(no subject)

[i_kender]

Here is a very odd story I ran across in the Guardian about how a 17 year old's murder has become the latest fad on Myspace. Not the gruesome details, rather strangers trying to outdo each other with outpourings of grief. Disturbing, although it does raise some interesting points about grief. Can you grieve for someone you've never met, or don't know, or a celebrity? Is that reflexive sympathy? Any excuse to leap towards catharsis? Or something else entirely?

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1775013,00.html

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

The Diana thing always fascinated me, the way that so many people became so caught up in outpourings of grief for somebody they didn't know.

Some sort of public hysteria, which, something that affects mobs, I guess. The most likely explanation. But there is also that thing about how so many people are becoming increasingly divorced from their own feelings, that they make use of placebos almost.

I think you can grieve for people you've never met, I have grieved for friends of friends who have died, because I have felt the pain of my friend, for their loss. And I know a fair few friends of mine who didn't know Sel, but who have grieved for her, in part I suppose through me.

To me though, I would only call it grief if you have some link like that, if there is some emotional contact. Otherwise, it's something else. The grief people felt over Diana, I would not properly call grief. Don't know what it was, but it was something different.

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

"... a competitive element has arisen over who can grieve the most hysterically."

Doesn't that just say it all? Strikes me that genuine grief is a private thing.

[apple-crumble.livejournal.com]

Needless to say, if you died I'd be devestated. Try not to sweetheart. xxx

[i_kender]

Thank you, I'll cross that off my list of things to do then...

[apple-crumble.livejournal.com]

You on MSN?

When a *hug* goes too far...

[i_kender]

Just bizarre. As if Diana wasn't enough, it seems public displays of grief for strangers are becoming popular. I suppose it's somehow to do with the alienation of the individual, and finding new and acceptable ways of expressing emotion etc. Emoting on cue, as it were. I do find that unnerving...

[i_kender]

Sadly no, I can't do that at work. (Still on Reception at the Zoo)

Re: When a *hug* goes too far...

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Very unnerving indeed, it is not what we might understand as normal human emotion, instead, a sort of placebo emotion. Which isn't to say it doesn't feel real to the person experiancing it, but it's just... I'm not sure.

I think about when Hunter killed himself. I didn't know him, and yet his work was important to me. Did I feel grief, the same emotion I felt when somebody I know dies? No, I don't think so. But, muddy line there perhaps.