Besides the obvious, I’m watching these vids today. Not much time to post, but thought I’d share:
This is something I’ve been doing more and more of as the weeks go on. The first time I cried for Luka, it took me somewhat by surprise. It was after viewing the video of his disembarkation from the plane that brought him back from Germany. Suddenly it hit me how very sad this is for him; the tears started rolling down my face and I started sobbing heavily. How awful it must feel to be 29 years old and know that you will likely be locked away for the rest of your life, to be lead shackled and handcuffed, to no longer have any control over your own life. What makes it even more sad is that it almost seems like this is what he wanted. Between promoting the 1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick video, sending body parts through the mail and simply saying “OK you got me” when found, it’s like this was all a part of his plan. But why??? I’m torn with the why. It’s impossible to understand why someone would sabotage their life this way. Does he hate himself that much? It all just makes me so sad.
I think about him being locked away in a tiny cell like Bernardo for 23 hours a day, day after day, year after year, endlessly. It’s such a depressing thought. I think about all the happy people in the world free to enjoy the beauty of the outdoors, and the contrast to Luka sitting all alone in a tiny cell. I cry some more.
I think about Luka’s life. Right from the beginning he was doomed. His mother was so ashamed of his existence in her teenage life that she apparently didn’t tell her family about him until he was 5 years old! Talk about rejection! Imagine how it would feel to know that your own mother was ashamed of you as a small child. Then being bounced back and forth between parents and grandparents, never belonging anywhere. Eventually being kicked out at 16 over his sexuality. I cry over so many aspects of Luka’s upbringing.
Last night something really hit me hard. I was discussing Luka’s possible child with someone. It really does seem like it’s possible that he had a child at some point. There are so many photos of him with a baby, and his sister (and the rest of his family) is said to have disowned him years ago. It’s possible that the blond girl in photos that people assume to be his sister is in fact the mother of his child. The child may have died (as Luka indicated in some posts and YouTube video) or maybe the mother kept the child away from him. In either case, this would be a significant loss for Luka, who has only ever wanted love. He looks so caring in all the photos of him with the baby.
This video is what really made me cry. I’m just so sad, devastated really, for the life that Luka could have had, a normal life with a loving family and a child, and the contrast to the life of lonliness he ended up with, and now the ultimate lonliness of being locked away in a tiny cell. 
To all the Luka-haters
(and now Lexa-haters):
As you may have noticed, my blog comments are now being moderated. I was ok with the occasional message of disapproval or reprimand, in fact I expected it. I even enjoyed the commenters who kindly took the time to present their opposing point of view or express their concern over my obsession. But this latest onslaught is completely unacceptable.
People who express dismay at my compassion for a fellow human being (who happens to be accused of murder), and then turn around and wish death upon me are the true psychopaths. Do you not see the irony in you calling me the sick one when you are the ones filled with dark thoughts and I with warmth and empathy? I feel sorry for your sad lives so full of negativity, how unhappy you must be! I’m well aware that many of you are the same individuals who have been attacking Luka for years, beginning with ridiculing his views on Family Guy. Do you people not realize you are exactly the cause of pushing Luka over the edge?!?!? It’s people like you, full of vile hatred, who are the cause of everything so wrong with today’s society, not me, not Luka!
Take a long look in the mirror and figure out what it is you hate so much about yourselves that you feel the need to follow so closely a subject that you hate. Freedom of speech gives me the right to express my views, and you to express yours, but while we clearly disagree, the difference between you and I is that I am attacking no one, while you all are attempting to bully me into submitting to your demands. Well, guess what? I’m not taking it anymore, no more hateful comments will be published, and I’m NOT going to stop blogging on your account!
And just so you know, I’m the eternal optimist. The silver lining of this dark cloud is that I now have first hand experience with the hate that Luka experienced online which makes my empathy for him that much stronger. Thanks for that! 
So long haters! I hope u find some love, happiness & peace!
~Lexa <3
Reaction Formation.
This is the term I’ve been searching all along and I finally found it. I’ve been saying right from the start that I believed that my infatuation with Luka began as a psychlogical protection mechanism of some sort. That the thought that someone like Luka could commit such a gruesome crime, and the implications that has that literally ANYONE I see anywhere could also be a killer, have caused me such anxiety that my mind subconsciously surpressed any negative emotions towards Luka by covering it up with “warm fuzzy” feelings. Like a psychological self-medication against extreme anxiety. An actual chemical reaction taking place in my brain to flood me with feel good brain chemicals.
From Wikipedia:
In psychoanalytic theory, reaction formation is a defensive process in which anxiety-producing or unacceptable emotions and impulses are mastered by exaggeration of the directly opposing tendency….The concept of reaction formation has been used to explain responses to external threats as well as internal anxieties….The mechanism of reaction formation is often characteristic of obsessional neuroses….it can lead to obsessional behavior….When an individual cannot deal with the demands of desires and reality, anxiety follows. Freud believed that anxiety is an unpleasant inner state that people seek to avoid. In an attempt to protect ourselves from this anxiety, people employ reaction formation unconsciously in their daily lives. Reaction formation involves adopting opposite feelings, impulses or behavior.
I may be highly self-aware, but that still doesn’t mean I have the ability to control my feelings and obsessive thoughts; no one does. As unaffected as I thought I was by viewing the 1 lunatic 1 ice pick video, having been desensitized by way more graphic horror movies, I’m starting to think I was subconsciously highly affected. At first I’d told myself that I absolutely did not want to watch an actual murder and dismemberment on video, but my curiosity got the best of me. It started with me just reading the Best Gore comments. Then, for the heck of it, I did a quick search and there it was, way too easy to find! If it really had been restricted to the “deep web” I never would’ve watched it. But I did.
Then I suddenly, without knowing why, felt this undeniable urge to “know” Luka. I really needed to hear his voice, and that is when I found his Plastic Makes Perfect audition tape. I was mesmerized. How could this guy have possibly committed such a vile crime?!? He seemed so sweet, if not a little dysfunctional, but who’s not?!?! And so the disconnect began. The obsession took over and my infatuation with Luka began. It became not about the case and what he’d allegedly done, but more about him as a person. And I don’t deny that at that time, when I started this blog, it was the infatuation that I was mainly consumed by. I couldn’t get enough of Luka’s photos and fantasizing about meeting him. But it has evolved since then as discussed in yesterday’s post.
In a weird way I’m thankful for this “Reaction Formation” because without it I probably would not have given enough thought to Luka and what makes him tick to have developed the feelings of empathy and support I have for him now. This psychological process allowed me to open my mind and my heart to the other victim in all of this, the one who suffered and slowly destructed while society sat by and did nothing to help him, never reaching out to show him the good of humanity. It may be hard for a lot of people to see this (or to care) because they don’t relate to Luka, and the depravity of his alleged crimes makes them feel detached from him as a fellow human being, but the fact is that he IS a human being, he’s somebody’s child, grandson, brother, uncle, and if we turn our backs to the fact that he is not an inhuman monster, but a troubled boy overlooked and damaged by society, than this world will only continue to become a scarier and more dysfunctional place.
Luka Magnotta deserves the love and support he is now getting from so many, it’s just a shame that love and support were not provided sooner in his life to have prevented the downward spiral he took. He cried out for help through the internet because he had nowhere else to turn, and because of the impersonal nature of the internet, all he ever got was ridicule because no one could understand the many layers that made him so messed up inside. We feel for you now Luka, we really do, even if it is too late.
Until such a time that Luka comes out and says he committed those crimes just for the fun of it, or because of long-held murderous urges, I will continue to support him who I see as a victim of a messed up society who was pushed psychologically beyond his limits of holding it together anymore in a world that wanted no part of him, a fellow human being wandering this planet like the rest of us, in need of love, attention and more than anything, guidance.
Thank you “Reaction Formation” for giving me the chance to see all of this!
“Hate the sin, love the sinner” ~ Gandhi
Fascination by the case came first. Infatuation with Luka came next. But it’s so much more than either of those things now. I truly feel for Luka now. I support him and believe in his right to be helped through his issues. I feel such strong empathy for Luka. There’s a moment in particular a few weeks ago when I realized this wasn’t just some “school girl crush”, nor just a passing fascination.
We’ve all seen Luka’s mugshot (above). Some have argued that it’s not the one taken in Berlin, that it’s from Luka’s fraud charges. Some have insisted it most certainly is from his arrest in Berlin. But no one disagrees that it’s not the most flattering shot of Luka, by far it’s not. The moment I realized my obsession had evolved was when I looked at that mugshot and I appreciated it as much as any other photo of Luka, if not more so. It’s all him, and I want to know all of him! The good, the bad, the ugly, the hurt, what makes him tick, who he is inside. I realized how very real this photo is in comparison to most others, the true Luka, and that makes it beautiful and special!
This happened the night Luka returned to Canada. After studying the footage of his disembarkation frame by frame and taking screenshots, I realized this was the first “real” video footage of Luka. No makeup. Not in front of the camera by choice. He didn’t even seem like the same person I’d been studying for weeks. Gone was the love of the camera, gone was the act. Before us was a troubled boy, so helpless, so small and easily man-handled by his keepers. I just couldn’t look away. And then I looked at his mugshot, and realized that this had been a moment of truth for him. You can see it in his eyes. He looks like he’s had some realization that his life has been forever changed. There is always intensity in Luka’s eyes, but in this photo it’s a different kind of intensity.
Mugshot Luka, Mirabel Airport Luka, this is the Luka I would expect to get should I ever have the chance to meet him, and I’m more than OK with that.
The following is the point I’ve been trying to get across to reporters who ask about my “school girl crush” on Luka. It’s hard when all they want to ask is: “But you know this guy cut someone up, and now you’re giving him exactly what he wants?”…That question misses the point, and here’s why:
The “school girl crush” is only one side of this! There’s a strange duality to Luka. On the one hand, we have the image he created for himself of the confident, successful, jet-setting model. This is the person he projects in his photos. Something about Luka’s face makes me warm and fuzzy, I don’t deny that, but there’s so much more it! It’s actually pretty strange for me to feel this way; I can’t remember one other time I’ve become infatuated with someone’s appearance.
But then there’s the darker, more complex side of Luka. I’m not just talking about the actual crime he allegedly committed, because that’s just the culmination of everything. I’m talking about his life and who he is inside. He is tremendously fascinating! This is the part that keeps me interested. If it was just about a pretty face, I would have been over him in an hour I’m sure!
There’s so much information about him that he put out there himself. It is interesting to try to put the pieces together, to figure out what could’ve potentially made him snap the way he allegedly did. The more I read, the more I feel empathy for this lost little boy! That’s how I see him. It makes me terribly sad to think that no one was there for him apparently.
I’m aware that there is some cognitive dissonance involved in supporting Luka the way I do. It’s just impossible to reconcile the beauty and the beast within him. On the one hand, I adore this image he has created for himself, even though I’m fully aware it’s not real. As has been pointed out, his surgically altered face is not even real, but this just doesn’t make him any less attractive.
On the other hand is a lost boy who allegedly committed a heinous crime and it appears that the reason for such may not have been some psychopathic urge, but rather and even more so a slap in the face to society! I don’t believe he enjoyed the things he allegedly did in that video. To me it seems like he may just have been going through the motions for shock value. There’s a recording of Luka’s voice where he is getting upset about a family guy episode. He discusses how sick and twisted necrophilia is. I honestly believe that is how he truly feels, like 99.9% of the rest of us. If he is guilty, I can only imagine that he was rebelling back against a society that was so cruel to him and ignored his cries for help for so long! He is just extremely confused and had too many wrongs committed against him.
People forget that Luka is a victim too! A victim of society and of a poor upbringing that likely left him with many disorders! This is why I (and many others I know of) have such strong empathy for Luka. It’s makes me sad for him and sad for society. I like to balance out this sadness with a little Luka fantasy “crush” (no harm in that), but in all honesty it’s the person inside him that absolutely fascinates me. I feel a strong need to know him, to be his friend, to provide some comfort that he never had.
Although I wouldn’t be surprised if he hated me. I’m not simply fawning over him; I’m trying to see the whole picture. And as much as he seems to have cried out for help with all his years and years of postings, I’m not sure he wants to be so exposed, for us to see the different sides as all belonging to him. He worked so hard on his image and that is no doubt what he wants people to see, what he wants people to love him for. I wonder if he would be embarrassed that so many of his sock-puppet accounts have been revealed, that everyone now knows that he was his own biggest fan. Or is it enough for him to know that he actually has real fans and supporters now, by the hundreds? I wonder if we’ll ever know.
We spend so much time on this obsession. We might as well do something worthwhile with our time. The idea has been mentioned briefly in discussion groups a few times, but it has recently taken a new form in my mind due to recent discussions with some fellow Luka supporters. We all know that eventually many books will be written about this case, about Luka, his life, his childhood and his psychology. There will probably even be books written on the Luka fandom phenomenon. I know of at least one person who mentioned plans to do so. But what if a book could be written by all of us? Our collective knowledge of Luka, and our unique perspective of strong empathy, could make a fairly extensive collection of thoughts, ideas, and research. If we have any actual psychologists in this lot they could add an interesting analysis as well.
As I have been trying to document the evolution of this obsession and attempting to understand what underlies it at each step along the way, there are also those who are dedicated to researching and preserving the larger-than-life online presence of Luka Magnotta, be that through screen captures, catalogued collections of links, collecting hundreds of photos, or through setting up mirror sites to ensure the perpetual availability of all the information Luka posted online. We all play our roles. There’s even the media who started this whole sensation with their sensationalism, and who still provide us a little insight, through their analysis of the Luka fandom phenomenon. Everyone interested in this case shares much of the information they find or thoughts they have online. Why not put those efforts to some greater purpose? Between simply fawning over Luka’s beauty to taking the time to explain your point of view on why Luka does not deserve fans, we run the full gamut, but each serve a purpose. The more we share, the more we talk about, the more we are able to glean a little window into his world. The more theories we bounce off each other, the more we figure about what makes Luka tick and the underlying meanings of things he’s said and done.
I would venture a guess that if we structure ourselves in an organized manner, brainstorm collectively and divvy up tasks, we could pump out a large volume of Luka info in far less time than a usual biographical writer. Luka has given us the power by living his life online. Groupthink combined with a vast availability of resources could make for a comprehensive collection in years less than it would take one writer to research and write about this case. In many of my posts, I’ve already touched on so many topics that could be thoroughly explored in chapters of a book, from identity to internet addiction to anxiety, and the discussions that have ensued already provide a look at differing perspectives on these issues. I know of at least 3 tentative book outlines floating around out there; if we all get together and share, we could merge these into one huge Encyclopedia Magnottica. I have at least one other person on board already and we’re doing this with our without you guys, but I truly believe the more minds and perspectives we put into this, the better our product will be. If there’s enough interest, maybe we’ll start a private wiki as a basis of our collaboration; it will be our “boardroom” where we meet to discuss this project and make it come to fruition. Anyone interested in contributing in any way, please email me at lexa2lm@gmail.com.
We support you Luka!
Luka is larger than life. The image he has cultivated for himself is one of a handsome, carefree, jet-setting model. But we all know this was just an image. In reality he was his biggest fan, or maybe even only fan. Many of his photos were photo-shopped to make him seem like he’d been more places and done better things than he really had. This shows a lot of dishonesty on his part. This is not a good trait! Yet it’s somehow easily overlooked by his supporters, because of the damaged little boy inside. In addition to all the image of beauty of Luka cultivated online, he also spend a lot of time pouring his heart out about all the bad things that have happened in his life from childhood to failed relationships. This is the part that makes him real.
I’ve come to realize that I tend to overlook any unattractive qualities Luka possesses and focus only on the good, or on the person inside who just needs help. I am somehow able to discard thoughts of all the things that don’t fit in with the perfect image of Luka that I have in my head, the fantasy man I obsess over. I haven’t yet figured out why I’m able to do this when there is such a vast amount of information about Luka that ranges from unattractive to downright despicable, but I have created a list of some of the things that I tend to ignore when I think about Luka:
- Alleged criminal behaviour – murder, cannibalism, necrophilia, animal torture
- Sexual deviance – pornographic actor, escort business, stripper
- Dishonesty – pathological lying, fraud and plagiarism
- Narcissist and possible psychopath
- Self-absorbed
- Shallow
- He’s probably gay and not into women at all
- He smokes
I tend not to fit any of the above into the (false) image of Luka I am attracted to. None of the above are good traits! These are not things I desire in people in my life. If only these things were enough to dissuade me from this obsession. But all the negative traits in the world seem to be overshadowed in Luka by the beautiful image of the jet-setting superstar, and the damaged little boy who just needs love and attention. In the fantasy that is Luka, we only see what we want to see.
It’s unimaginable that the world could push a man to the things Luka is accused of. These things only happen in the craziest of horror movies. It’s unbelievable that someone with a face like Luka could be responsible. Someone who seems so anxious and somewhat meek when he appears on camera. Someone with a voice like Luka. But it’s not even just that; Luka is almost larger than life. He was a stripper, an escort, a porn actor; these are not normal occupations. These are things on the fringe of normal society. These are deviant things. Add in alleged cannibalism and necrophilia and you can’t get much more deviant than Luka. Yet he manages to pull it off in a way that isn’t disgusting and repulsive. How does he manage to have such an image of beauty when so much of what he’s done and allegedly done are acts that are vile to mainstream society? A part of my mind demands that Luka must be a psychopath of some sort, be that born psycho or secondary psychopath/sociopath formed through childhood/life experiences. Another part of me says that he is absolutely not a psychopath, that some extreme psychological factors came into play and forced Luka to do the things he’s allegedly done. This is a scary thought, that in the advanced age of humnanity that we live in that someone could slips through the cracks of society the way Luka has. Why is it that the only thing we’ve heard from Luka’s family is from one relative who pretty much said they were not surprised that he had turned out this way and that he’d done terrible things to them when he was younger? Can not one person in his life stand up for him? It’s so sad that this human being has been left to fend for himself alone in the world for years and years when he is obviously not equipped to do so. I would venture to guess that it’s possible that one person could have made a difference in the way his life turned out. If just one friend or family member could have stuck by his side through thick and thin. But we cannot change the past, and this is where we’re at at:
Luka is absolutely beautiful in an androgynous metrosexual kind of way. He attracts people who relate to his broken childhood. He attracts people who want to fix him, who want to be there for him, who want to comfort him. He has so many photographs and so many looks that people who become attracted on first glance can’t help but develop stronger feelings when we find that there are literally hundreds of photographs of him that could never bore us, because he has so many different looks. He has naturally attracted fans through his beauty at the very least. Add in international media coverage displaying his beautiful face and it’s really not that surprising he has so many fans. We get sucked in by the beauty, the dichotomy, we are incredulous. We are in a form of shock when we hear of the most unimaginable heinous crime to ever happen, the most attention-seeking behaviour that anyone has ever pulled in the history of humanity and we fall for it, we are sucked in, we see what’s happening to us but we’re powerless to stop it. We just want answers; we just want to believe in some form of sanity once again. But none of it makes any sense, we just cannot accept that beauty and monstrosity can come so perfectly packaged all in one. It’s mind boggling to say the least. There’s really not a word to describe the overwhelming nature of this obsession that is Luka Magnotta. We see a little boy damaged by his upbringing;, we see a lonely boy with no one there to care for him. We see someone who just wanted attention, who just wanted to be noticed. We have the power to give that to him now. No matter what anyone says, we do have the right to feel this way for Luka. He can be our idol if we want him to, such is the power of individual thought.
Identity is a very personal thing. Even the concept is vague and intangible, and may mean different things for different people. But for most people it’s not even something you have to think about. Your life just evolves. You don’t ever have to change your identity, it just evolves on it’s own but the core stays the same. But what about people who feel they need more of an identity, they feel detached from their own life. This is one thing that I think attracts me to Luka in a strange way. He’s lost, but he seems to be able to come up with countless ways to change himself constantly – plastic surgery, moving around the world, changing names, changing his hair, wearing coloured contacts, changing his clothing style. He looks like a different person in every photograph. These things about him fascinate me so much, just the fact that he able to have so many looks, yet the eyes are always the same, empty but intriguing. There is the occasional smile, but in most photos Luka’s facial expression is absolutely the same, perfectly rigid and emotionless, yet still a perfect pose.
I constantly beat myself up over letting myself be sucked in by photographs of a beautiful monster, but it just keeps happening. I should probably just stop looking at his photos, but I have so many in my head already that it probably wouldn’t do any good. Luka had to have known the effect he was going to have on some people, and I hate that I could be fulfilling the desires of a psychopath for fame and fans, playing right into his hand, a willing contender. Yet I continue; I just can’t change the way I feel about Luka Magnotta. I look at him and I want to know more. I want to look deeper into his eyes to see if he really is empty inside. I want to know if there really is an identity in there somewhere that is really truly him. I want to know if that person deep inside of him really is a monster. I really want to know that there’s just a troubled little boy who lost his mind and went crazy, rather than an empty psychopath. These are things we’ll probably never know.
An analysis of Luka’s Plastic Makes Perfect audition tape said these identity issues may stem from borderline personality disorder. Narcissist, body dysmorphic disorder, social anxiety, bipolar, histrionic, megalomaniac, necrophiliac, cannibal, anti-social, psychopath or just plain lunatic? What are you Luka? No wonder you never had a good sense of self! How many things can possible be wrong in one boy’s head?
His writings on the internet are not even his own, mostly being stolen lines from famous people or movies. It’s almost like Luka doesn’t even really exist, nor does Eric Newman, or any other name he’s given himself. Luka is just an image, an illusion, but not an identity.
