You may have already seen the headlines, most of which were a variant on the following: MAN KILLS HIMSELF INSIDE VEGAS CASINO AFTER LIFETIME BUFFET PASS WAS REVOKED.
On Reddit’s charming FatPeopleHate subreddit, where a link to a story on the suicide garnered more than 450 upvotes, this became Fat fuck kills himself, blames it on the loss of free buffet for life.
“And nothing of value was lost,” quipped one Redditor. “Another proof that they live only for food,” added another. “Do these sound like the actions of a man who had ALL he could eat?” joked a third. You can find similarly sensitive remarks in the comments of sites ranging from Breitbart (” Please tell me this was Michael Moore!”) to the Las Vegas Sun (“Man that buffet must be to die for”).
But John Noble, who shot himself in the head at the M Resort buffet on Easter Sunday in front of a roomful of witnesses, wasn’t upset that the M Resort had taken away the free food he’d won in a raffle in 2010. He was upset that the casino, two years ago, had taken away his access to the female staffers he had been stalking.
We know this because, before he took his own life, Noble sent a box full of documents to the Las Vegas Review-Journal detailing his case against “the M Resort Spa Casino and [the] employees” he said had wronged him. As the newspaper reported:
Noble’s hand-bound stack of notes and documents stretches on for more than 270 pages and includes a table of contents, photographs and a two-hour DVD of him talking about his troubles.
The second-to-last page, titled “The Curse,” spells out all the harm he wishes on those he believed wronged him.
Included on the list are several women who worked at the buffet and who were showered with gifts and unwanted attention by Noble after he won meals for life there in September 2010.
Noble, who described himself in one Facebook posting as “just a lonely nice guy,” was a deeply troubled man reportedly suffering from depression; in 2013, when he lost his buffet privileges, he spent several days in the state psychiatric hospital after attempting suicide.
But it’s clear he was driven not only by despair but by anger — an anger obvious to everyone, it seems, but him. This anger seems to have played a large part in his choice of where and when to end his life: in front of hundreds of diners and staff on Easter Sunday. His actions, as he no doubt intended, horrified and terrified not only those who witnessed it directly — including a number of children — but those elsewhere in the casino who heard the gunshot.
Adding to the confusion and chaos: before shooting himself, Noble set his car on fire, closing down the parking garage for several hours and forcing many casino patrons to remain at the scene of his crime for hours.
I suppose we should be thankful that he didn’t decide to take anyone else with him.
Noble’s very public suicide shows once again the destructive power of aggrieved male entitlement.
Some people are puzzled, or profess to be puzzled, when someone like Noble — a sad and lonely man who saw himself as a victim — is described as “entitled.” But a deep sense of entitlement seems to have been at the heart of his anger and despair. It wasn’t just that he felt entitled to free food; he felt entitled to the attention of the women working at the buffet that he had become obsessed with.
It’s easy enough to see what worried the Casino staffers about him. In the alternately angry and self-pitying note he posted on Facebook after his 2013 suicide attempt, he recounted the numerous notes and gifts he’d given to various female staffers, and blamed them for “encouraging” him with hugs and smiles. Never mind that these were women whose jobs more or less required them to act friendly to customers, and that his acts of “generosity” towards them were impositions rather than gifts.
He claims to have been blindsided when security finally showed him the door, though it’s clear even from his self-serving account that he was given plenty of warnings first; if he was blindsided it was because he was willfully blind.
Another self-described “nice guy” who literally could not take no as an answer. Another “nice guy” who was anything but nice. In that 2013 rant, a lengthy list of grievances, he lashed out at everyone he feels has wronged him, posting an assortment of accusations, some petty, some serious, against an assortment of casino staff by name, raging from the hostess he was most obsessed with to the company CEO. His sense of victimhood was such that he turned his favorite hostess’ butterfly tattoo into yet another Exhibit in his case against her.
So she has a small Butterfly Tattoo on her leg in honor of her Mother, Which now everytime I see something with a Butterfly on it I think of [name redacted]. And if you ever been to Vegas there’s a lot of stuff with Butterfly’s the décor at Encore Casino, the Butterfly exhibit they had in the conservatory at Belagio, The Butterfly bench at Nathan Adelson Hospice (Which I think she would like) among plenty of others scattered thru the city.
Aggrieved entitlement doesn’t feel like entitlement; it feels like rejection, failure, emptiness, and even, as in Noble’s case, like betrayal. That’s what makes it so insidious — and so dangerous.
H/T — r/againstmensrights
There are so many businesses that offer “attractive women will be nice and act receptive to you” as one of their customer amenities. It’s really icky, frankly. And to keep their jobs or earn their tips, the women are basically treated as bargain-basement Playboy bunnies. Then a certain segment of guys will be furious because the women implicitly lied to them by acting friendly and not overtly rejecting them. Because they wanted his money! Like whores! But cheaty whores who won’t put out!
They’re never mad at the (generally) man who hired the cocktail waitresses or croupiers or receptionists and told them it was their job to keep the customers happy. They’re mad at the women who were doing the jobs they were hired to do while trying not to get fired for being rude to creepy customers.
Some of these comments are reminding me of this story:
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/sep/03/business/fi-19051
I was about to say, it shouldn’t be too long before a troll comes in claiming that we’re picking on a poor depressed man when we say his actions were in-part motivated by entitlement to these womens’ attention. That was fast. How does it feel to miss the point so hard, Tod Kelly? Today I learned that you can’t be both mentally ill and also an asshole (and still be held accountable for your actions).
But it’s just another way to shift focus. Mental illness has always been convenient for that in every tragedy. I used to be skeptical of the idea of being ableist (but respected it here nonetheless by not using certain words) but now things are starting to make some sense.
It’s ridiculous how so many terrible things are just dismissed as “whelp! They were crazy. Let’s oogle at all the gory details, shake or heads, and then move on to the next piece of exciting news.” It’s used so much because it’s easier to dismiss it as something out of your control so you don’t have to get at the root of a persistent problem. A persistent problem which, if addressed, would help to save so many of these men’s lives (and the people they often take with them).
Sudden thought. If Nice Guys think that their niceness earns and entitles them to women’s affections, do they project that to mean that when a woman is generally nice or pleasant that means she likes him the same way he likes her? Seeing as they use their “niceness” to try and score points with their crush, they think women do the same and get upset when they find that’s not the case?
@sunnysombrera — Yeah, I think you’re on to something. Because why would I be pleasant when I interact with someone, if I don’t want something from them? That is really super-depressing, that treating people reasonably well BECAUSE THEY ARE PEOPLE and we’re all in this together, isn’t the default for some — for them, all human interactions are grand carousel of self-absorbtion and self-interest.
That’s scary as hell, sunnysombrera. My palms were sweating as I read it. I’m glad that things turned out okay in the end.
QFT.
I think I was nineteen when I stopped letting dates/acquaintances/anybody who wasn’t a long-time friend or SO buy me anything . I’d had presents and supposedly generous gestures used against me too often (did you know that giving a classmate Easter candy they neither wanted nor needed – and refusing to take back said candy when they decline – gives you the right to know their whereabouts at all times? *insert “The More You Know” logo here*). I know that I probably hurt a few well-meaning people’s feelings with this policy, but it was worth it to opt out of the obligation game. It was easier to be called a cold bitch up front than to have to run the gauntlet of hurt feelings or righteous wrath later.
When I was younger, I used to read all kinds of intentions into the behavior of women / girls that I liked. Any kind of friendly behavior I interpreted as possible romantic interest and anything that was not openly friendly I interpreted as giving the cold shoulder. Of course, I grew out of that. It kind of creeps into your subcoscious, thought, so you may not even realize you’re making those assumptions until you start to question them.
Also, I was just watching an episode of “Fringe” before I logged onto this site and reading that John Noble shot himself gave me a bit of a shock.
Yeah, that’s because society is steeped in this stuff and both boys and girls absorb it as tiny children and have it firmly lodged in their minds by the time they are of dating age. You see it in movies, on TV, in the interactions of other people around you, and you read about it in books. You’re taught, by everything and everyone, that this is how it is, and how it ought to be, and are given no reason to question it.
But when we talk about rape culture, of which this is a part, and to which this absolutely contributes, people (especially men) flip the hell out and claim there is no such thing.
Giving someone a “gift” or “help” that they haven’t asked for, and don’t necessarily want, is one of Gavin DeBecker’s markers of predatory behavior. He calls it “loansharking,” because it creates an unfounded sense of intimacy and obligation. And it’s really hard for people, especially women, to refuse what is presented as kindness; it makes them look “not nice” and women are socialized to be nice.
Gift of Fear is a really fascinating read because it calls out these abuses of our basic social behavior so clearly, and once you’re aware of it you really notice it when someone does it out in the real world.
I can’t get my mind off the idea that he shot himself around food. What a waste.
No, depression doesn’t excuse this. The man wasn’t crazy. He decided to make a disgusting, damaging public display.
@guest: OMG, the smiling stuff…
When I worked at a gas station (and bakery combination! Yes it was absolutely every bit as awful as it sounds), we were required to be extremely friendly and helpful to anyone who came in. That included creeps that were trying to get into the bakery to get at the female employees, and ones who camped out in the parking lot so they could periodically harass female employees that worked night. Anything that was said was supposed to be met with a smile, including stuff like, “I’d sure like to have you come to my house and bake for me tonight.”
It wasn’t about food. It was about feeling rejected because the employees he was stalking didn’t love him.
@yutolia — Jeez, that sounds like a nightmare.
I think some of them do. But thanks again to Hollywood-ized everything, guys may also trained to see aloofness as merely playing hard to get. Even hostile reactions can be interpreted as jealousy or passion, depending on what kind of dreck has been internalized (although that’s more PUA territory, I suppose).
Plus, there’s that whole, “Well women only exist to have sex with” thing. Men who buy into that think that any positive interaction MUST be either flirtation or falsehood, because to them, sex is the whole unspoken point of men and women socializing at all. If it’s not leading to sex, then they feel like it was all a nasty lie, because it’s not leading to its supposed natural end.
So while I think there is definite truth to the idea that someone who uses niceness as a ploy for sex will probably perceive niceness in the same way, I think the bigger overarching problem is a culture that tells men they will get the hand of their designated fair maiden if they just work at it hard enough (or use the right cheat code, depending on the NiceGuy in question).
Entitlement is at the root of most of the Manosphere; quite ironic, given that one of their rallying cries is that WOMEN are the entitled ones because, I dunno, some of them ask for alimony or something. The Red Pill and its ilk can easily be summarized with “women don’t behave exactly how we want them to; how can we fix that?” A mission to turn an entire gender into infantalized blowjob dispensers.
On a smaller point, we should really consider getting rid of this Hooters waitress bullshit that permeates way too many businesses. Having scantily clad servers at a strip club is one thing – fair enough – but at family restaurants? Casinos? The ‘booth babes’ at gaming conventions? There are way too many clueless, horny idiots out there who misinterpret this sort of pandering, and then get pumped up on entitled man-rage because the women are hot and flirty, but don’t put out.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/media/3244361/embed
Part of the two hour video sent to the paper. It is chilling. After recounting childhood bullying, he draws a parallel to his treatment by the M hotel and claims that the employees didn’t protect him from this treatment for fear of losing their jobs.
And then he says “What’s more important, a human life or your job?”
Of course his life is more important than their job. It’s not like they’re actual people with real bills or anything.
Thalia
Nail. Head. Hit squarely on.
I actually think it’s something of an understatement to describe it as ‘really icky’. It disgusts me how capitalism seeks to control every aspect of people’s working lives, right down to their expression of feelings, forcing them to undergo emotional labour. I mean, who, as a customer, really wants to be faced with staff who are obviously maintaining a charade of appearing happy to please their boss? I don’t. I’d far rather have an economy and a society where staff felt free to express their real emotions at all times
HAESSuccessStories is not just morally wrong, it’s most likely factually wrong.
The Junk Food Science blog has been inactive for a fair few years, but the archives are still up. The writer is a nurse with a degree in statistics and does a fantastic job of explaining what all the studies reported in the news *actually* mean (hint: It’s not what the articles usually tell you.) I used to read it religiously and came to the conclusion that fat people die at the same rate as everyone else.
From Guest’s link:
As a retail wage slave of over ten years, this is both infuriating and typical. Of course the corporate folk don’t see it as a problem, they aren’t living with the consequences day-to-day!
I cringed at the Starbuck’s “Talking Race” campaign for the same reason. It’s completely unfair to the baristas to make them discuss race relations while they serve lattes and crumpets to the general public! Not to mention that it was likely annoying to the customer who *just* wanted a frappuchino and to be on their way.
The association between female approval and male worth is relevant to entitlement. Getting The Girl is how the male protagonist knows he’s won. “Notch count” is one of the most important status markers for men. Not having a current S/O is a major source of shame for a lot of men. “Virgin” is a serious insult.
Of course, everyone likes attention from the people they’re attracted to. But, I think there’s a lot more to this than just loneliness. You can’t be successfully masculine without approval from women. This is a feature of how we construct masculinity. There are similar pressures on women, but they take different forms.
Part of the reason men like Mr. Noble interpret niceness as interest, become obsessed, and feel angry when they don’t get the affection they’re “owed” is that they need that affection to feel like they’re not failures as men.
We ought to change this assumption. It would reduce some of men’s problematic behavior towards women, and it would improve the lives of men.
It’s interesting to note that the manosphere generally endorses the idea that the worth of men depends on how much women like them. It’s one of PUAs’ foundational beliefs. MRAs vacillate and contradict themselves (contradiction is the soul of the MRM), but they generally are mad at women for not giving them the sex and attention that they need to be successful men. You’d think MGTOWs would be all about getting rid of this idea, but they just seem angry, obsessed, and spiteful–if they really didn’t think they needed women to be complete, they’d, you know, actually go their own way.
It’s a tough call to make as to what effected this guy more entitlement or Mental health issues? On the one hand it easy to see that his entitlement caused these events. However would someone with real self worth based on actual love for oneself , without depression or whatever other issues he may have had gone down this path? Maybe not, this case is a bit harder to get a hold of. In the end it’s another set of lives destroyed by this culture. What a waste.
Casinos hire beautiful women with the intent of them being stared at, joshed with, even touched. So you have to know that if the Casino thought he was harassing female employees, it must have been really f’ing over the top – cause their idea of “harassment” is not generally the same as ours..
@Tanya Nguyen:
Totally agree!
It looks like he had another incident in 2010 (right after he got the card, maybe, not sure) where he was stalking a female employee that resulted in him being institutionalized for 3 days. And they still let him keep that meal pass for two years!!! What he did in those two years must have been beyond deplorable because, like you said, they treat it like it’s part of the job to be harassed constantly.
Yes, though it would have been just as hideous if it was aggrieved entitlement over food (and God knows there’s plenty of that too– just read the Kitchenette column over at Jezebel. It’s jaw-dropping).
Speaking of revenge porn, one guy just got eighteen years in prison for running one.
My last D&D (Okay, it was Pathfinder) was like that for a while, but thanks to her complicated back story* she eventually went from paladin to Lawful Evil monarch of the country.
*Avaline Renuet’s (She prefers Renuet because her father gave her her first name) back-story: She was a half-elf born into the ex-royal family (who were all elves). She was the daughter of the next in line for head-of-family position (a beautiful eleven woman), and a human adventurer (who Renuet never met). Because of her bastard half-elf status, the rest of the family treats her like garbage and can barely stand her. She works twice as hard as a paladin to gain their approval, especially the approval of her grandfather, the head of the Renuet family. Rather than blame her mother for her status as whipping girl of the family, she blames her father for running off and not sticking around (as that would have garnered her a little bit better treatment from the family. Elf/human relationships aren’t that frowned upon, just a little unconventional. Single elf mothers raising half-elf babies is totally taboo).
While Renuet was off adventuring with her party, her grandfather dies, and shortly after, her mother was assassinated by one of her aunts (one aunt was throwing money away on lavish orgies and parties, and the other was a warmonger), so Renuet races home, murders both of her aunts, places their heads on pikes outside of the palace, and declares that she is now the queen of Navarine (the country where this takes place), re-asserting the monarchy and ruling the country with an iron fist, ditching her paladin ways to become lawful evil because that was the only way she could keep her family’s court in line. They needed to fear her, not adore her. Because in her mind, fear breeds respect. [/back-story]
(Sorry for the ranting, I very much love Avaline. She was one of my best characters. : P I eventually had to quit the session I was playing with her on because it was via Skype, and it was too hard for me to keep my head in the game. We had too many rowdy players and the party was getting big, and I lost interest, unfortunately.)