"I think the killers get far too much attention"
About this Quote
Coupland’s line lands like a shrug that’s also an indictment: our culture doesn’t just report violence, it curates it. “Killers” here aren’t only criminals; they’re media-ready characters, granted a perverse celebrity premium. The quiet kicker is “far too much” - not “some,” not “any,” but an excess that’s become normalized, as if notoriety is an expected part of the crime’s afterlife.
The intent is less moral scolding than a diagnosis of attention economics. Coupland, chronicler of late-20th-century alienation and brand-driven identity, is pointing at the way modern life turns everything into content, including atrocity. The subtext is damning: we claim to be horrified, yet we can’t stop clicking, streaming, replaying. The killer becomes a narrative engine - motive, backstory, “genius” pathology - while victims collapse into numbers and grief becomes a brief cutaway before the next twist.
Context matters: Coupland wrote through the rise of 24/7 cable news, the internet, and the contemporary cult of the antihero, all of which reward spectacle over repair. The sentence is blunt on purpose, resisting the lush language that violence so often receives. It’s also a warning about copycat logic: attention is currency, and we keep paying it out to the worst possible people.
What makes the line work is its refusal to sensationalize the sensational. It’s a small, almost bored statement that exposes a huge, hungry machine.
The intent is less moral scolding than a diagnosis of attention economics. Coupland, chronicler of late-20th-century alienation and brand-driven identity, is pointing at the way modern life turns everything into content, including atrocity. The subtext is damning: we claim to be horrified, yet we can’t stop clicking, streaming, replaying. The killer becomes a narrative engine - motive, backstory, “genius” pathology - while victims collapse into numbers and grief becomes a brief cutaway before the next twist.
Context matters: Coupland wrote through the rise of 24/7 cable news, the internet, and the contemporary cult of the antihero, all of which reward spectacle over repair. The sentence is blunt on purpose, resisting the lush language that violence so often receives. It’s also a warning about copycat logic: attention is currency, and we keep paying it out to the worst possible people.
What makes the line work is its refusal to sensationalize the sensational. It’s a small, almost bored statement that exposes a huge, hungry machine.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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