SoKophobia

Add the fear of blaming South Koreans—I kid you not ***—to the brilliant list of the post-Virginia Tech media memes compiled by ETP’s Jason Linkins. Weirdly, none of them attribute guilt (sole guilt or, for that matter, any guilt) to the perpetrator, who was apparently a lone gunman (and a VT student), Cho Seung-Hui.

Linkins’s list:

GUNS, GUNS, GUNS (and a subset of same: THE JIM WEBB COROLLARY)

EVERYONE IN CHARGE FAILED AND SHOULD BE FIRED

“INSTANT PREJUDICE” [I'm not quite sure against whom --ed.]

CREATIVE WRITING AND THE AGONIES OF ARMCHAIR PSYCHOANALYSTS

VIDEOGAMES? REALLY? [the commentary "really?" is Linkins's, not mine]

In a later post, Linkins also remarks on the “English major” meme—which is really a subset of the “creative writing” meme. You can’t trust an English major—and you certainly can’t trust an English major at an institution where he’s surrounded on all sides by engineers. Right?

——-

*** Here’s where Americans are supposedly going to explode in a massive backlash against South Koreans—or so the South Koreans fear:

South Korea expressed its condolences, and said it hoped that the tragedy would not “stir up racial prejudice or confrontation.” “We are in shock beyond description,” said Cho Byung-se, a Foreign Ministry official handling North American affairs.