If you visit the magazine's Facebook profile, for instance, you will see people are throwing incredibly dramatic bitch fits over this cover.

I find the controversy mystifying myself. The magazine has always covered political and social stories, not just music, and placement on the cover does not equal automatic glorification, particularly when said subject is directly described as a "monster." They put Charles Manson on the cover in 1970, for instance. I s'pose this is a disillusioning fact for many in America, but con men, murderers, religious radicals, war criminals, etc. and the questions raised by their existence are fascinating and therefore a natural subject for a magazine trying to move as many copies as they can to cover.

It sure is a more provocative editorial choice than another cover focused on, say, the legacy of The Dark Side of the Moon.

I can understand why people are upset. I just don't agree with them.

Maybe it's just too soon for the cover. Who knows. I don't have a big issue with it.

Not sure I agree with this... Detonating a bomb in the crowd at the Boston Marathon is a rather enormous act of criminality. I believe it would still earn its place in history if the perpetrator were a Timothy McVeigh style angry white man.

Here's the question... If it were a white man that did the bombing, and he was on the cover, would there be an outrage like this?

I don't think so.

He is white.

He's not WHITE white, though.

People defend guns. People don't defend bombs. Also, people are racist motherfuckers.

Well he's not!

What's in a name!

Oh yes it does.

It always comes down to how white someone is or his religion.

Like every.single.time.

wow

It does. That's a fact.

Just watch that Key and Peele skit.

So you don't think black/mexican/white/asian people have names that usually give away their race?

You're an idiot, then.

Also, if you don't like Key and Peele, you're also an idiot. They're hilarious.

He could pass for Italian. White.

But could he pass as a Canadian? Nope.

Not white white.

Calling him a monster is the most offensive thing about the cover.

Anyway, Boston is my hometown, but I can't seem to work up anything approaching outrage over this.

I'm bothered by the context of this. I mean, I realize his face has already been posted hundreds of thousands of times in news articles and such. But Rolling Stone fundamentally promotes rock stars/celebrity on its cover. It shouldn't be a magazine that his face is on the cover of.

I'm not outraged, certainly, I just don't think it was a very good idea.

They've had several politicians on the cover, though.

Plus, forty-three years ago (when Rolling Stone Magazine was way, way ballsier, before it underwent what I will term Libs-ification):



I believe people are smart enough to realize this is a different type of Rolling Stone cover. No one is going to say, "Oh, no, my head is spinning. I can no longer tell the difference between Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Roger Daltrey. Must acquit, must acquit."

Loathe it.

Making these goons into icons. Why don't they post Todd Beamers face instead.

Seriously, folks wonder why America has an obsession with darkness and death...

Excel's argument is the one I find especially eye-roll worthy.

As I said in the first post, dangerous people who disrupt and operate outside society are fascinating. This is not an invention of the modern media. Call it what you want, but the school shooter, with his fractured mind and brutal tendencies, will always be more interesting to explore than the quote-unquote innocent, fondly remembered victim.

There is a controversy about it? Meh