What would motivate a person to scare women in this way?

Question

Ok so there I was this morning on myspace (should be named..myguiltypleasure LOL) and I recieved this bulletin...

Aug 15, 2007 7:01 AM
Subject: *STATE POLICE WARNING TO MYSPACE USERS*
Body: STATE POLICE WARNING TO MYSPACE USERS*


Please read this.....I hope that all of my Friends Post this and help keep our myspace friends safe.


State police warning for online: Please read this "very carefully"..then send it out to all the people online that you know. Something like this is nothing to be taken casually; this is something you DO want to pay attention to.
If a person with the screen-name of RatBonesBlakStar or http://www.myspace.com/curtmanchst contacts you, do not reply. DO NOT talk to this person; do not answer any of his/her instant messages or e-mail. Whoever this person may be, he/she is a suspect for murder in the death of 56 women (so far) contacted through the Internet. Please send this to all the women on your buddy list and ask them to pass this on, as well.

This screen-name was seen on Yahoo, AOL, AIM, and Excite so far. This is not a joke! Please send this to men too...just in case! Send to everyone you know!


Ladies, this is serious.
Gentlemen, PLEASE let your Lady Friends know....
This can also be found at www.NBC.com

or

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11162052/

IF WE CAN PASS ON JOKES, SURELY WE CAN PASS ON A WARNING THAT MAY SAVE a life

Ok so ever the skeptic, I decided to check facts. the MSNBC link says that this man attempted to murder patrons in a gay bar in Massachusetts. The site also gave his name...Jacob D. Robida, and a quick search on that verified that this man attacked several patrons, shot were fired and all was done in the act of a hate crime against homosexuals. Jacob fled in his car to arkansas where he was stopped by an police cruiser and then shot the officer, killing him. The arkansas police then had a shootout with him, and during the gunfight, he shot his female companion, killing her, and then

attempted to commit suicide. He was rushed to the hospital and later died of injuries.

Horrific and sad as this situation is, even worse is the ridiculousness that is spread out of the BS that flies around myspace. This man attempted to kill one woman in massachusetts, and sucessfully killed another in arkansas, but not 56 as the bulletin indicates, and further this hateful neo-nazi man is not capable of harming anyone in the grave. Some one has nothing better to do than scare people and it's sad that those who really were victims in this crime are being dishonored with this crap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_D._Robida


http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/05/robida/index.html


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11146480/


What in the world would motivate someone to try to scare the crap out of women in this way?

Starts at the date, ends with this ...
"IF WE CAN PASS ON JOKES, SURELY WE CAN PASS ON A WARNING THAT MAY SAVE a life

no kidding..really grazynaanka?

Read the whole question and you'd realize we've already figured that out. Now, care to address the actual question?

What would motivate a person to make up a ridiculous bulletin like this?

Answer 1

For attention and gratification. For personal gain. To worry women for no reason.

Answer 2

This bulletin is another urban legend that has proven to be untrue. Go to snopes.com to check it out. Now it is true that someone out there shot a gay man and a women. But 56 women is not true and the fact that this sn and myspace has something to do with it. There is no need to be frightened by it. If you know about this you know it's just some stupid urban legend. And I hardly call wikipedia a reliable source for information. Oh and the CNN and MSNBC articles mentions nothing of this bulletin or anything of that. People just use a name of a person that has committed a crime like this and put it in the bulletin to scare people. It is a bogus bulletin.

Answer 3

I checked on snopes2.com, and "RatBonesBlakStar" is not on there. There was something similar to this a few years ago, but not this.

I don't know why anyone would want to scare women (or men for that matter) with false information. I guess it's a power trip for them. The negative end effect is it causes many people to become skeptical of everything, including the real bulletins out there.

I think we should all stick with the truth out there. It's all we have in the end.

Answer 4

Some people are sick. They figure there are other sick people in the world and they have nothing better to do than to harm other people.

By the way, there is a movie called In the Company of Men, where two men set out to hurt a woman just for kicks. It was one of the most terrible things I've ever seen.

Answer 5

LOL. Wow. Stupidity. Well, anything sent out as a random MySpace forward is probably trash. Anything that uses exclamation marks in the message and whose writer is conscious of its own "jokiness" by feeling the need to add, in all caps, "IF WE CAN PASS ON JOKES, SURELY WE CAN PASS ON A WARNING THAT MAY SAVE a life," is probably trash. True serious messages simply would not be written in this juvenile, casual manner and would not be disseminated on MySpace - and they would have information from outside sources clearly available with no hedging or hysteria.

Anyway, knowing people online, it was probably a joke some guy played on his buddies to keep girls from talking to them. Do the screen names given have actual profiles that match the name of the guy you found? Are the profiles blank? Or do they belong to somebody totally different and unrelated to any of this? Man, people are dumb. I just love it.

Sigh. If only the authorities cared enough to actually alert people on MySpace of all the sex offenders in their midst. Because in that case, MySpace inboxes would be absolutely flooded with messages every day.

P.S. Isn't it comforting to see that even among some of our friendly neighborhood trolls here, violence and death (and apparently rape, racism, homophobia, and general hate) are not inappropriate subjects for the all-important jokie jokie? Yeah, I guess until their sister or girlfriend gets murdered by some homophobic lunatic. Then it's suddenly not such a funny joke anymore.

But, until then ... SUCKS TO BE YOU if your sister was murdered by a lunatic! Hahahaha. I'm going to go eat some candy and play computer games and laugh about it now like the ignorant spoiled immature brat that I am.

Answer 6

Well the MSNBC article describes the character as a white supremacist. He also apparently claims to be a nazi. Some of the things on his myspace point to him being just that. Mostly the headline reading: "white power."

Answer 7

Because some people just like having the control or power to do so. Sick and wrong, but true. And I'm sure women, unknowly, would continue to pass the email on just to ensure the safety of their sister or daughter or mother, and the creep who sent it would have satisfaction in knowing that they have put fear in the hearts of thousands or millions of women. So overall, to answer your question, "what would motivate somebody to scare women in this way" the answer is power. It's really sick if you ask me......

Answer 8

This is an internet hoax, nothing more. My initial reaction was "Which state police?" Then, "not another one."

I don't believe anyone set out to "frighten women." There are just jerks out there who like to see how far their crap can go.

Answer 9

grazynaanca-i'm pretty sure that was what she said...

apparently some people are too lazy to read the entire question.

i don't know WHY someone would do that... perhaps they like to scare people, maybe it makes them feel all tough & powerful, or maybe it's like a poster above said & it just got exaggerated & blown out of proportion by being retold over & over. or maybe the person just wanted to see if they could send this out to see how far it would spread. i dunno. you'd think people would have better things to do, but apparently not!

Answer 10

This person is dangerously mentally ill. I hope he is found and arrested, and later sent to a psychiatric facility for treatment. There are some sickos out there who get their kicks from scaring people, but to commit violent and deadly acts is a far cry from practical jokes.