What is it with people always romanticizing criminals? When did it start? Why do we do it?

What? Everyone puts money on the bank, nowadays anyway. Very few can even receive a salary in cash, so you need a bank account to even get paid most of the time.

Robbing a bank means youre willing to kill people and will do so if things dont go exactly your way, in addition to being theft.

Yeah and most large banks have robbery and catastrophy insurance.

>Robbing a bank means youre willing to kill people

No it doesn't. It means you're willing to coerce people to get money, but money is the goal, not murder.

You couldn't coerce money out of anyone if they are dead.

Gangsters are capitalists without the bullshit. They represent the values our society cherishes while still retaining the traditional masculinity of pre-capitalist production.

When people must choose between a strong man and a weak man, they'll always pick the strong men

People also romanticise criminals who do harm people though (leaving aside the harm that drug dealing and bank robbing could cause). All of the prohibition era gangsters have their fanclubs even though they routinely had people beaten, shot and killed. Even serial killers have a certain degree of romanticism attached to them. There's even tours that take you to the exact places Jack the Ripper cut throats and tore out guts.

>unlock the vault or I'll blow this kids head off!
>No.
>........OK then....

Coercion implies you're actually going to follow through with your threats.

You're of course right about that, and I'm not sure about the reason, but I suspect that it has something to do with people romanticizing being powerful, indeed, powerful enough to have people beaten and killed.

There may be a few who are bluffing but most would pull the trigger.

Most people with a gun to their face will do precisely as they are told.

Women, I'm not even kidding

Funnily enough, I watched a video related to this earlier. As someone that really enjoys the gangster genre of movies, I agree with most of it.
youtu.be/xs6Y3oZwNf0

Probably righ. Everyone knows who Al Capone was, but noone gives a shot about the low level guys who actually did the shooting and beating.

>turning an armed robbery charge into a 1st degree murder charge
maybe if you're an idiot.

Because as much as people might want or even need a larger social structure and social contract to protect them, everyone chafes under the restrictions social life imposes upon them at one time or another.

Criminals, especially 'romantic' criminals, are people who reject that social compact and manage to get away with it, at least for a time. They live completely on their own terms, do as they see fit, get rich (at least the ones that get fans), and often have a fall from grace to complete the narrative arc.

Deep down, almost everyone wants, at least a little, to be a bold rebel that instead of bending to the system makes the system bend to them. It would probably be horrible if everyone (or even some people) acted on that impulse, but the impulse is there, and provides a bridge to glorify the person who rejects society. You'll note that the criminals who get gushed over are always those rebel without a cause types, not sorts like Bernie Madoff or other criminals whose MO are to parasite within the system instead of attempting to violently separate from it.

Men who score highest in psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism also have the highest mating success

>implying the average bank robber isn't an idiot

The sort of people who commit armed robbery are usually fine with killing if they think its neccesary.

desu it's not even always armed robbery, there's people that use notes and just slide them to the bankteller, and i think the banktellers have to cooperate in order to not aggravate the situation, but i could be wrong.

and they're usually the ones that get caught.

underrated

That's an interesting analysis. But it doesn't really explain, or at least I couldn't connect it, to why people would romanticize lowly thugs from hoods, for example, or criminals like Bonny and Clide who expend all their lives running away.

Generalization. I'm sure it's truth for a lot of people, but I'd like to believe most people aren't psychopaths.

You don't have to be a psychopath to have certain immoral thoughts and watch them as wish-fullfillment.
puts it the best.

>What is it with people always romanticizing criminals?
Because politicians are criminals, it would be inconsistent if they would only romanticize suits without pinstripes

you don't want to hurt other people, but you can't deny the idea of beeing a badass ganster sounds pretty appealing

i think its the same reason why peopleromanticise medieval kings.
When you think about it, there is not really much difference between feudal lords and organized crime

>When did it start?
It's been going on since the middle ages, if not longer. Robin hood is a very romanticized figure despite the character basically being a thief. apparently the highwayman of the early modern era were seen in similar light

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highwayman#Robbers_as_heroes

If only you knew how a bank ACTUALLY functions, m8. If only you knew

Explain. That makes no sense. Most of these type of violent movies/ stories are made by men.

We don't romanticize politicians

Probably because they have more money and can feign/easily obtain high status, which is also what woman tend to go for. They can also fake charm and emotions very when even if they don't really have it.

Eh, not particularly. The money is just a plus. If money was sexy, engineers would be slaying pussy every weekend instead of settling for used up 25+ leather handbags who need a provider.

Dark triad men arouse women now for the same reason they did 10,000 years ago.

Muh freedom.

Yeeeah, I don't wanna burst your bubble, but that's now how banks actually work.

Not that robbing a bank doesn't, directly or indirectly, end up costing everyone a smidgen of money, but it has no more effect on the people making deposits at that bank so robbed than those under another bank on the other side of the nation - unless, of course, they are unfortunate enough to be making a deposit, in person, during the actual robbery.

>now how
not* how

Why do people romanticize Alexander the Great and Genghis Kahn? The primitive monkey part of our brain recognize that someone who takes whatever he wants is not to be fucked with, and if you can't beat them, join them. The cavemen who whined about how unfair it was that Ook-Ook bullied the omegas and fucked all the women were ostracized, and the betas who supported him at least had a chance of fucking his leftovers or reject women.

A lot of psychopaths/sociopaths can feign charm very well though. It's a hallmark trait. Same with narcissists to a degree.
I think that is also a big thing as I said before.

The man in your pic for example looks pretty charming( though he is also a handsome actor)
psychcentral.com/disorders/antisocial-personality-disorder-symptoms/

Actually, genetic testing in ape tribes so arrange suggest that it's actually the omegas that do most of the breeding... Something about the females and the omegas all taking cover together when the alphas and betas start beating on each other.

So maybe there's some hope for you yet /r9k/! (Except, maybe not, as you do still have to actually get laid.)

Think hit closest to the mark. It's the fantasy of being freed from societal bonds. Even heroes that are not criminals tend to be renegades in one sort of another - from generals denying convention, to the gruff police detective working outside the law, to characters like Bat Man (hell, even Superman, boy scout though he may be, is still an alien). Most stories romanticizing criminals justify their behavior in some way - giving them a tragic backstory, some need for revenge, some sorta Robin Hood motive, or even just, well, actual romance. Even in those few instances where they do none of these things, they tend to point to the evils of society at large, thus justifying their actions to one degree or another.

People like "cool" and "rebel" against the society.

Mainly because they feel themselves uncool and conformist. They want to break free but they have no power. So they look for idols. The media's only idols are big time criminals on the front page, everyday.

TL;DR media conditioning

Life for the average person is boring so they find interest in folks walking the razors edge of life and death.
It's sorta like medieval fantasy if you're not a nerd and like to study real life events.

These too.

Wrong, citizen's money is insured by the government, they're robbing the government and bank, the people don't lose a dime.

>Wrong, citizen's money is insured by the government, they're robbing the government and bank, the people don't lose a dime.
...and where does the government get its money?

In the era of enlightened humanism taking one's life is by far the biggest action one can take.

Escapist fiction by definition should provide stories about big action, big changes and people who enact such things to contrast the daily routine life of the consumers of such media that usually has neither action or changes.

Similarly, you simply can NOT make an anti-war movie, because any sufficiently well made anti-war movie WILL romanticise war and subvert it's own intended message for majority of viewers who will think how awesome helicopters go with Ride of Valkyries.

TLDR: People want to read/watch about people who do big difference, actions with amplitude. The direction ("good"/"evil") of such actions matters less or even tilts towards "evil" ones a bit -- hence all the serial killers movies.

Poor example considering the guys you referenced went on to kill like a dozen police officers