I’ve stayed basically mum on the Virginia Tech shootings this week, partly because I was at home sick for several days, and partly because it just takes time to process. I tend to side with those who say there’s really no lesson to be drawn from this, and I’m skeptical of any attempt to turn the event into advocacy for any policy measure. As Derb says in his podcast today, it is “one of those random horrors that happen in the universe.” If somebody can come up with a plausible way to prevent these sorts of things from happening in the future, I’ll support it. But I’ve yet to see one.

Still, when I saw the bits and pieces of the killer’s media package that were released by NBC, I couldn’t help but be struck by something: This horrible, tragic event was, in large part, an act of self-promotion. It was, in its own horrific way, advertising. Yes, it was an unhinged act of inexplicable rage, but it was also a particularly modern plea for attention, a dramatic act covered extensively on TV and complete with a multimedia press kit. This was a massacre for the age of YouTube and MySpace: unedited rants made directly to the camera, photos shared with the world, a rambling, profanity-laced note of, if not explanation, something like attempted justification.

While I hesitate to play the blame-the-culture card, I do think this was, to some extent, an outgrowth of our culture’s all-consuming desire for celebrity. He didn’t just want to kill people; he wanted the world to see and remember him, and not as the quiet kid who wouldn’t talk to his roommates, but outfitted and posed like an action hero. Now, this isn’t to blame the media/culture/Hollywood for what happened. Cho was deeply disturbed all on his own, and he is to blame for his actions. But we’ve now entered an age in which drug dealers put their messages out on DVD, gang wars go down on YouTube, and psychotic mass murderers are also their own PR reps.