Megan Garber suggests in a brief online article, “Enter the Grief Police”, that public, online forms of grieving are analogous to a virtual wake. Her primary points to support this argument are that:
- The notion that to oppose online grieving is to support the claim that there is one true ‘correct’ way to grieve.
- The notion that public, online grieving is a natural extension of what may be called a ‘deep, communal concern’.
- To ‘grief police’ is to dislike newly emerging social rituals that would otherwise be acceptable.
If you haven’t realized by the tone of my prose by now, I will now systematically disagree with the above points. Firstly, of course there is no true way to grieve. It is up to the individual in question, as well as the loved ones surrounding that individual. What is important however is that it is intensely personal, and could not possibly by defined by a certain method. It is because of this that online grieving should be taken with caution–because it is so public, and so accessible to others, there’s little barrier to both entry and reception. If a somebody did not want to see a deceased loved one’s face online, as outlined in “Inadvertent Algorithmic Cruelty”, it is up to them. But, the public nature of this act makes it difficult to avoid, thus making it both an inherently unpersonal act, as well as disrupting the grief of others.
Secondly, I do not believe that a deep communal concern over a death necessarily results in public online grieving. In the large cases such as David Bowie’s death, I do not think that there was a deep, sincere sense of loss for the majority of people involved. While certain individuals may have been personally familiar with Bowie, it’s hard to imagine that these people could be as affected as immediate family. And if there was concern, it seems that a primary motivator in making these statements of mourning public would be so that others may see them–in an effort to garner sympathy for their loss, to put it bluntly. The fact that the statements are public once again detract from the thinking that public online grieving reflects a deep concern.
Lastly, I do admit that public online grieving is indeed a social ritual as much as a wake or funeral is. However, once again the difference is the invitatory, much-too-accessible nature of public online grieving. People are invited to wakes and funerals. In these cases, the small scale of the mourning event is what allows for intimate consolation and condolences. No one in a funeral approaches a widow and yells their condolences loudly so that everyone may hear. It’s an ass move because it’s not about those invited to the wake, it’s about the recently deceased and those closest to them. If this was the design of the wake then that is a different story, but the point is that to take this decision out of the hands of the deceased and those closest to them should be frowned upon.