Dark Fandoms, Dark Tourism, and the Columbine Subculture

Vocabulary flashcards covering key definitions, subcultural groups, and concepts related to dark fandoms, dark tourism, and the Columbiner online community.

Murderabilia

Physical items connected to serial or mass murderers, such as locks of their hair, bricks from their homes, or trading cards.

Dark tourism

A form of travel where tourists combine mediated experiences with in-person visits to sites of violence and suffering, including decommissioned prisons and locales where serial killers operated.

Celebrity prisoners

Notorious or (in)famous inmates identified by decommissioned prisons and prison museums to attract visitors and increase tourist demand.

True crime industry

A media sector that provides detailed insights into the lives, motives, and actions of murderers, thereby advancing the celebrification of individuals who commit heinous acts.

Dark fandoms

Communities of fans, typically formed online, who identify with or otherwise celebrate individuals who have committed heinous acts, such as mass or serial murderers.

Columbiners

A prominent dark fandom community devoted to the shooting at Columbine High School whose members discuss the perpetrators, propose fan theories, and debate the cultural legacy of the event.

Researchers (School Shooting Fandom)

A fluid subgroup within school shooting fandoms who search for and share information and factual details about shootings and shooters.

Fangirls (School Shooting Fandom)

A fluid subgroup within school shooting fandoms, often consisting of teenage girls, who express a romantic or sexual interest in school shooters.

Copycats

A small proportion of school shooting and dark fandom members who actively emulate or replicate the violent acts of murderers.

Dylan Klebold (Columbiner Framing)

The Columbine shooter framed by the Columbiner subculture as a sympathetic, misguided antihero whose culpability is shifted away toward external failures or manipulation.

Eric Harris (Columbiner Framing)

The Columbine shooter depicted by the Columbiner subculture as the evil, psychopathic mastermind who orchestrated the massacre and manipulated his partner's suicidal ideation.

Bomb Sabotage Theory

A fan theory among some Columbiners claiming that Dylan Klebold was too intelligent to build non-functional bombs and secretly sabotaged the explosives to save lives.

"Playing God" Theory

The most popular Columbiner fan theory explaining why the shooters did not kill more people despite having the opportunity, alongside theories of boredom and physical injury.

I'm Not Ashamed (2016)

A 2016 film cited as an example of the cinematic immortalization and lasting cultural legacy of the Columbine High School shooting.