Do you think Time and the NYT draw their cover photos out of a hat?

― it itches like a porky pine sitting on your dick (Phil D.), Wednesday, July 17, 2013 5:26 PM (37 minutes ago)

no. but i think images on the cover of the NYT have very different cultural implications & significance than images on the cover of the RS. context may not be everything, but it does matter.

i just don't think the world would be better if people hated him more. i don't think that would solve anything.

― Treeship, Wednesday, July 17, 2013 5:56 PM (9 minutes ago)

agreed, but i don't think anyone involved in this discussion is worried about real harm. this is a teapot tempest about whether or not a magazine cover is in poor taste.

The narrative is being prompted by the image imo.

iirc this narrative comes from when the media first learned his identity and began interviewing his friends & teachers looking for insight into his motives and character?

Where's the Rolling Stone cover with George Zimmerman in an emo selfie? Now there's a young man who's been led astray.

Yes, I'm trolling, but definitely no more than Rolling Stone.

George Zimmerman: Hot, Ready, and Not Guilty!

"coupled with text that frames him as a victim" - said text ends with "became a monster"

just saying -- "he was a likable young man engaged in his community & no one saw it coming, how could he have done this horrible?" -- rolling stone was not the first to ask that question. it's different from the disturbed loner narratives surrounding other mass killers, too.

no. but i think images on the cover of the NYT have very different cultural implications & significance than images on the cover of the RS.

I'm really not trying to be difficult but this is question-begging. You're assuming that they do, then using that assumption to make the argument for you.

he was likeable AND he killed people, therefore he should have a whole cover to himself

not like those other crepey dudes

Because I mean I hear this same argument all the time from concern-trolling armchair sociologists applied to mass killers being on the NYT and CNN and Time, so you're going to have to go a lot farther than "I think" and a Dr. Hook song to convince me that this is something else.

sure, but monsters are often tragic victims, ask mary shelley. cover text also includes "Was Failed by His Family, Fell into Radical Islam, and..." this explicitly externalizes blame and suggests that becoming a mass murderer just sort of randomly happened to the poor little dude, like you "fall into" an open manhole.

http://www.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/2013617/rs_560x762-130717142802-HitlerRS4_1.jpg

I'm really not trying to be difficult but this is question-begging. You're assuming that they do, then using that assumption to make the argument for you.

Yeah, I'm wondering about this too. I don't think anyone thought RS was portraying George Bush as a pop star when he made the cover.

I'm really not trying to be difficult but this is question-begging. You're assuming that they do, then using that assumption to make the argument for you.

― it itches like a porky pine sitting on your dick (Phil D.), Wednesday, July 17, 2013 6:17 PM (3 minutes ago)

yeah, you got me. i am assuming that the context and implications of making the cover of the rolling stone are different that appearing above the fold on the NYT's front page. you don't have to accept that argument, but i'm not about to waste a bunch of time trying to prove the existence of that difference.

oh come onnnnn. "x ... became a monster" u are saying calling a killer a monster is not denounce-y enough for u. u are actually saying this.

But they used a passive verb on the cover headline!

Yeah, I'm wondering about this too. I don't think anyone thought RS was portraying George Bush as a pop star when he made the cover.

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, July 17, 2013 6:22 PM (1 minute ago)

nor am i gonna try to account for every possible exception. i'm sure that there are counterexamples out there, but i'm just as sure that if you looked at the two things as sets (rolling stone covers vs. NYT front page photos), you'd notice some striking differences related to ideas like celebrity and glamour.

oh come onnnnn. "x ... became a monster" u are saying calling a killer a monster is not denounce-y enough for u. u are actually saying this.

― zvookster, Wednesday, July 17, 2013 6:24 PM (2 minutes ago)

no! i could hardly care less. i'm just describing what i see and what i think it suggests.

he was likeable AND he killed people, therefore he should have a whole cover to himself

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, July 17, 2013 9:19 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not like those other crepey dudes

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, July 17, 2013 9:19 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Also like what facts are we going on here? He was good looking and relatively social, he smoked weed and tweeted rap lyrics or whatever. That seems pretty superficial. It's not like people are coming forward and saying "Jahar volunteered at the local soup kitchen every weekend, and he was there whenever I needed a shoulder to cry on."

I think it's kind of obvious but The New York Times above the fold photos routinely include terrorists, murderers, dictators, rapists, etc. - along with plain old politicians, pop stars, movie stars, regular people, whatever.

The cover of Rolling Stone is almost always movie stars and musicians, occasionally athletes and politicians. There have been exceptions, and people are smart enough to know when Rolling Stone is making an exception - with Bush or Manson or whatever.

But in this case the photo and the context is making people upset. A lot of the heat is coming from the fact that in this photo, he looks a lot like a pop star who would normally be on the cover of Rolling Stone.

If there was really no difference between being on the cover of RS and NYT, people would have freaked out when the same exact picture was on the cover of the NYT a few months ago.

The NYT doesn't put out press releases announcing its covers ahead of time. But I'd like to see the reader letters for the week that photo ran.

I completely understand the anger out of Boston now, but I think the cover is justified (effective even). I haven’t read the article. As soon as someone like Tsarnaev survives the calamity they’re responsible for (as opposed to killing himself, or getting killed, in the act), I think it’s impossible for him not to get the media attention he may or may not have craved. It’s just an unfortunate fact of life--getting worse all the time, but probably has been for quite a while. The cover’s attracted a lot of attention and will sell magazines. How reasonable a defense Rolling Stone can make for the cover won’t affect that one way or the other. I think there’s one to be made, but I understand why someone would argue there isn’t. (Don’t mean to hedge--I just don’t see a clear answer here.)

Pop culture commodification just kinda happens.

http://movieboozer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/blog_images_hearst1.jpg

Worth checking out in the bookstore if you run across it...

http://images.angusrobertson.com.au/images/ar/97818589/9781858946016/0/0/plain/branding-terror-the-logotypes-and-iconography-of-insurgent-groups-and-terrorist-organizations.jpg

The cover of Rolling Stone is almost always movie stars and musicians, occasionally athletes and politicians. There have been exceptions, and people are smart enough to know when Rolling Stone is making an exception - with Bush or Manson or whatever.

But in this case the photo and the context is making people upset. A lot of the heat is coming from the fact that in this photo, he looks a lot like a pop star who would normally be on the cover of Rolling Stone.

this is true though it's worth noting that Charlie Manson A) looked like a typical hippie (well with demented stare) & B) was a wannabe/failed rockstar

... c) Was a well known and accepted figure in LA rock music circles up until the killings started

I would guarantee you there were a lot of people upset about the Manson cover at the time, probably more than this one.

Another thing about Manson on the cover, I don't know if IGA and Piggly Wiggly were carrying Rolling Stone at the time like they do now.

is that branding terror book one where I buy it thinking I'm gonna love it and then I go "oh fuck dude college was a long time ago"

god, the article's nearly as vapid as the photo

cue the reaction pieces today:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/07/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-rolling-stone-cover-controversy.html

at least the title wasn't a variation on the phrase "good kid madd city."

i like that new yorker piece. nothing mind-blowing but solid reasonable take on it, I think. he just glances on it, but the Manson as proto-terrorist angle is interesting to me

but I agree - the arguments for the cover are undercut considerably by the article itself, which is pretty weak

it did get people talking about Rolling Stone magazine for the first time in what seems like a decade, so mission accomplished

Now GQ should do a cover with a hot, semi-nude woman covering her body with the Rolling Stone cover and making a suggestive face. "The Tsarnaev Cover: Is It Too Sexy?"

or they should do an actual photoshoot with dzokhar.

Cosmo's 20 TIPS FOR THE BEST TERRORIST SEX EVER

tsarnaev shirtless on the cover of men's health: THE TERRORIST WORKOUT

ET's Patty Hearst cover really brings home the idea that, for better or worse, no new line has been crossed here. In the context of 1974, that cover looks to be about as rock-star glamorous as you can get. It also links directly to the current RS cover via Patti Smith's "Hey Joe": "Sixty days ago, she was such a lovely child."

yep - and I think we're in for tsarnaev terror-glam kitsch forever - like Hearst, Manson, Carlos the Jackal, Che, Guy Fawkes, etc.

esp considering that picture of his parents

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TPy8xZlWhL4/TV682wcWknI/AAAAAAAAA0A/8_FuxQH6O3U/s1600/AXL_CHARLES_MANSON_GNR_CLUB.jpg

http://img0.etsystatic.com/000/0/5151777/il_570xN.8123570.jpg

http://rlv.zcache.com/carlos_the_jackal_tees-re83e93b012324f578f4d21aaf868faf6_8041a_324.jpg

http://www.nypost.com/rw/nypost/2013/07/13/oped/web_photos/dzhokhar_fan--300x400.jpg

why do people think he is innocent? the evidence seemed pretty damning.

because they're dopes!

are you telling me that the girl in the bottom picture is a dope? i just don't see it.

Spekaing of innocense

there's also the fact that embracing tsarnaev is a totally efficient way to get attention and piss off your parents, which will sell t-shirts as long as 15-year-olds walk the earth

haha parents are the worst

they just don't understand

The flurry of anti-RS cover pieces probably doing more to glamorize him as rebel celebrity than the original RS cover.

wow, I just realized where the cover for the first Black Grape album came from

http://hipsterrunoff.com/

trips me out that there's still a hipsterrunoff

he updates it like once every two months. i think it's run its course but am still happy whenever he writes something new.

What did I tell you about hipsters Treeship

;-)

as hoos pointed out, my name is an anagram for E-Hipster

wow, I just realized where the cover for the first Black Grape album came from

― frogbs, Thursday, July 18, 2013 3:41 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this, but for the SLA logo / Turbonegro 'Apocalypse Dudes'

as hoos pointed out, my name is an anagram for E-Hipster

that, and Shit Peer.

my name is Anagrams for FaceWater

I guess I was being a little challopsy itt, partly to figure out the issue.

you guys are all fucking hipsters

I'm a virgin

SLA logo / Turbonegro 'Apocalypse Dudes'

and Trance Syndicate Records

tbh manson in that photo looks like he'd fit in well with the beach boys during their decadent 'beards' phase.

He lived with dennis wilson iirc

i live in southern california. i know, i'll grow a huge beard.

I thought u lived in maine?

the rolling stone cover photo of tsarnaev glamorizes violence, anyway check out these super sweet tactical photos of a bloodied dzokhar tsarnaev with laser sights trained on his body

I thought u lived in maine?

― Treeship, Thursday, July 18, 2013 12:28 PM (3 hours ago)

i do! that was imaginary wilson-manson dialog.

elm otm

the rolling stone cover that makes him look like a pop star is too loaded with metaphoric weight, so here's one that looks like Catholic martyrdom iconography

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/audio/video/2013/7/18/1374188391045/Dzhokhar-Tsarnaev-boat-001.jpg

RIYL Atta

it doesn't look a thing like Willie Nelson!

the cop who leaked the photos got fired!

relieved, not fired.

ET's Patty Hearst cover really brings home the idea that, for better or worse, no new line has been crossed here. In the context of 1974, that cover looks to be about as rock-star glamorous as you can get.

Dzokhar's selfie isn't nearly as threatening/powerful as SLA Patty anyway, but it fits with the innocuousness of Rolling Stone's piece.

Related book... Some terrific photos in here

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RBJ3407XL.jpg

so here's one that looks like Catholic martyrdom iconography

yeah there's this

there's also the idea that the proper antidote to the RS cover's soft treatment is a mainline dose of hyper-real technologically-aided state violence

I was wondering why it took so long for Baader-Meinhof to show up on this thread

More shit-for-brains rock and rollers:

http://www.tshirtgrill.com/products/2EE5CCF2343F41C8BE9D594FAB21F765.jpg

what rocker is that even?

St. Joseph of Strummer

oh wow. he looks pretty young there. that must have been roughly contemporaneous to their era of activity then, huh?

Indeed. Well done, Joe.

xpost to elmo, yeah I'm sure that's what the cop thought the image suggested - I just think that particular image is at least as problematic as the RS cover...

In fact if that boat shot had been the RS cover, they would have got heat for making him look like a martyr from the same people who got mad about the cuddly cover

I think everyone just wishes this kid did not exist - which is pretty understandable

If anything, we're soon going to be bombarded with pictures of him in standard orange prison colors.

that's looking fabulous in standard orange prison colours to you

It's just going to end in this

http://www.nachtkabarett.com/ihvh/img/mm_flier_red_ramirez_pentagram_1994.jpg

there was some [imo] good discussion about this on real time friday

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV5Wqqf5MqY

haha the Jaws line

RS editors have just become so innured to glam shots for the cover that they didn't stop and think wtf they were doing.

lol @ rolling stone leaking it was almost a kanye cover, full knowledge that it would prompt alot of ppl to go 'on second thought maybe that bomber cover's not so bad'.

didn't make it past "that's the *POINT* of the story. sometimes, THE DEVIL. LOOKS. CUTE." he's like penis disease.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/01/news/companies/rolling-stone-boston-bomber/index.html?iid=HP_River

No surprise--still worth debating, I think.

Bob Dylan is doing a great Tsarnaev on the cover of the new rolling stone this month

Maybe they got the wrong Zimmerman mixed up.