So. There's Apparently A James Holmes Fan Community.

They describe themselves as (wait for it) "Holmies":

Before I left for San Diego Comic-Con I posted about fans of accused serial killer/cannibal/porn star Luka Magnotta. The post, which was a news round-up of a number of stories, has far-and-away been the most-visited of my entire site -- I'm not sure because of the Magnotta item or the "Chuck Dixon Needs To Learn Karaoke" piece. In light of recent events, the irony that in the post I made a comparison between the Magnotta groupies and the Joker/Harley Quinn relationship is also not lost on me:

Anyway, the online fan community built around James Holmes has the Magnotta groupies beat, especially when you consider that the tragic Aurora shooting happened only 11 days ago. They post fan art on Tumblr, speculate that he really didn't commit the crime or was part of an "Illuminati" mind-control program, organize letter-writing campaigns to Holmes in jail, and fetishize plaid shirts (cuz that's what Holmes was wearing when he got arrested).

Not the place to do a deep sociological analysis of this phenomenon just yet, but just to say: "yes, this too exists." But a couple of interesting points to note:

 1. These fans -- the majority of which seem to be females in their teens or early twenties -- have really sort of picked-up the fringe conspiracy lingo and ran with it. For example:

"do i think james holmes is guilty? that is not my place to assume. i'm not the jury, but i am someone who is fascinated. i've researched the whole illuminati deal and have read tons of articles."

Is this the partial result of the popularity of "Pop Conspiracy" sites like Vigilant Citizen, which focuses a lot on pop stars and youth culture?

2. You'll be reassured to know that apparently Columbine fandom has made a comeback, as well as moldy oldies like Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez, etc.

A helpful chart for the noobs

3. Not all "Holmies" should be painted with the same brush: while some seem to actually find him attractive and are "fans," others are into this as just a (obvs, bad taste) joke and are "doing it for the lulz". Some also claim to be genuinely interested because they feel he is mentally ill and didn't get enough help/should not get the death penalty.

As disturbing as all this is, I don't think sites like Tumblr banning these pages is really going to help anything. All it does is drive the "fandom" further underground, and add to the "dangerous" mystique which is probably one of the driving factors in the "Holmies" phenomenon to begin with. Similarly, filling their pages full of angry comments won't really help in the long run, either; they have gone so far as to consider such actions cyberbulling, and claim they have the right to free speech.

If I haven't mentioned this before: having sympathy for, or "being in love with," serial killers is hardly a new phenomenon. The Columbine duo had their fans back in the day, as well as "Vampire Killer" Rod Ferrell, etc. But whereas in the Nineties one might emulate one's fave psycho by wearing black and perhaps wearing an inverted pentagram (a result of the media erroneously labelling such killers as "Goths" and "devil-worshipers") -- if you're a fan of James Holmes, you might dig brightly-colored "plaid shirts and Slurpies" (a motto sometimes used by "Holmies"), post photos of young "mad genius" Holmes hanging out in the science lab, or draw surprisingly-skilled chibi versions of the carrot-topped individual.

How times change...

Postscript: throughout my perusing of many pro-Holmes Tumblrs, I found surprisingly few references to "The Joker," Batman, or comic books of any kind. Not sayin' they aren't there, just saying I didn't find many, and they were certainly not the main thing the "Holmies" were fixated on. This may be the one case where the comic book industry's failure to appeal to young female readers is actually a good thing.

Postscript 2:

Just had to say that.

Also: