What do you think of the Rolling Stone cover with surviving Boston Bomber on the cover?
I guess it’s sparked some outrage, but I don’t get it. CVS drugstores are refusing to carry the magazine. WDYT?
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Isn’t Rolling Stone mainly a music, music based magazine? Why would they put a picture of a murderer on the front and make him look like a rock star?
I’m not outraged over it, but I am annoyed.
I have no problems whatsoever with it.
The fact that some stores are too wrapped up in their fear is just another victory for the terrorists.
A similar reaction to the outrage of the muslim world over the bomb-turban muhammad.
The west is not quite there yet where they riot in the streets over it and threaten to kill people for it, but it is only a matter of time until it is.
I have no problem with it at all – except that I am now confused, having just discovered that a) magazines still exist, and b) Rolling Stone is one of them.
They are being typical media whores for the money. I hope nobody buys it.
Seriously – how exactly is this controversial? Could someone outline the reasoning here (no joking, please)?
Its really not that deep. The guy is a terrorist who fucked up a lot of people and made life hell for a chunk of Boston. Armed goons herding people out of their homes with their hands on their heads like criminals. Fuck him. And there are always the cheerleaders for the bad guy who will use this cover as a way to glorify these acts. The same shit for brains who wear Che Guevara on their shirts.
Says the one that defends the murderer Z
@ragingloli “Says the one that defends the murderer Z”
Thats your opinion. I didnt defend anyone in that case and you know it…Fail. I defended the law that happened to rub the white guilt people the wrong way. And it pissed off one or two whole people. Let it go.
Here’s your GA for your trouble.
“Thats your opinion. I didnt defend anyone in that case and you know it…Fail. I defended the law that happened to rub the white guilt people the wrong way.”
Transparent cover story.
Well hopefully the magazine has a constructive article/content on the matter, and didn’t just put this up for the fuck of it.
Next case; Marge Simpson on the cover of PlayBoy. The fuck.
I sort of think Marge would be a pretty cool roll
If you look a little closer, the storyline is “How a popular promising student was failed by his family, fell into radical Islam, and became a monster.” If we can learn a bit and help someone else avoid the path I think it’s fine.
I get the story is not going to be totally flattering to this man but, the big full page mug. Its as bad as having Osama Binladen on a cover. These people deserve to be forgotten quickly.
Wait, so @woodcutter, it goes like this?....
- bomber is bad guy
– someone might see a photo of this guy on a corporate magazine and feel inspired by him?
– so, corporations should not reproduce images of bad guy so we can avoid inspiring people?
Is this it, or is there something else?
@woodcutter: “something else”
Well, that’s what I’m asking. Help me out. What’s the big secret here?
@woodcutter so should we boycott all the magazines that put Osama bin Laden on the cover? How about ones that put the other 9/11 hijackers, Ted Kaczynski, Timothy McVeigh or Ariel Castro on their covers?
I for one think that cover was a brave choice. It makes terrorism all that much more real when the face of terror is is a young man who looks a lot like half the students who come into the college library where I work. It does no disrespect to the memories of those impacted by those bombs to learn more about the bombers. Perhaps we can use what we have learned to try to keep this from happening again. It is also a brilliant marketing ploy all the way around. @tom_g didn’t even know Rolling Stone was still in print! He certainly does now!
Its really not that deep. He’s a murderer. The pic portrays him as some innocent youth. A smaller pic with him looking like he was when they dragged is punk ass out of that boat. A beaten disturbed martyr wanna be. Thats what they should have used if any. Radical Islam preys on these kinds of people we get that but the huge pic is a tool to sell magazines.
What the fuck’s the big deal?
His image will be plastered all over the inevitable movie anyway.
@ucme LOL I know you’re not joking, but it’s still funny because, doubtless, it’s probably true.
@woodcutter: “Its really not that deep.”
I think it is.
You’re talking about the image that we’ve all seen a thousand times, right?
@woodcutter: “The pic portrays him as some innocent youth.”
A photo can do this? News to me. Either this is a photo of him or it’s not. Again, educate me here.
@woodcutter: ” A smaller pic with him looking like he was when they dragged is punk ass out of that boat. A beaten disturbed martyr wanna be. Thats what they should have used if any.”
So, you have been as outraged all this time when magazines and newspapers have been using photos that didn’t meet this criteria?
Ask a few of the people in Boston ,see what happens.
Well we all know you are sort of different
It’s Fucking Rolling Stone. Many will see this as a blind -side. We expect that from Time, or one of the major news rags competing for market share.
@Symbeline He looks like a young Keanu Reeves, maybe he could play him…“totally rad dude.”
It’s no worse than putting Charles Manson on the cover.
People who get bent out of shape on things like this are insulting the rest of us as being too easily swayed by a magazine cover.
@zenvelo – Speak for yourself. When I saw that same photo over and over in places like the New York Times, Daily News, and New York Post, he was so dreamy that I felt compelled to follow in his footsteps. Media should be forced to only show tiny, black-and-white photos that have been manipulated so that the person no longer looks like a person. This way, it will keep me from going all terrorist and shit. And it will calm down the professionally-offended.
I have to believe there was some resentment when the Manson cover came out. If you weren’t emotional invested in the terror they caused it is probably normal to be,Meh, about it.
@tom_g Ha ha ha, That is funny, especially coming from you, the whole professionally offended jag.
Brilliant.
I think the fact that Rolling Stone still exists is a lot more offensive.
LOL. I actually like a couple of their writers a lot: Matt Taibbi got his start with them, and writes some excellent articles on corruption in the financial sector (among other topics), and recently deceased Michael Hastings won awards for his article that was responsible for the resignation of General McChrystal.
Bostonian friends (emphasis on the word “friends”) — I find that saying “go Red Sox” can diffuse any argument or disagreement.
They made the monster look like a freakin’ rock star. That why people are pissed. I don’t read the magazine so I’m sort of eh about it.
I think that the fact that this monster looks like a rock star makes the story even more scary and compelling. Frankly I think that was the whole idea.
Here is an interesting story from NPR about the whole fracas.
There’s nothing new about this, idiots have been wearing Charlie Manson tee shirts for years.
Pop culture often dictates a glamourised cult following of the macabre, not saying it’s right, but it’s always been out there.
@ucme a couple of days ago I saw a kid with a t-shirt featuring the likeness of Ted Kaczynski. I was rather horrified that he has become a fashion statement and all I could think was that I hope the families of his victims are getting any profit that might be made from those shirts.
There are bands that spend their whole careers trying to make the cover if this magazine.
Some little terrorist asshat kills some people and makes the cover.
It’s total bullshit.
@Katniss anyone who is familiar with Rolling Stone knows they cover much more than music, the magazine is not just a grown up Tiger Beat full of fluff pieces and music reviews. Should Time have avoided this cover because there are politicians trying to make the cover?
@SuperMouse It’s a shocker certainly, some kind of reverse “hero” worship bullshit.
Some women have forged relationships with imprisoned serial killers, initially through letters & in a few cases ending in marriage…the mind boggles.
Oh come on, Rolling Stone has to do something like that once in a while to remind us they’re still around. I mean, ... when’s the last time you read one?
(Last time I read RS regularly they were carrying Thomas Wolfe’s “Bonfire of the Vanities” in monthly installments. i.e. before the book came out.)
As for being a music/culture magazine, they have a long history of political coverage.
@SuperMouse You’re right. It’s not just about music. I’m just having a lot of trouble understanding why this dbag is on the cover looking all “Rockstar”. It’s bothersome to me.
I wonder if what’s getting to so many people is not that it’s a photo of this person per se—because yes, we have seen his photo all over—but that it’s a very innocent-looking image and it’s also been given a soft-toned, romanticized, almost tender treatment. How we perceive an image is tremendously influenced by how it’s edited and cropped, the framing, and the context. This presentation is not how we want or expect to see a public assassin portrayed.
Here, for a counterexample, are covers that don’t glorify, romanticize, or even pardon their subjects: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ]
I cancelled my subscription to RS 5 years ago. For precisely this reason.
They decided somewhere along the line, before I cancelled, to stop being a journal about the popular music scene, and instead to be a political rag. That is their prerogative. And in spite of my disagreement in principle, I think their journalistic quality is pretty good.
But I liked it better when I used it to learn about what was happening in the music world.
Who reads the Rolling Stone anyway? It’s still a relatively free country so the magazine can print whatever it likes. I am sure that this bomber kid isn’t the first idiot they put on their cover.
Here is the article that accompanies the photo if anyone is interested.
If they used a prison photo or press photo, I would not object. What bothers me is that the cover photo is glammed-up so he looks like a rock star.
I really am shocked at how this shit has spread so fast. Laugh all you want about the Mohammed cartoon shit – then look in the mirror. I’m browsing the web and seeing the fucking mayor saying shit that a grown man should be embarrassed to say. “Boston Strong” was the saying just a few months ago. “Boston Fragile”?
I really don’t have anything coherent to add because I’m quite shocked. It’s surreal. The photo we’ve been bombarded with for fucking months is now being portrayed as the result of a photo shoot Rolling Stone had done for the cover. That’s his photo – or was taken by a friend.
Even as I’m typing this, people are making claims that it’s been “glammed-up” or some shit. It’s the same fucking dreamy photo that we have looking at for months. Go back and check out the numerous news sources that have been showing that exact photo.
And while I didn’t read the article, isn’t the subtitle to the article talking about how a popular, promising kid (aka “normal”) was corrupted by Islam? The more fucking dreamy, cool, and normal this kid looks, the more effective the article. Remember – this is not Rolling Stone’s photo. This kid really did look like that for that photo. He’s that kid you saw skateboarding by you last week. There is some serious shit to write about the fact that a “normal” looking kid went all terrorist.
And for the record – even if the front cover was of the kid having sex with Obama while Jesus masturbated, are we so fucking fragile and pathetic that we have to become the people that are supposedly our enemies?
Weak. Very weak. And sad.
By the way, I can’t find any friends who have joined the offended (or whatever the fuck it is) camp. So, I am stuck here trying to figure out why the whole country has gone all hysterical. Sorry.
@tom_g – It does not look like the same photo that I saw used countless times in what coverage I saw. The photo I saw used during the incident looked like it was from a driver’s license or student ID card. I do not remember having seen this photo before today. I admit that I do not watch much television, nor do I go to grocery or convenience stores more than twice a month, so maybe I missed the prior use of this image. If that is the case, then I was mistaken and I apologize for my assumption.
It could be just the timing. It seems not long ago he did this. It wasn’t that long ago.People are still recovering from this physically and physiologically. RS wanted to do it before any other more notable publication. Apparently their circulation numbers aren’t up to snuff the way they would like. Somebody was bound to do it. How long was it after 911 before Binladen graced the cover of a major publication? People have inside them their feelings that don’t have to jive with anybody’s, meaning, you don’t get to judge why they are still pissed and nobody cares if you aren’t bothered one way or the other. They really just don’t give a rats ass. You weren’t there. But people who care were there even if they were thousands of miles away.
Thank you, everyone, for your thoughts. I would add that I think it rattles some cages precisely because he looks like the boy next door. We want our bogey men to be easily identifiable, if not wearing a turban and speaking Arabic, at least with crazy-eyed stares, like Adam Lanza, Jared Loughner, and James Holmes.
I think it’s very unsettling for people to think that a person who looked so normal and acted (prior to this tragedy) so sane could turn out to be a depraved killer.
@GoldieAV16 Thats just the thing, though. The Russian intelligence as well as the FBI were aware of this team and all the broken clues that were out there the whole time. The 911 hijackers looked ordinary and they too were under some surveillance before. Because of this we should expect to see the pro surveillance establishment jump into warp drive and use this example as another excuse to try to prevent another attack. It’s way more than the criminals/ terrorists and the broken bodies and hearts. It’s deeper than that. Chalk up one more incremental win for radical Islam and the control establishment to turn this country into something more manageable for the few. But hey, we are going to be safer for it all. Isin’t that nice?
@woodcutter the brother who died was under Russian and FBI surveillance, the surviving brother was not even on their radar.
@SuperMouse I think its a safe bet that everyone the dead brother had been associated with prior was under the microscope if only for a brief time. The only reason this guy gets his own cover elusive is because he’s still alive, and the young angle. Who knows the other may well get his time in the sun too.
@woodcutter “moment in the sun”? That is clearly a mischaracterizing what this is. Even supporters of Tsarnaev are complaining about the cover. No one except a vocal few wanting to make noise about something is calling this anyone’s moment in the sun. All I know for sure is the Rolling Stone accomplished exactly what they wanted to, people such as yourself who would clearly not ordinarily give their magazine a second look are still talking about this issue days after its release. Score one for Rolling Stone.
I personally find it interesting that someone who has relentlessly complained in other threads about people filing in blanks where they don’t know the facts is so certain of what Russian intelligence and the FBI knew and didn’t know.
BTW, here is an interesting take on the cover from Slate.com. To quote Erik Wemple from this article, “It’s also smart, unnerving journalism. By depicting a terrorist as sweet and handsome rather than ugly and terrifying, Rolling Stone has subverted our expectations and hinted at a larger truth. The cover presents a stark contrast with our usual image of terrorists. It asks, “What did we expect to see in Tsarnaev? What did we hope to see?” The answer, most likely, is a monster, a brutish dolt with outward manifestations of evil. What we get instead, however, is the most alarming sight of all: a boy who looks like someone we might know.” Interesting perspective.
@SuperMouse Even Osama Bin laden looked sort of sheik if not for what he was known for. All these killers looked just like businessmen or you neighbor. So the ” innocent look” is not a new idea. We’ve seen it all before. Unless RS thought we forgot that. And of course they want to sell magazines. And they well know, from now on, their competition whoever that might be, probably won’t do it now. They win.
I’ll have to go with @tom_g and @woodcutter on this. Has the nation become a radical Christian nation that is murderously offended by a magazine cover? The hysterical reaction against a single picture is just ridiculous! Massachusetts, I believe, doesn’t have the death penalty so that kid will have a long time to ponder his mistakes. He may also become even more radical. Either way, he should be kept from evangelizing his “religion”. The people in prison aren’t the brightest in the world and can become cannon fodder for Islam. That is a much greater danger than a stupid magazine picture.
@Ron_C what are the steps to put out a “fatwa” or whatever the christian equivalent is? Any Idea?
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