BOSTON – Far be it from me to tell anyone who was actually injured or lost a family member how to measure your grieving and rage, but the rest of you? Allow me to invoke the unofficial motto of this fine city of Boston: Go fck yourselves.

Rolling Stone has just unlocked the next level achievement badge in the media trolling game with their decision to place alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover of their August issue. The professional hand-wringers are out in full force, steeling themselves at the barricades of propriety for what promises to be a lengthy, entrenched battle over offending the delicate sensibilities of this brittle and fragile community. Wait, what happened to our steely reserve?

Moments after the tragedy itself occurred we were inundated with assurances from well-wishers both low and high that this was, unlike all other cities in the world, apparently, a strong town who would not be felled by a vile act of terror. And we were not. Until now anyway. Who knew all it would take to send us fleeing for cover were a set of pillowy lips, some disheveled bed hair, and a pair of dreamy brown eyes? It's no coincidence that people are comparing the magazine's decision to place this, admittedly, inhuman piece of shit, on the cover as if they were trumpeting the arrival of the next great boy band or indie rock saviors, because that's how most of us are reacting: like swooning teenagers enthralled with unchecked emotion. And why? Because we've given a murderer a pretty great cover pic for his online dating profile in Hell?

May I remind you that the city's most iconic folklore figure, a sack of potatoes in a track suit, is one of the most notorious mafia bosses in the country's history? We've suffered through decades of the lionization of Whitey Bulger, who, last I checked, carried out a considerable few more murders than Julian Casablancas with a prayer mat over here. And what happened? Have our children grown up wanting to emulate the actions of another, much more prolific killer? They have not. We have, somehow, gone about our business of leading our day-to-day lives. Jack Nicholson played him in the movie, and that movie won 4 Academy Awards. Yet we soldier on.

I'm sympathetic to the argument that the cover of Rolling Stone carries with it a heavy cultural significance, an argument many of the people in my news feed are making while simultaneously decrying the rag as dated and out of touch. I'm not sure it can be both ways. We've seen despots, dictators, and capitalist pigs on the cover of Rolling Stone, and many other magazines like it, for decades, many of whom have had their fingers in hundreds, if not thousands, if not tens of thousands of deaths. So what's different about this one? It's not body count that's offensive to us then, it's the coupling it with sex appeal. Sex and violence together at last, for the first time, in American pop culture history. Who would've thought we'd ever see the day.

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