death in the modern age
This is the last part, sort of, in this cryptic saga. Kind of. You can read the cryptic saga starting here if you wish.
Three weeks ago a long-time friend, colleague and co-worker took his own life. That there is a whole lot of stuff. I was (and continue to be) freaked out, broken hearted, and sad, sad, sad.
An added stressor to that first, horrific week was that a relative of his got crazy and used the internet to attempt to seek and destroy a person that was close to my friend. Lots and lots of internet comments, emails, voicemails. Police, lawyers, bosses, doctors got involved. It was brutal. Another former associate of my friend added to the pain by doing their own spouting off of opinions publicly. All polite requests of these people to bring it down a few notches only inflamed them more. Proof that one should never feed the trolls. What a delightful reminder of that! Especially to those of us in the front lines, who are responsible for monitoring many of the online outlets they used.
This whole ordeal started off on an extra horrible foot. People who had been told of my friend’s death started posting the news, including details about his death, to Facebook, almost immediately. Without considering that, since the death had just occurred, many of his relatives had not been informed yet.
So, yeah, finding out about a close relative’s death through a stranger’s post on Facebook ain’t a good start. Which may have contributed to the level of hysteria exhibited by the relative mentioned above. I get that. Grief + shock + surprise is a hard combo and can make one act in all sorts of ways. But the ugliness, the lack of common sense or timing, the cruelty. Wow.
I’m no stranger to the internet. I realized the way of the troll way back in an AOL chat room in 1993, when I called out someone’s assholery, which only ramped it up and up and up. I didn’t understand it but definitely grew to understand it exists.
As I’ve gotten older and more informed, I’ve understood a bit more about the mechanics of all that. Typing horrible words and pressing “send” is a hell of a lot easier than saying those words to someone as you look into their eyes. I’ve learned about how the internet is built around exploiting humans’ lack of impulse control. I’ve heard about studies showing that empathy is a learned trait.
But this experience was the first time I got a front-row seat to how the internet can feel evil. It became this entity on its own, attacking and devouring and depleting. In reality, it was just a couple humans working out a whole lot of pain/rage/neuroses/what have you. With powerful and far-reaching tools.
I maybe also got some insight into the people that are always dramatically pulling back from the internet with their “goodbye Facebook” posts, their “I’m taking some time for myself” blog entries. For them, the internet becomes a timesucker, a stealer of emotion and souls. Who is devouring whom?
In coda, things have calmed down. Now I can just grieve to my heart’s content, using the internet in whatever way I want to aid in that process. Like now.
I’m keeping the comments open for a day or so, because I’d like to hear some insight from some of my closest friends, if they so desire. Then I’m closing comments, forever, to keep those monsters outside of the gate.
I just read your post and it’s a sad story that I’ve witnessed in different forms more times than I can count. But what more is to be said about it? I’m not saying that flippantly, AT ALL. I mean that as a sincere question. The Internet & Death have always been uneasy bedmates, perhaps because our culture has very little understanding of death.
Oof, TT, I just had a huge AHA moment, reading your words. I’ve always been highly critical and vocal about the severe dysfunction of the American-Style Way of Death and Grieving©. Why would I expect another extremely dysfunctional process, the way of communicating via the internet, to HELP the death thing? It’s another institution that one must learn on one’s own without any healthy guidelines given to you at the beginning; one that gives you very little feedback about how you come across; one that has everyone confused. Internet usage and the death/grieving process, two bad tastes that go especially worse together. Thank you. This is an insight that I wouldn’t have been able to really get without your insight. Maybe I’m REALLY learning what I thought I learned in that AOL chatroom.
Also, TT pointed out a podcast that I only half-listened to when it came out, but I need to listen to for real: http://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/545/if-you-dont-have-anything-nice-to-say-say-it-in-all-caps
Thank you, lady!
>Typing horrible words and pressing “send” is a hell of a lot easier than saying those words to someone as you look into their eyes. I’ve learned about how the internet is built around exploiting humans’ lack of impulse control. I’ve heard about studies showing that empathy is a learned trait.
truer words are rarely spoken (but probably found often on the Internet).
as a parent of an internet-emerging daughter, i think about these things, and our responsibilities to help “Make It Better,” all the time. in times like the horrible awful no-good verybad situations above, one thing that helps me is to remember something my beautiful wife related to me once.
i had been spending those early wild-west internet days of which you speak mostly in hiding. anything that was on the internet about me would freak me out. then along comes leanne. she told me that those early days in the internet actually had more of a ‘saving her life’ character about them. that someone could sit alone in Iowa or Illinois (to quote Harvey Milk) and feel horribly awfully wrong and consider taking their life. in comes the interwebs: it can be used to bully, OR it can be used in partnership to reassure each of us that whatever/especially because of our differences, we are not alone.
just like the real world, there are tons of assholes, but just like mister rogers said, focus on the good people – the helpers — i have to and do believe there are tons and tons MORE of those, and it’s our duty to amplify them. grief+shock+surprise was going to happen to that person no matter what. let’s hope that community can ultimately help rather than exacerbate the healing.
thanks for the reminder.
xo
Thanks, Moya. It’s good to remember the power, both good and bad, of this internet beast and remember that, like in all circumstances, that we should be human and kind and put our best foot forward
This is not an easy world we live in. I wish this weren’t the case, all the time.
I love you!