The perpetrators of these attacks are often disillusioned young men, and they inhabit the same publicity-obsessed culture as everybody else. Killing offers the prospect of becoming a household name. “This seems like a way to achieve some recognition and respect they lack in their daily lives,” said Dewey Cornell, a forensic clinical psychologist at the University of Virginia. “We live in a world where people are really conscious of their social standing and audience,” he said.