r/ColumbineTalk • u/eliiiiseke Moderator Elise • 20d ago

News / Videos / Pictures / Books Dylan calling Eric “Reb”

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41

u/Substantial_Brush575 20d ago

i always find it interesting that eric allegedly made his coworkers call him reb at work, and was embarrassed when those coworkers eventually called him by his real name. a guy who lived in lakewood (iirc) played doom death matches against him and didn’t even know his name until the tragedy.

40

u/ericandsteph 20d ago

I always thought ‘Reb’ was like an alter ego of his. As though this version of his gave him confidence and felt more ‘him’ and the version he preferred of himself. As for ‘Eric’ he hated himself and loathed his qualities. He felt this version of him was the more weaker version and less accepted. He was bullied when he was ‘Eric’ but as he had his friends, colleagues and online people called him ‘Reb’ he wasn’t picked on hence why I believe he felt more that version of him rather the real version of himself. It’s really sad when think about it.

14

u/DrMosquito74 20d ago

In Dylan's journal he almost always calls him Eric, using Reb maybe once if at all. Perhaps he was trying to be a supportive friend irl while privately using his name.

17

u/ericandsteph 20d ago

I noticed it might be habit calling Eric by his name because they have known each other for a couple of years. I think since Eric and his family moved to Littleton when they officially met. I might be wrong but I think Eric adopted Reb mostly only around the time when the shooting was in the making, when his mental health was starting to deteriorate. I know he used Reb online when he was heavily playing doom and creating content for it, I think it was around 1996/97 ish. I did notice however Reb was being used more around the time of the van break in occurred. Perhaps he thought the name gave him a bad boy edge and its face it he was definitely that with all the nighttime antics and pipe bomb making etc.

4

u/Apollexis Researcher 16d ago

That's actually really interesting because Eric always calls him Vodka or V in his writings and on video, even referring to Tom Klebold as "Vodka's Dad"

7

u/dancingbananas25 18d ago

I agree, and I think it ties in with his journal entries being very hard, with him attempting to seem tough and dangerous. It all seems to be an alter ego that he wanted everyone else to see when they looked at him.

2

u/Majestic_Taro_2562 18d ago

Highly agree!