Agamemnon, urging his brother to kill a captive soldier, called for the annihilation of all the Trojans, even to the last remnants of memory: “Let all of Ilion’s people perish, utterly blotted out and unmourned for.”

It is strange to hear echoes of the Bronze Age on Twitter, but there it was, the hashtag ­#forgetthezero, symptom of a movement to deny any fame or even infamy to Chris Harper Mercer, the man identified by law enforcement officials as the one who shot and killed nine and injured more at an Oregon community college Thursday.

“Forget the zero” was often paired with “Remember the hero” and with urgent pleas such as “Don’t say his name.” And calls for news organizations to change their practices and forgo any attention to the killer: “Let’s all make a pledge to never say their names. Media, are you listening?”

[Media: Please ignore Oregon sheriff’s appeal never to mention shooter’s name]

News outlets, for the most part, weren’t listening, although media critics have followed and debated the issue in recent years. As the number of shootings grows, as the country faces what seems to be collective impotence to stop them, a movement to black out the names and faces of killers has emerged, often championed by the family members of those killed in previous mass shootings. Some of them have worked together to form “No Notoriety,” a Web site and advocacy group that encourages media outlets to take a specific pledge to avoid publicizing personal information or other details about mass killers. The pledge includes calls to “Limit the name and likeness of the individual from reporting after initial identification, except when the alleged assailant is still at large and in doing so would aid in the assailant’s capture” and “Refuse to broadcast/publish photos and/or self-serving statements made by the individual. Elevate the names and likenesses of all victims killed to send the message their lives are more important than the killer.”

No Notoriety cites social science research, analyses of letters and manifestos left behind by shooters, and law enforcement concerns to support its call for not naming mass killers. Their arguments are both ethical (it’s wrong to pay more attention to the killers than the victims) and pragmatic (the desire for attention can lead to copycat crimes and increase the lethality of future rampages). Already, blog entries purportedly written by Mercer have emerged that show the young man fascinated by the way in which public violence can propel one from anonymity to infamy: “A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone. His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight.”

[Probe in college slayings peers into Web rants and possible religious rage]

On Thursday, the movement received strong symbolic support from Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin, who said in a news conference: “I will not name the shooter. I will not give him the credit he probably sought prior to this horrific and cowardly act.”

One can stipulate to many of the arguments made by the don’t-name-him crowd: That the killer deserves no fame; that our thoughts should be with the victims; and that there is a disturbing connection between social isolation, the desire for fame and mass killings. But the reasoned arguments of the No Notoriety movement were obscured in the social-media frenzy, which emerged with uglier purpose. This is about the symbolic empowering of people who choose to be helpless when it comes to the root causes and lethal means of these bloody events.

It is about policing our social habits and means of communication because we can’t or won’t police our relation to guns. It is a ruse. We invent rituals rather than face the obvious facts, that we are awash in guns and unable to prevent their tragic misuse, that we are unwilling to change for the better, no matter how many times we confront what President Obama deplored as ­now-routine mass violence in a news conference Thursday.

Quick: Name the last five mass killers who received widespread media attention: the young, white male racist who killed nine at a church in Charleston, S.C.; the young male narcissist who exulted in a video testimonial that he was “the true alpha male” before killing a half-dozen people in Isla Vista, Calif.; the Fort Hood gunman, who killed three in 2014; the Navy Yard killer, who murdered a dozen people in 2013; or the young man who killed five people before being himself killed at Santa Monica College in 2013. Extra credit if you can dredge up the name of the psychopathic young man who killed 20 children in Newtown, Conn., in 2012.

Their names, in fact, are rapidly lost to memory. That doesn’t diminish the danger that the desire for fame poses to society, when its mental health systems are in disarray and guns are as plentiful and as easily accessed as cars and groceries. The fame may be fleeting, but it is still intoxicating for some of these young men (though other motivations are clearly powerful, including blind hatred, revenge for perceived slights, racism and other forms of intolerance).

We are, as a society, remarkably good at forgetting, both what we should remember and what should be left in oblivion. Those who want us to “forget the zero” can take comfort in the sheer abundance of mass killings. Simply put: There are too many names to remember, and there will be many more.

In our current media age, there is also little possibility of a complete blackout on the names, faces and other details of the killers. If mainstream news organizations adopt the “no notoriety” pledge, it will be primarily a symbolic act, a kind of ritual performed to show sympathy, and political correctness, with little real impact. It has almost the character of superstition, like throwing salt over your left shoulder. Superstition gives the passive, or the powerless, the illusion of control.

The No Notoriety movement has diagnosed a serious problem, and if its recommended solution were workable and effective, it might be reasonably adopted as media practice. But the sudden social-media enthusiasm for not naming the killer, often paired with the celebration of heroic acts — in this case, the bravery of Chris Mintz, an Army veteran who was shot while reportedly confronting the killer — is part of the need for instant narratives, with ready-made and familiar categories. It is performative, a behavior exhibited in public space to demonstrate one’s loyalties and values.

It isn’t, however, a meaningful response, but a collective spectacle enacted to keep despair at bay. Better, perhaps, to embrace the despair, let it break us apart and grind us down. Enforcing ritual oblivion and policing the social-media posts of other people won’t help. Instead, say the name of this young man, look into his eyes, and remember: We made him, we armed him, we own him.