Top 5 Backward Messages of 2011

I started Backward Messages a year ago, and since then we’ve seen plenty of lively news and discussion. Here are the stories that got the most clicks in our first year of debunking:

1. “Demonic drawing,” Slipknot album linked to grandparents’ murder: Kyle Smith, 17, was arrested in April for allegedly killing his grandparents and then setting their house on fire to cover it up. Police mentioned a “demonic drawing” found in Smith’s bedroom, along with what was most likely a Slipknot CD, as if those had anything to do with the crime. A few months later, Smith pleaded guilty and admitted he was being treated for mental illness.

2. Investigative reporters uncover sex-crazed werewolf roommates in Milwaukee … or not: People couldn’t get enough of the story of two young Milwaukee women, Rebecca Chandler and Raven “Scarlett” Larrabee, who invited an Arizona man to their apartment for some kind of consensual event. All parties involved admitted it “got out of hand.” The man was cut more than 300 times, escaped, then called the police, who made like a trio of books found in the girls’ apartment might be related: “The Werewolf’s Guide to Life,” “The Necromantic Ritual Book,” and a black folder called “Intro to Sigilborne Spirits.” Comments on that post from folks who knew the girls suggest that they had much deeper issues, unrelated to their reading habits.

3. Heavy-metal fan wins disability benefits for his “addiction” to music: Roger Tullgren managed to convince the Swedish government that his love of heavy metal interferes with his day-to-day functioning and qualifies as a disability. Not many of you agreed with this one, but I still think it says a lot about how extremely passionate some folks are about metal — and that’s worth taking seriously.

4. If you dress goth, are you asking for trouble? After Melody McDermott and a friend were beaten on a tram outside Manchester, many recalled the death of fellow goth Sophie Lancaster under similar circumstances. Goths are frequently the targets of harassment and violence; is it up to them to change it?

5. Do video games change kids’ behavior? In the spring, Empowering Parents published a poll in which they asked parents whether games “affect their child’s behavior.” Sixty-two percent said yes, despite ample evidence — which we’ve looked at throughout 2011 — that games themselves aren’t the real problem. If the group does another poll in 2012, following the Supreme Court’s decision not to ban the sale of M-rated games to minors, I wonder if the results would be much different.

If you’re curious what search terms brought people to this blog, here are some of the top queries:

* intro to sigilborne spirits
* satanism
* larping
* history of violent video games
* wicca
* daniel ruda
* jacob leblanc oklahoma
* phil chalmers

Happy New Year! I’ll have plenty more Backward Messages for you in 2012.

Investigative reporters uncover sex-crazed werewolf roommates in Milwaukee … or not

Milwaukee roommates Rebecca Chandler (left) and Raven “Scarlett” Larrabee were recently arrested for allegedly assaulting an Arizona man who had a threesome with them.

There’s nothing that turns reporters on more than a story of a sexy threesome gone wrong — especially when it involves young women, right? Now that Amanda Knox has been exonerated (and her prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, is now being prosecuted for abuse of office in a separate case), the media must turn its attention elsewhere to get its fix.

Enter two young Milwaukee women, Rebecca Chandler and Raven “Scarlett” Larrabee. Allegedly, the ladies invited an Arizona man to their apartment. After trekking across the country (by bus!) on the promise of some booty, the gentleman found himself reportedly tied up by Chandler and Larrabee, who then stabbed or cut him more than 300 times. He didn’t die, but instead managed to call the police.

Not exciting enough? Reporters caught wind of the fact that the following books had been found in the ladies’ apartment:

* The Werewolf’s Guide to Life: A Manual for the Newly Bitten by Ritch Duncan and Bob Powers (which, if you can’t tell from the title, is tongue-in-cheek);

* “A necromantic ritual book,” title and author not supplied;

* “A black folder called ‘Intro to Sigilborne Spirits.’”

Faced with this latter unknown volume, one reporter diligently went online to connect her own dots, speculating, “According to various websites, Sigilborne spirits include female werewolf spirits who engage in sexual acts.”

Really? Really?

My guess is that this reporter knows about as much about werewolf mythology and “sigilborne spirits” as she does about brain cancer. However, if she were writing about someone with brain cancer, she’d talk to a brain surgeon or oncologist, right? But when it comes to information about the occult — a complicated and varied subject poorly understood by the public — the Internet can provide you with all the information you need.

As a blogger at Gawker astutely pointed out, these books sound like something Chandler and Larrabee picked up at Hot Topic. They don’t sound like the impetus for a long-range sexual lure or stabbing.

Let’s get back to the story at hand:

[Chandler told police] she’d been having sex with the man and that the cutting was consensual but quickly got out of hand.

After she was arrested, Chandler told police her roommate, whom she called Scarlett, had done the majority of the cutting. She said Scarlett is “possibly involved in Satanic or occult activities.” She claimed she didn’t know Scarlett’s full name, but that her DNA could be found on a hair brush.

Weird, right? She doesn’t even know her roommate’s real name, but they planned this elaborate sexual event? On top of that, Chandler speculates that Larrabee might be involved in the occult. If she is, so what? That isn’t against the law. What is against the law is physically harming someone against their will — and whether the occult was involved (and there’s no evidence to suggest it was) is irrelevant to the legalities of the incident. All this speculation does is make it seem sexier, more alluring, more fun to talk about —

– unless you’re a law-abiding practicing occultist, and now you’re even more unwilling to be open about your faiths and practices because, on top of everything else, now people will think you’re a sex-crazed person who will cut them if they’re reckless enough to go to bed with you.