"What does a person have to do to make the cover of Rolling Stone?"
The loudest of the naysayer arguments is "But they put Charles Manson on the cover, it's the same thing." No, the Charles Manson cover was not the same at all. First of all, that was 43 years ago. Can we stipulate to some social progress over the past fifty years? You want to be back in 1970? I don't. In 1970 my boss would be able to call me honey, slap my ass and tell me to fetch him a sandwich. Your central argument is either total ignorance, or else you're deliberately acting obtuse. Manson instructed the girls and Tex to write in blood on the walls in such a way that the investigators would think black people did it. The motive was to start a race war. Even without the morality shift towards today's less shitty social contract than the one that existed in the 1970s, the Manson cover was still completely different.Why Manson Was Different
Rolling Stone is primarily an entertainment publication. It would have been weird if Rolling Stone had not covered the story from an entertainment point of view. For one thing, Manson was a would-be musician, and certain psychologists have written think pieces suggesting that his being passed over by the music industry set him on a collision course with "the establishment." Add to that the Beatles' "Helter Skelter," a song that Charles Manson wove into his twisted world view as a message that set him on these bloody crusades. "Helter Skelter" was extremely central to the Manson case, later becoming the title of the most famous book about the case (written by lawyer Vincent Bugliosi) and later made into a movie. Then you factor in the tragic victim-hood in actress Sharon Tate, slaughtered along with her unborn baby, the child of her famous filmmaker husband Roman Polanski. So yes, of course the Manson murders devastated the worldwide entertainment community. And finally, and perhaps most noteworthy, unlike the bomber, that Manson cover photo was not deliberately sexualized like this cover. Here, Rolling Stone didn't use a mug shot. They found an attractive, doe-eyed photo of a confused kid looking like he's just beat out Bruno Mars for the top single this week. Like he has fans, like a rock star.
Madmen as Rock Stars
History is cut with a large, crazy stripe of idolizing madness. Volumes have been written by people a thousand times smarter than me about the dangers of elevating madmen to iconic fame. Manson had fans, and does still, as do many a crazed killer from Jesse James to Machiavelli. Now, maybe Rolling Stone putting the Boston bomber on the cover was deliberate. A statement about radical nationalism, showing that just about any young person can be radicalized like this boy was; or maybe he does have fans. Either way, this is another chapter in that discourse, that's all. Let people talk about it. Let people feel their feelings about it. No amount of your uber-cool eyerolling about the relative relevance of Rolling Stone is going to contribute to the situation, so save the superiority for your blog.
At the end of the day, try to realize that being on the cover of Rolling Stone signifies that you're a rock star. And now, say the most outraged, we bow our heads and wait for the next bored, young rebel who does not even understand the cause, to plan and execute his attempt to go out in a blaze of glory. The question is still "What does a person have to do to make the cover of Rolling Stone," but the new answer is terrifying.∎
