TWO men sit at a dining room table eating an exotic meal prepared by the one man. The meal of choice: the other man’s penis.
No, this is not a horror movie! But is the last meal this ‘victim’ will consume before his willing death.
Online communities offer a number of people support, advice and help, but there are also communities which use this platform as a medium of deviance.
Two computer nerds show the extent to which an online platform aided in one man’s untimely death.
I’ve never trusted computer nerds
Armin Meiwes, online cannibal
A German computer technician, Armin Meiwes is one of the most famous online cannibals, after he filmed himself killing and cutting up the corpse of computer engineer, Bernd Brandes. He found his ‘volunteer’ after advertising on Internet chatrooms for “men for slaughter”.
Meiwes is serving a life sentence after butchering and eating over 20kg’s of his “willing victim’s” flesh.
Meiwes confessed after his trial that he had always wanted a younger brother. Someone who was a part of him and “someone he could keep forever”.
Anyone up for a bite?
Meiwes claims that he had four other ‘volunteers’ that were willing to be eaten, however, they did not live up to his ideals.
One man even chickened out at the last moment when Meiwes had already tied him up and was planning where to stab him. Surprisingly, Meiwes let him go when he got cold feet.
Willing "victim", Bernd Brandes
He eventually found his ‘manly meal’ in Brandes, who was equally interested in been eaten.
Meiwes used a pseudonym, Franky in his internet advertisements, one of which read: “I search for a boy, if i can real kill him and butchering him. I am a cannibal, a real cannibal. If you are between 18 and 25 Y/O, you are my Boy. Franky from Germany” (sic) (dated 18 April 2002).
Another post dated 30 December 2001, reads: “I am Franky from Germany and i search for a young Boy, between 18 and 25 y/o. Have you a normal build Body and will you di, than come to me, i butchering you and eat your horny flesh”.(sic)
German hospitality
Brandes, was apparently a willing ‘victim’ who agreed to be eaten in front of a running video camera. Brandes answered Meiwes advert and went voluntarily to his home. There he agreed to let Meiwes cut off his penis and together they ate it.
A disturbing fact is that a number of people responded to Meiwes Internet advert, but experts advise that a large proportion of these people are sexual fantasy fetishists and would indulge in the thought or fantasy but not the actual ‘fatal finale’.
Meiwes was only apprehended after an Austrian student spotted another online advert searching for individuals willing to be consumed.
Delicious deviance
There are a great deal of Internet message boards and chatrooms where people use these platforms for devious intentions, such as cannibalistic/murderous urges, but most people laugh them off as jokes or hoaxes.
Killing is big business. And whether people like it or not, murder is a lucrative commodity. People are interested in murders and this demonstrated the large number of articles, books, newspaper reports, DVD’s, documentaries, movies and television programmes devoted to this very subject.
American television programmes, such as the very popular CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, influence the way killers are perceived but these shows’ popularity prove the extent to which society’s fascination with violence, crime and murder extends.
Silent sinners
Dr Hannibal Lecter, in Thomas Harris’s “The Silence of the Lambs” first appeared in book version and then in movie version This character was very popular and another serial killer character in the book and movie; “Buffalo Bill,” was loosely based on the real-life serial killers, Gary Heidnik and Ed Gein.
This demonstrates how fact is transformed into fiction in the hope of entertaining an audience and making money.
Society separates themselves from the killers by embellishing the gruesome and morbid details of the murder’s deeds.
A killer is constructed as possessing an unwavering sub-human darkness of human nature. The killer’s dark side is believed to either be primordial, animalistic, instinctual or evil. By doing this society seems to be denying the fact that they too are capable of evil or that they possess a dark side themselves.
Sautéed strangeness
This case is strange because we as consumers, (media and murder observers), like to assume that the murderer is all-evil and monstrous.
This case obscures boundaries as the victim was a willing participant, his mental state may have been questionable, but these two computer ‘nerds’, who are socially defined as boring and geeky,(not monstrous) broke stereotypes and with it, the rules were thrown out.
Not only are people not meant to agree to be murdered, but to sit and dine off your own ‘bits’ with the man who is planning to kill you, disturbs one’s versions of the expected and the notions of normalcy.
One thing is for sure, I’m never dating a computer nerd, I’m going to be more aware of people named Franky in chatrooms and when someone asks, “let’s go for a bite”… I’m going to run very very fast!
Hey – that’s not cool, I have a friend named Franky and he’s a nice guy. He wouldn’t go off indulging in other people’s ‘bits’…I think.
It’s indeed very curious what people get up to, and I’ve always been doubtful of the effect that media and access to the internet have on people’s day to day endeavours. Like blaming teenage eating disorders on magazines etc. I always thought was about people not willing to take responsibility for the repercussions of the free will they act upon. But I’m becoming more convinced now that the internet does in fact have a dark side. Platforms are created for the psychos you spoke about, and the rest of society’s mislead folk including; the paedophiles, the anorexics, racist extremist…and the list goes on.
What degree of agency or free will people exercise in the pursuit of their own desires, needs, wants and gratifications?
Not all 400 users of the group that Meiwes used went out and braaied their partner’s men bits. For them the fantasy of cannibalism was probably enough.
Of course the Internet has its dark side, but so do the people who use it.
The tendency to dwell on the ‘deviants’ who pursue a range of subcultural and alternative practices or values outside of the mainstream fuels a dystopian view of the Internet and undermines its valuable social function – being able to connect plural, diverse and also minority groups.
I would certainly liked the author to have explored the issue of uses and gratifications in social networks further in this post.