Outside the Manson Pinkberry
November 8, 2017 10:29 AM   Subscribe

Manson Bloggers and the World of Murder Fandom (Rachel Monroe, in The Believer). Longreads: "Monroe’s piece isn’t just about the Manson Family or those who still obsess about him; it’s about whether we ever truly escape ourselves. Do we carry pieces of our younger selves with us, even as we grow and change?"
posted by mandolin conspiracy (13 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Monroe also wrote the #vanlife article that was previously linked on the blue. The title had me expecting something a bit longer and maybe touching on the fandoms that other serial killers have and have had (e.g. the prices paid for John Wayne Gacy's shitty art), but she gets at how the Manson Family in particular hooks some people deeper than the merely morbidly curious (Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter has sold over seven million copies, the best-selling true crime book in history) or teenage/young adult edgelords (e.g. Peter Bagge's character Lisa from Hate).

I've been morbidly curious plenty of times, and even edged onto edgelordism in my younger years (although I got away from it well before the internet era, for which I am quite thankful), but I also get how depression can reawake earlier obsessions as a possible escape route. The bit where Stoner would sit in the Corcoran prison yard and stare at the building that housed Manson reminded me uneasily of the bit in Trekkies in which the "Spiner femme" would gaze in the general direction of Brent Spiner's house because it centered her.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:38 PM on November 8, 2017 [5 favorites]


... the bit in Trekkies in which the "Spiner femme" would gaze in the general direction of Brent Spiner's house because it centered her.

That scene scared the shit out of me. It didn't scare me on Spiner's account -- she struck me as harmless -- but on hers. And, a little bit, on mine. Anne (I think that was her name) was intelligent, attractive, nerdy, had started a family -- she seemed like everything I could reasonably hope to be as a person. And this idea, this ideal man, had captured her. She'd let herself love until it erased the boundaries inside her. That idea raises a shiver in me even now.

I really want to see My Friend Dahmer because I became briefly obsessed with the ideas it examined: how does someone become irredeemable? Where does madness begin? But I don't know if I'll get to. It doesn't seem to be playing in town, plus I don't know if I want to say to my friends HEY LET'S GO SEE THE JEFFREY DAHMER MOVIE I REALLY REALLY WANNA.

Karina Longworth's podcast series on this really drilled down on the roots of Manson's power in Hollywood, and how everything he did ran on the rankest misogyny, as indeed did Hollywood.
posted by Countess Elena at 3:16 PM on November 8, 2017 [8 favorites]


Just here to second the Longworth podcast about Manson, it's fantastic at setting the man in his cultural milieu. It's also horrifying.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 3:22 PM on November 8, 2017


Can I be "Metafilter's own Rachel Monroe"? I have always wanted to be Metafilter's own. (Also thanks for reading.)
posted by attentionplease at 5:02 PM on November 8, 2017 [43 favorites]


Interesting piece and really well written but I had to bail eventually, those people were very subtly depressing.

I guess we should expect Manson to make a bit of a pop cultural resurgence since Tarantino announced his next movie will be about the murders.
posted by mannequito at 5:16 PM on November 8, 2017 [1 favorite]


Can I be "Metafilter's own Rachel Monroe"? I have always wanted to be Metafilter's own.

Oh wow!

Of course you can. Or you are, rather.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:16 PM on November 8, 2017 [5 favorites]


since Tarantino announced his next movie will be about the murders.

oh well I am just super excited about that

I can't even face The Girls, and I know she's a good author
posted by Countess Elena at 5:47 PM on November 8, 2017 [1 favorite]


That was great! I want to know so much more about the Manson bloggers. What led them to this obsession? did they think they were going to outgrow it? I love that Metafilter’s own Monroe was so introspective ( I myself have a fascination with serial killers) but I also would like to know about these bloggers from a more anthropological perspective.

“It was like one of those terrible dreams where you find yourself back in high school, awkward and anxious and fully consumed with your own awkwardness and anxiety, all your grown-up perspective and wise patience having evaporated like the mirage they always were. Of course you’re back there. You’ve always been there. The real delusion was when you thought you had left any of it behind.”
This is about as accurate a description of the despair of depression that I have ever read. And I’m going through it right now so, thanks for that friendly jolt of recognition.
posted by shalom at 6:36 PM on November 8, 2017 [2 favorites]


This was an excellent essay, thank you for posting-- I've already passed the link on to some friends who, like me, were of an age to be obsessed with not Manson but "the girls", just a few years older than us....
posted by jokeefe at 9:00 PM on November 8, 2017


I enjoyed this a lot - Manson lore is marinated into the culture here in LA; my boss and I have had discussions about the sites near us. On my second trip here, my friend took me to El Coyote and pointed out the booth where Sharon Tate had her last meal.
posted by mogget at 9:23 PM on November 8, 2017


Really enjoyed the article.

I have a friend who is a huge Manson obsessive. The weird thing is, I think she thinks he wasn't responsible for the killings. This article helped me understand her obsession a little better.
posted by drezdn at 5:34 AM on November 9, 2017


Wasn't Manson fandom much more widespread in the 1990s? Redd Kross recorded "Cease to Exist," and the Lemonheads have recorded at least two Manson songs. Axl Rose used to wear Manson T-shirts, and I remember the 1998 movie, The Slums of Beverly Hills, which had Kevin Corrigan (he played Henry Hill's wheelchair-bound brother Michael in Goodfellas) in a Manson T-shirt for most of the film. The article makes Manson sound so niche, but I remember Manson-philia being a major part of Gen X suburban punk late 80s-early 90s culture, sort of a big "fuck you" to Baby Boomer post-hippie triumphalism.
posted by jonp72 at 11:52 AM on November 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


That was really good. I liked this little nugget especially:

The Manson Bloggers stay up late, talking and drinking beer. They seem to feel freed from the constraints of their daily lives, and thus empowered to break rules:

“I never eat pizza!” the very healthy Matt says, eating pizza.


Thanks for posting and thanks for writing!
posted by latkes at 7:15 PM on November 9, 2017


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