We certainly won’t forget the name ‘Cho Seoung-hui’ in a hurry; the media’s handling of this story has made sure of that. “Worst shooting massacre in US history” and similar phrases have been all over the press for about a week now. While nobody would argue that the Virginia Tech massacre was a tragic event, one cannot help but feel cynical about the way the media has given it such a great significance, as if it were an historic black dot that Americans will look back upon with great fear and loathing.

Would-be psychiatrists have been out at large, claiming to know the inner thoughts of Cho Seoung-hui. Paul Harris from the Daily Mail, no less, had this to say in his quite awful round up:

For as everyone now knows, the NBC package revealed in chilling detail the process of premeditation that guaranteed Cho the infamy he so desperately seems to have craved. As he turned the gun on himself, it is difficult to imagine that he didn’t allow himself a rare smile.

Now that we all think we know what was going through Cho Seoung-hui’s mind when he killed 32 people, maybe it’s time to remember John Mark Karr whom the world was certain had murdered Jon Benet Ramsey. Waiting for the facts to surface was not an option in that case, and neither does it appear to be with this one.

Perhaps we will never know the full truth behind the tragedy, but surely this boy needs our sympathy rather than our rage. His face has been shown more times than I care to remember. How must his family be feeling at a time like this? Not only have they lost their son, their brother, their grandson - but they have to deal with this with journalists like Paul Harris posting up pictures of Cho Seoung-hui next to stills from the Korean revenge movie ‘Old Boy’.

This was America’s most devastating gun massacre, but the fact that we are even able to state such things highlights that this incident is the result of problems within American culture. Closing the loopholes that exist for people to purchase firearms would be one way to prevent the next massacre.

Paul Harris called this “the world’s first mass murder for the YouTube generation.” That’s quite a bold statement, and a little ironic considering we can’t technically get YouTube at the moment.

It’s as if the world has all of a sudden just woken up to the fact that bad things happen. Not much thought was given to the 192 who were killed in Iraq this week. We certainly won’t be seeing the faces of their killers.

Through heightened senses of detection, the world and his dog have been able to assert that there were signs that could have prevented the Virginia Tech massacre. These must have been the same signs that could have prevented Jack the Ripper, or Fred West, or the First World War. Yes, there were signs.

Techno’ tags: Cho Seoung-hui, Virginia Tech massacre