Death in the Digital Age

One of the things I found most troubling with this week’s reading “Enter the Grief Police” was my own reaction. This article hit hard to home and forced me to confront and examine my own behavior and perceptions when it comes to experiencing and performing grief.

When I read this piece, I found myself siding with the “Grief Police” to one extent, but also vehemently reprimanding them on the other. When celebrities die (shout out to the year 2016)  or someone in the local community passes away, many people have taken to showing their grief in a very public manner, through the use of social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter. In so many of these cases, when I see the grief of my “friends” (are social media contacts really friends? That’s a whole different subject…), I cringe. Unless it’s a close friend or relative, I assume that their “grief” is superficial or all just for show — for attention. When a celebrity dies I think, “How on earth does this actually affect your life, dude? Get over it.” When someone posts concerning a community member that has passed, I’m likely to question what their actual real life relationship was with the person.

But this is all entirely unfair of me, too, because I do the same thing. I grieve in public, I ask for the support and kindness (read earlier: “attention”) of others recognizing my own pain, and I express my relationship to those who have passed along via public social media, somehow seemingly desperate to prove that I am affected by their passing.

So why is grief something we (maybe just read: I) are (am) so judgmental about — especially when we have all experienced it?

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:

1. The notion that to oppose online grieving is to support the claim that there is one true ‘correct’ way to grieve.
2. The notion that public, online grieving is a natural extension of what may be called a ‘deep, communal concern’.
3. 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.

In her article “David Bowie and the Rise of the Grief Police,” Megan Garber argues that, sometimes, the act of grieving online (often publicly, such as via Facebook) does not have to be a “deeply insincere” act as Camilla Long tweets. Rather, it can be a “declaration of support to the deceased’s family and friends,” almost like a virtual “condolence card” for the loved ones (even if it is personally addressed to the deceased).  

Plenty of condolence cards and memorial flowers come from people who did not have a close relationship with the deceased (or any at all). Though these condolences can be touching and personal, they may also simply express sorrow for the family’s loss–a universally human sentiment that can still carry some weight for the loved ones regardless of the sender’s actual relationship to the deceased. As Garber points out, that does not make them much different from memorial posts online.

In class, I brought up a similar idea in our small group’s discussion.  What makes a memorial post much different than signing a guest book at a wake? On the one hand, posting on a memorial page is often in a more public forum, which certainly lends the post many of the negative aspects associated with other public posts–this is something that the poster wants you to see, something that is curated and meant to communicate a certain message or agenda.

On the other hand, we can focus on different aspects of a memorial post. If it’s posted on a page created specifically to mourn or memorialize a certain person’s passing, that page is often not ostensibly meant as a place for people to gain social capital; rather it may be created by family, friends, or loved ones for those affected by the deceased. Like a sizable crowd at a funeral,  a mailbox packed with condolence cards, or a completely full guest book, a populated memorial page can help the loved ones of the deceased deal with the unendurable–it can comfort someone knowing that their deceased loved one had a tangible impact on so many different people.

Megan Garber’s article “Enter the Grief Police” deals with a topic that I have mentioned in previous blog posts: the grief demonstrated online and more specifically on Facebook. She begins by presenting her belief that the Internet has allowed society to publicly display their feelings of grief once again. She cites 20th century culture as the beginning of a movement that encouraged grief to be kept to the personal self. Now, with Social Media features, such as Facebook’s “Remembering” preservation of a profile, we can express these emotions freely once again. However, Garber believes that this transition to previously held values is causing discomfort, and this discomfort is leading to push back against these expressions. While I do share Garber’s sentiment that there has been push back against this public display of grief, I would hesitate to call the movement a “Grief Police.”

I would like to start off by saying that my formerly stated belief is not rooted in history that dates back to the 20th century, but rather in my experiences as a social media user. I was not aware that it was possible to keep a person’s social media profile alive past their expiration date until a year ago when I saw a mass amount of comments being posted on a friends wall. That friend had been shot in a drive-by near the projects in Charlotte, NC and many of her friends could be seen sending supportive messages. I was not close to this friend, so I did not post anything but was still saddened by the news. However, I did see other people ,in my exact position, writing long-winded posts that described their love for the deceased person. That is not okay, and it is annoying. These are the generally held beliefs of those who push back against public grieving. I am sure that , had the dead person been witness to these posts, they would have reacted with  “I’m sorry, who are you?” I believe that any human is free to grieve in their own way, be it private or public. But, when grieving becomes a false action that people engage in simply to go with the norm or fit in with everyone else, it devalues the action as a whole.

Since my initial experience with public grievances, I have encountered many fake and real forms of online grieving. It is sometimes hard to identity the differences between the two, unless one is familiar with the deceased person. I have also encountered the people who share my sentiment, yet go out of their way to express it. These people are often very outspoken, such as Camilla Long was when she called out the fake grievers of David Bowie’s death . She specifically called out people who were sharing their “broken up” emotions over the death of an iconic artist, wanting them to articulate their feelings more efficiently or to create constructive discourse. I agree with her. People who do not know him or have met him are feeling emotional about his death. Can you imagine how the family feels? Can you imagine how those close to him, those who shared life with him, feel? I would pose this question to all those who engage in public grieving for the sake of social performance. Take a step back from the keyboard before you post that really long message describing how much you will miss someone who you did not well. This performance is annoying, it is overdone, and it is insulting for those who really wish to grieve online.

I am in no way telling people not to grieve online, I believe it can be constructive and in some ways cathartic. I am simply saying that the faux “Omg I’m going to miss you so much xoxo” messages are unnecessary and should stop. Judging from the reading, Garber would consider me as part of the Grief Police, and this is where we disagree. I do not believe that the concept of a “Grief Police” is even real. Yes, there are individuals like Long who wish people would express their grief more privately, but these people usually keep to themselves. Long has sixty thousand followers on Twitter, and this gives her a stage on which she may express her views. The majority of this so called “Grief Police” does not.

In my experience, those who share my beliefs would think thrice before telling someone that they should not grieve publicly. We are all entitled to our opinions, and we have the freedom to post what we want. Is it annoying? Sure. But there is no massive group , at least not one that I have encountered , of social media users who try to dictate how grief is expressed. The use of the term “Grief Police” assumes that there is a group, and this group is consistently checking up on social media users to make sure that their feelings concerning  a death are internalized. This is not the case. We just find these posts annoying and would prefer to not see them. This can be easily done with the click of a few buttons, so why would there even be a need for a Grief Police? Those who care enough about these types of posts will do something to make sure they don’t see them, but they will not go out of their way to offend those grieving.

If anything, Grief Moderators would be a better term. This term does not assume that there is a group of people trying to control what everyone says, but rather what they  themselves see. They moderate their newsfeed to see, or avoid seeing posts concerning a death. These moderators are moderating their own experience, not that of others.