For my Haunted Media Project, I chose to create five different text message conversations with “Joe” who is a dead father, friend, brother, and husband that has recently died from an opioid overdose. The conversations purposely start out vague with his conversation with his son Daniel which reveals that Joe is gone, however why he is gone or where he went is unclear. All that is known is that he is not coming back. As the texts progress the audience is given more clues as to what happened to Joe and it is eventually revealed that Joe died from an opioid overdose. This text messages story is meant to raise awareness and show the personal side to the opioid crisis through a personal narrative. In the media and health reports there is an emphasis on pure numbers because there are so many people that die from drug overdoses. However, in my project, I dig deeper into one personal story that shows how the opioid crisis is impacting individuals after their family member or friend has died. This project also uncovers how individuals grieve and interact with the dead after they are gone.
There are two theories of how the living (Joe’s family and friends) are able to communicate with the dead (Joe) and this ambiguity leaves the audience to decide how to interpret it. The first theory is that Joe’s ghost is texting his living loved ones. This theory represents the modern-day Dial-A-Ghost phone that Thomas Edison created with the incorporation and utilization of text messaging and cell phones (Zarrelli). This theory also resembles several applications that can be downloaded on one’s phone to interact with ghosts in various ways. In this theory, the living is able to interact with the spirit of the dead in a casual way that is also used to communicate with living people as well. This double purpose of using the phone to interact with the dead and the living adds a creepy and ominous layer to an everyday task and device.
The second theory is that Joe’s texts are coming from a bot that uses information from when Joe was alive. Now the bot is being used as a grieving tool for his friends and family to cope with his sudden loss. An example of this bot can be found in the Black Mirror episode, Be Right Back, when Ash’s digital data is used to create a virtual version of himself so his living wife can still interact and communicate with him (Brooker). In this project, the digital version of Joe is not intended solely for one person. Instead, the bot is meant for five different people that were close to him and the bot acts differently towards each of them because they are all grieving differently. This effect alludes to the possibility that Joe programed who he wanted the bot to contact and what words and interactions he thought would be comforting to each individual. This application could become a reality in the future as a coping tool that people leave behind especially if they know they are dying soon, and they want to leave something for their loved ones. This theory also leaves the audience wondering if Joe’s friends and family know that they are texting a bot.
This story was intentionally enacted through text messages to highlight the hidden and private nature that surrounds death and grieving today. In Philippe Aries’ book, Western Attitudes toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present, he reveals that we are currently in the forbidden death phase where there is a closed awareness of dying (Aries). Death and grieving are privatized, and mourning happens individually instead of collectively. The use of text messages incorporates the privatized death that Aries described in 1975, but it also incorporates modern technology and how it has influenced how we grieve and mourn the dead today.
A review of Kübler-Ross’ newer work, Grief and Grieving, illuminates that “grief is oftentimes a private experience that is revealed to few” (Bolden 237). The text conversations represent this observation as multiple family members and friends of Joe are reluctant to talking to others or seeking help, and instead want to keep to themselves and their phones. The use of cell phones and technology in general allows one to easily keep to themselves and turn to their phone for various distractions instead of facing non-virtual reality. Technology also creates a separate grieving space since individuals will use social media to grieve the loss of loved ones or even use it to evoke sympathy from their friends and followers. Therefore, the use of text messaging for this project was not only intentional but it also shows how technology can play a role in the privatized grieving era we are currently living in.
The five conversations represent different people in Joe’s life, but they also represent the five different stages of grief, as first introduced in Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ book, On Death and Dying. Through these five different stages of grief represented in the different text conversations, it is revealed how different people who are all currently grieving interact differently with the dead.
The first stage, denial, is represented by Joe’s son Daniel. He is simply denying that his father is gone forever and even asks if he will be there to take him and his friends to a basketball game. In his mind, his dad is immortal, and he refuses to let go of that belief. He completely rejects the idea that anything could take his dad away from his life and is very adamite that his dad is not gone. Kübler-Ross’ section on denial explains that “since in our unconscious mind we are all immortal, it is almost inconceivable for us to acknowledge that we too have to face death” (Kübler-Ross 42). Daniel’s case shows that this also applies to the death of our family members. The audience notices Joe’s ghost or Joe’s bot makes the effort to gently try to convince Daniel that he is in denial and that his father is never coming back.
Secondly, anger is represented by Joe’s wife, Ashley, who is clearly distressed and scared that she no longer has her husband as a partner to parent their children or to support her. She directs this anger towards virtual Joe directly and blames him for her current situation instead of blaming herself. As Kübler-Ross also explains it, it is clear that Ashley is reacting with rage and anger because she has always been in control of her life and now she has no control over her husband’s death and there is no way to fix it so she is enraged (Kübler-Ross 54). This reaction is especially apparent when she tells her dead husband that “You are incredibly selfish. You think that what you did only hurt you? That’s not true or fair. You got the escape, I am the one now living in hell.” After examining these first two interactions, one can begin to uncover how the grieving process interacts with the process of communicating with the dead and how the living are directing their emotions onto Joe who is virtually there for them but can never be there physically again.
Thirdly, bargaining is portrayed by Joe’s best friend Brian who clearly regrets not doing enough to save Joe when he was still alive. Kübler-Ross describes the motive behind bargaining when she states that “the bargaining is really an attempt to postpone; it has to elude a prize offered ‘for good behavior’” (Kübler-Ross 83). Brian is offering different solutions to fix the irrevocable situation so he can postpone Joe’s death. In the text messages, he offers these solutions to Joe himself because he knows Joe is the only one that could have stopped his own death, by not taking the drugs. This interaction is only made possible through the haunted texting that has enabled him to communicate with Joe. Without this haunted media, Brian might have tried to bargain with someone else that had no control over the situation that happened.
Fourthly, his daughter Debra embodies depression as she is struggling to see the purpose of living after learning that her father is now dead. It is clear that she had a close relationship with her father and now that he is gone “there is no one left to live for.” Debra’s interaction with her dead father through text messages does not change her depressed tone and mood, which is not surprising because depression is not fixed in a singular conversation. The conversation does however at least expose her to the idea that her father’s death was not her fault and there are other ways to cope and deal with his death which is what Joe could have programed his bot to do.
Lastly, acceptance is portrayed by Joe’s sister Alice who has begun to accept Joe’s death after a period of shock and surprise. It is important to note that “acceptance should not be mistaken for a happy stage” (Kübler-Ross 113) because at no point does Alice seem happy. Instead, she has come to terms with what happened and is ready to move on with what that means for her and the rest of the people in Joe’s life. The review of Kübler-Ross’ new book also highlights how she continues to explore acceptance in the grieving process. She explains that “finding closure [means] that a loved one’s death is put into perspective so that one can live with the loss” (Bolden 236) which is illuminated when Alice recognizes that Joe is in a better place now.
Overall, this project hopefully gives the audience some perspective in how different people grieve and how introducing technology into the grieving process can help them to express their emotions and feelings in a privatized modern world.
Works Cited
Ariès, Philippe. Western Attitudes toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present (The Johns Hopkins Symposia in Comparative History). Translated by Patricia Ranum, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975.
Bolden, Lori. “A Review of On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through The Five Stages of Loss.” Counseling and Values, vol. 51, no. 3, Apr. 2007, pp. 235–37.
Brooker, Charlie. “Be Right Back.” Black Mirror, Season 2 Episdoe 1, Netflix.
Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death and Dying. 1969.
Nationa Institute of Health. “Overdose Death Rates.” National Institute on Drug Abuse, Jan. 2019, https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates.
Zarrelli, Natalie. “Dial-a-Ghost on Thomas Edison’s Least Successful Invention: The Spirit Phone.” Atlas Obscura, Oct. 2016, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/dial-a-ghost-on-thomas-edisons-least-successful-invention-the-spirit-phone.