Social A's: However Do You Integrate Terrible Events With Your Online World?
Dear Answer Person,
A legitimately terrible thing happened in my life. Parts of my life get recorded online. How should the terrible thing affect those parts of my life?
Yours,
Emoticons Are Inadequate
Dear Inadequate,
This is a really good question, and I don't know the answer.
A guy who I'm facebook friends with — we've met IRL twice –recently got in a bicycle accident. "pretty sure i broke my wrist and collarbone last night on a training ride. horrendous crash. spectacular, really. going to hospital now. should have gone last night. painful, painful, painful," read his Facebook status the following morning. Later, in amongst the sympathetic comments on a follow-up status update (the collarbone did turn out to be broken, as did his right radius), he wrote that he was now typing with one finger.
A few weeks ago, I was relieved to get a response to an email I'd sent to a friend who I see less often than I'd like, maybe once every three months. It had been a few days since I'd sent her the innocuous "miss you, let's hang" email and I had just been starting to wonder if I'd done or said or written (hey, it happens!) something to offend her. "This is sort of a weird email to send, but I'll always go for awkward over needlessly suspenseful," she wrote, then revealed that she'd been diagnosed with a serious chronic autoimmune condition but was "totally fine."
And then today I was checking my email while walking down the street and in amongst the junk mail and news about new twitter followers and work stuff and 'did you see this link" emails there was an email with the subject line "[Friend's] Mom," and the mom in question had been diagnosed with a particularly virulent kind of cancer a few weeks ago and I already knew without even opening the email what it would say. I stopped walking down the street. In my initial response to our mutual friend's I initially typed a :( after the first sentence but then I went back and deleted it.
And now I just went and looked at this friend's twitter and facebook wall, where she has posted a beautiful, but ambiguous (because less than 140 characters) couple of sentences about loving her mom. Some of the people who've left comments under it on her Facebook wall clearly did not know that her mom had just died; others left non sequitur comments about Battlestar Galactica.
So, Inadequate, I am pretty sure I know exactly what you're talking about.
Here is the thing: terrible and serious things are going to happen to all of us, and most all of us have some kind of online presence now. In a crisis, the ability to simultaneously communicate with all our friends (and "friends," and people we met once or knew in middle school or strangers who have taken an interest in our doings and thoughts and the links we like) can be a huge asset. Not having to expend the time and effort needed to individually contact everyone who might care about us — well, that is very useful, in a crisis. And when we're feeling alone, Facebook and twitter and tumblr and blogs can make us feel less alone. As these technologies, and the people using them, come of age, it will stop seeming so jarring that news of our loved ones' deaths and diseases and injuries and endangerments are
delivered to us by proxy, sandwiched between other people's musings about the Real Housewives of New York. I think.
Because it's not actually that weird, that people use these means — which we associate with informality and jokes and offhandedness, because that's how they're most often used — to share serious and consequential and personal information. In real life, seriousness and absurdity aren't kept cordoned off from each other, so why should online life be any different? That is how I'm trying to think of it, anyway. Remember that old Dave Chappelle sketch "what if the internet was a real place," where the Internet is represented physically as a mall full of people who offer you free music downloads and debt consolidation and "goat play?" I mean, that sketch is so funny because the internet really is exactly like that, except in one corner of the mall there's a funeral going on, right next to where the goat play happens.
The question, I guess, is does it trivialize death and trauma to talk about them in real time, online? Inevitably it does, a little. What especially trivializes bad things is when anonymous commenters are given the opportunity to talk about them, because inevitably someone will say something that, even if it's well-intentioned, reads as direly wrong and offensive. And while anonymous commenters pretending to care about something bad that's happened to someone who they feel a false sense of familiarity with are bad, anonymous commenters using the opportunity of someone's tragedy or trauma to mock them — well, that is probably the worst thing about the Internet. Besides, you know, white supremacist sites and sexual predators and Tucker Max.
The only "advice" I am going to give you, Inadequate, is that when you're emailing or twittering (won't. say. tweeting.) or updating your status or your blog or your tumblr in a time of crisis, think hard about who you're talking to. If you're okay with talking to everyone, go ahead and talk to everyone. (Seriously). But if you're not, then no pressure. It is okay to leave some parts of your life undocumented.
Also, my condolences about the terrible thing. Whatever it was I hope you feel better. And, you know, all the other platitudes that probably sound empty to you right now whether a stranger is typing them or a good friend is saying them out loud.
Previously: How You Should And Shouldn't Do Karaoke.
I have nothing terrible to say about this. I liked it a lot.
Yes.
This is why we like Emily Gould.
Confused. Emily? Choire?
If I can't tell the difference, I should probably go lie down for awhile. Or quit the Internet.
Nevertheless, agreed.
Although I must say, I don't agree that it trivializes death or catastrophe to talk about it online. Or, more specifically, the simple act of posting it to your facebook status or twitter as a way to broadcast to the 258 acquaintances and friends you have there isn't trivializing. It's informative. Or it can be. People's reactions are what can be trivial, unconsidered, weird.
Good show.
So…. is this Choire writing Emily's column about the Vanity Fair story by Jim Windolf? Do I have that right?
No, I don't think you do quite actually!
Is Emily. Hence the bylines and the sound of Emily and the Emilyness.
The "Choire" byline that was initially on this page confused me. The lack of exclamation points should have given it away.
This is a really thoughtful column and brings up a host of other issues like end-reader/bystander responsibility.
If you spot an update that reads, “About to slit my wrists.â€, how should you react? Or †I’m going to bash that motherfucker’s skull,â€.
I see plenty of “Life sucks, I hate everyone, grrrrrrr†type messagery and think nothing of it. But what do you do if a facebook/twitter update is genuinely dire?
If you see something, type something.
If I don't know the person, I probably won't say anything at all. Although I remember when I was blogging about my own crises, I appreciated the nice emails from strangers.
I guess I just don't know how to handle other people's emotions very well. Or, honestly, my own – which is probably a reason why I have a blog.
Excellent piece!
"Except in one corner of the mall there’s a funeral going on, right next to where the goat play happens."
This is pretty much the only thing I've ever read on the internet that produced a laugh/cry reaction.
Except this is also an accurate description of my neighborhood.
Great post.
While you are here, I would appreciate it if you could address another social question.
How do you deal with a former boss who just won't let you go, particularly when he/she has substantial clout in your industry?
Just remember: the further the familiarity, the harder it is to interpret the "tone" of the message. Online communication is notoriously bad for communicating tone or intent, especially if you know someone peripherally.
Sometimes "having to expend the time and effort needed to individually contact everyone who might care about us" is therapeutic. That's real connection.
:|
Wonderful! Thanks!
1. That's Emily's writing.
2. I was reading it and nodding and saying, "Oh, but of course" and "Me too, gurl" and "I hear you, sister" and then, "Swat*?" regarding two bits toward the end.
a. "most all of us have some kind of online presence now" Disagree. Most of the people reading this, the naddering nabobs of the netticism, sure. But most of the people in the US? Maybe 50%. In the world? Ten per cent? Having just come back from a "developing nation" it was refreshing to be without WiFi and G3 for, like, HOURS at a time!
b. "And when we’re feeling alone, Facebook and twitter and tumblr and blogs can make us feel less alone." I would never say I'm here** because I'm lonely. I'm here because my brain is in fifteen places at once. Because my job and life can't satiate the immeasurable sense of "NEED" that consumes me and I would never burden my friends with that constant need lest I lose my friends!
c. When bad things happen to me, I turn to my close friends, not the Internet. I turn to the Internet once I'm ready to joke about it. Granted? I have a quick refractory period.
*-"Swat": short for "Say what?"
**-"here": in the state of reading/commenting on something on the Net. Not here in my office, turning out a sustained profit analysis.
Ack.
Meant to add at the end: Otherwise, completely agreed and should be required reading for Twitfacelr users.
great piece!
"It is okay to leave some parts of your life undocumented."
Now that's just crazy talk, Emily, and you know it.
I've been wondering: what will happen to things like Facebook pages once their proprietors die?
This has inevitably happened before. I want to know.
facebook pages, i've noticed so far, have a tendency of staying up after death — not often updated, but many times with fond-memory wall posts on birthdays or other important days. but part of me wonders if that's the case because it's facebook that's in charge of hosting the thing. (i've seen a few personally hosted blogs that went away after their proprietors died because the domain-name fees weren't paid; the urls often reverted to those dumb fake search result pages that are the specialty of domain-squatters.)
ugh, this is so morbid. apologies. this piece is really great, emily.
That's going to be an interesting lawsuit. Who gets to decide if a deceased person's Facebook page stays up? Can families sue to force them to be taken down? Do they have to give the family the login/password? If so, what if some salaciously scandalous details about that person are revealed?
This has all the makings of an NYMag article.
Or a really bad NYT Magazine feature.
It's been done already, but not by NYT/NYMag:
http://consumerist.com/5157481/facebook-wont-let-you-remove-dead-relatives-page-per-policy
In a somewhat bizarre case of synchronicity, I actually stumbled upon this today. So there you go.
Also, this was a really nice piece, Emily!
Why the hell is J.Jill Online Outlet advertising on MyDeadSpace (http://www.mydeathspace.com/)?
A++ Would Read Again
I used to be extremely open and uncensored in terms of my personal life in my writing, and then I was dating a guy who claimed to be highly private and was uncomfortable with my openess. But why would I be writing about him so much, I wondered.
But he kept on and on. Criticized my older posts. At one point, I actually did because self-conscious about everything and started locking up my old posts. For the first time I was feeling violated and vulnerable when I was unapologetic and open before.
So I had let someone else's insecurities mess up my security and ultimately my writing/online persona. I will never forgive myself for that. You can only be hurt by someone as along as you allow them to hurt you, so I cannot begrudge him his shortcomings. But now I'm getting over all of that, one way or another. He is no longer in my life, which is good. The lessons I learned of myself during that time are priceless because I will never allow myself to forget how, for a moment, I allowed someone else's perceptions of me command who I were to be. And that's silly.
Overshare away. The Internet never forgets and neither should you so you might as well embrace that and keep on moving.
Wait. I met that guy. He was fuckin' HOT. I would have … done the same.
Yeah, totally. His ass was so foine, he was getting away with a lot, lol. Ah well.
You know what I like about Vanity Fair? The covers. The covers are nice.
I like the Proust questionnaire. Because Proust wrote the questions, not someone from Vanity Fair.
love you even more, Emily….
This is thoughtful and lovely, actually, and the comment troll from the karaoke piece can suck it.
Because I myself am neither thoughtful nor lovely, though, what I really want to hear more about, is a possible correlation between [1] the percentage of your ("one's") Facebook friends list that you've met twice (or fewer) and either [2A] youth or [2B] Web 2.0 fluency.
or, uh, that's what I'd want to hear more about if I were old and Web 1.0.
I also refuse to say "tweeting." Just not a fan. Not at all.
I guess it's cheaper than therapy.
Classy. AND sassy.
This is why Emily is terrific. I mean, also the rooftop swimsuit photo, but you know what I'm saying.