Forgetting the sound of a dead person's voice is sadder.
October 17, 2013 8:59 AM   Subscribe

 
No, but see, you don't understand, you can't be starving if you ate already this morning.


Yes, I know it was a figure of speech.


Wait, where are you going?
posted by Apropos of Something at 9:02 AM on October 17, 2013 [3 favorites]




#firstworldhyperboly
posted by filthy light thief at 9:09 AM on October 17, 2013 [1 favorite]


missjenny clearly doesn't have a dog.

Because the look on his little face sometimes...you can tell he's just saying "there is nothing sadder than watching you eat steak and not getting any. I am literally dying right now. Dying. Forever. I am dead from the world's most unimaginable sadness." And just looking at him, seeing how pathetic he is, I'm inclined to believe him.

So what I'm saying is maybe these twitter people are actually all dogs.
posted by phunniemee at 9:10 AM on October 17, 2013 [9 favorites]


The saddest thing.
posted by Uncle Ira at 9:14 AM on October 17, 2013 [7 favorites]


Next in the queue: Best. Thing. Ever.
posted by hat_eater at 9:22 AM on October 17, 2013


World War Two's got you all beat.
posted by philip-random at 9:23 AM on October 17, 2013


particularly if you're German.
posted by philip-random at 9:23 AM on October 17, 2013 [1 favorite]


The saddest thing is someone throwing a party - buying drinks and making nice food - to which no one shows up. I tear up just imagining it.
posted by cilantro at 9:30 AM on October 17, 2013 [10 favorites]


Make that party a birthday party. IT JUST GOT SADDER.
posted by Atreides at 9:34 AM on October 17, 2013 [4 favorites]


And set it on fire. See? Sadder.
posted by hat_eater at 9:36 AM on October 17, 2013 [3 favorites]


But nobody came because they all have cancer.
posted by phunniemee at 9:38 AM on October 17, 2013 [6 favorites]


Alternate to Uncle Ira's link above.
posted by rifflesby at 9:39 AM on October 17, 2013 [3 favorites]




Forgetting the sound of a dead person's voice

Wow. This hurts.
posted by snottydick at 9:58 AM on October 17, 2013 [3 favorites]


You cannot preserve the dead forever. Not their images, or voices.
Not that I don't understand, but too much emotion over the dead is not healthy.
Some is normal, but this forever keeping keepsakes and souvenirs is awesomely unhealthy .
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 9:58 AM on October 17, 2013 [3 favorites]


This is both very funny and the reason I don't use twitter.
posted by bibliowench at 9:59 AM on October 17, 2013


You cannot preserve the dead forever. Not their images, or voices.

Don't tell me what I can't do.
posted by snottydick at 10:06 AM on October 17, 2013


How about a kitten with a really sad face, out in the rain, who was promised an ice cream but then told it was stupid? How sad is that? I can barely face my day now that I've thought of it.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:09 AM on October 17, 2013 [2 favorites]


Oh! That poor kitten! ;_;
posted by rifflesby at 10:12 AM on October 17, 2013 [3 favorites]


Not that I don't understand, but too much emotion over the dead is not healthy.
Some is normal, but this forever keeping keepsakes and souvenirs is awesomely unhealthy .


I was at a memorial recently for a young woman who died way ahead of her time. Sad indeed. One of the rituals her family observed was apparently inspired by the local First Nations. It involved the laying out of little tokens that had been found among the dead woman's possessions (foreign coins, Lego figures, polished stones etc). All present were supposed to take one with them and place it somewhere that they couldn't help see every day. So that every time they saw the token, they'd remember the lost friend. But only for a year. After a year, they were to dispose of the token (or at least hide it). After a year, they were to trust that the Universe would not forget her.
posted by philip-random at 10:26 AM on October 17, 2013 [34 favorites]


Using the hyperbole of "best ever" and "saddest thing" as a subtextual admission that one is too anesthetized by technology and the comforts and safety of the modern condition to feel much of anything at all anymore is sadder.
posted by Bookhouse at 10:34 AM on October 17, 2013 [6 favorites]


Nothing is sadder than bumping into someone who's locked into the Retinal gaze of their phone only to have them look up at you, confusion coating their face like a fragrant caul, and then say, "mmmuh mhhmmmf" by way of explanation, which is when that little tiny nerve in your mind that was hanging out for dear life and hoping it could regrow from continual educational input and wisdom nuggets suddenly emits a timid but audible Pop! sound that leaks from your ears along with the sudden smoke and before too long you're hearing a siren-like wail emanating from somewhere nearby and you realize its your own voice, catapulting in caterwaulic Christ Fail into the zeitgeist, only to be plucked from the air by a grey, flatulent seagull who gulps it down in one go while you sob into the policemans' tidy, starched uniform.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 10:40 AM on October 17, 2013 [3 favorites]


This picture of a sad dog is pretty sad.
posted by Science! at 10:41 AM on October 17, 2013 [1 favorite]


The Cat's Carol.

Not providing a link. And warning you not to try to find it. It's that sad.
posted by Billiken at 10:45 AM on October 17, 2013 [1 favorite]


I kind of hate this. It's like the "literally" people. I'm not sorry at all to tell you that OED says literally can literally be used to mean figuratively. And since you're such a prescriptivist you are compelled to accept that reasoning and shut up forever QED.
posted by Gin and Comics at 10:48 AM on October 17, 2013 [3 favorites]


The survivor of twins
posted by knoyers at 10:50 AM on October 17, 2013 [1 favorite]


I kind of hate this. It's like the "literally" people. I'm not sorry at all to tell you that OED says literally can literally be used to mean figuratively

As much as I dislike it when people brandish dictionary definitions like swords? I doubt it.
posted by IvoShandor at 10:51 AM on October 17, 2013 [1 favorite]


The saddest thing.
posted by Uncle Ira at 12:14 PM on October 17


Yep. That's it. Can confirm. Don't click the link. Very, very sad indeed.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:55 AM on October 17, 2013


Nothing makes me happier, nothing, nothing at all, than the belief that some people's lives are so good that the saddest thing for them is a squished sandwich. The whole world should be so wonderful.
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:56 AM on October 17, 2013 [5 favorites]


I'm not sorry at all to tell you that OED says literally can literally be used to mean figuratively

That's not how dictionaries work. A dictionary records how words are used. It is not a rulebook for how words can be used.

(There is no such rulebook.)

(And that is the saddest thing ever.)
posted by Sys Rq at 10:56 AM on October 17, 2013 [1 favorite]


that's not how dictionaries work for you -- prescriptivist!
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:59 AM on October 17, 2013


Well, the fact that words are used a certain way conclusively demonstrates that they can be. There may be other ways to show that, I suppose?
posted by LogicalDash at 10:59 AM on October 17, 2013


Well, crap. Now I haz a sad*.


*Probably not the saddest sad ever.
posted by drlith at 11:07 AM on October 17, 2013


Nothing makes me happier, nothing, nothing at all, than the belief that some people's lives are so good that the saddest thing for them is a squished sandwich. The whole world should be so wonderful.
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:56 AM on October 17 [2 favorites +] [!]


Nothing is sadder than someone hoping for a world where a squished sandwich is the saddest thing because we all know God the King is Coming and I have no socks and the clouds are singing again such harsh light and my sandwich my sandwich
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 11:27 AM on October 17, 2013 [2 favorites]


On the one hand, it's amusing to see some of the "saddest thing" tweets punctured. On the other, that's a joke that may have a short lifespan for actual amusement value.
posted by immlass at 11:30 AM on October 17, 2013 [2 favorites]


From the Olympia Daily Recorder (Olympia, WA), May 12, 1913, titled "Saddest Thing of All":

"What, in your opinion, is the worst thing about death?"

"Generally it is the thing they give out as having been the dead man's favorite poem."

God damn you, Olympia Daily Recorder. A century ago you were funnier and meaner than I will ever be.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:40 AM on October 17, 2013 [9 favorites]


Getting your face ripped off by your pet chimpanzee is sadder

Wait, wait, no! This is not sad, this is...all sorts of things, but not sad!
posted by Omnomnom at 12:51 PM on October 17, 2013 [1 favorite]


Laika the Space Dog. Jesus Christ I need a tissue.
posted by Kafkaesque at 1:21 PM on October 17, 2013 [2 favorites]


All right, so, I've taken up long distance running this year. A strange thing happens to me when I break ten miles. Well, two strange things, but only one that is relevant to this discussion.

About 30 minutes after completing any run over 10 miles, I cry about almost anything. The first time it happened, I was thinking about how I wanted to end this play I was directing and I had this one idea that just made me weep. To anyone watching, I just went from zero to ugly tears instantly. Fortunately, I was driving so anyone who noticed me also probably feared that I was going to cause an accident. At the time, I thought I'd had the best idea I'd ever had, but when I tried to explain it two hours later, it sounded stupid and I didn't feel a thing.

Since then, I've cried at an issue of Fables, when a song from my wedding came on, when my friend who was visiting left me a note saying "hope this doesn't make you cry," and for a dozen other reasons.

Most recently, last Saturday, I did a half marathon and, about an hour later after showering, I was driving to teach a class and Pentatonix's cover of 'Royals' came up on random shuffle on my iPod. When it got to the chorus and they sang "rule" (where they slide up a note or two), I just burst into tears. I thought to myself "you have got to be shitting me - there is nothing remotely sad about this." I played it again just to see what the hell that was about and, at the exact same spot, I started weeping so uncontrollably that I had to pull the car over just to get myself under control.

The only thing I can figure is that I find something about that particular note beautiful in the depths of my soul and I'm responding to the beauty. It hasn't effected me like that since then, but I will say that, this week, nothing has made me sadder than Pentatonix's cover of 'Royals.'

Now as far as things that have made me angrier....
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:25 PM on October 17, 2013 [3 favorites]




Speaking of "literally."
posted by 256 at 2:22 PM on October 17, 2013


This is the saddest thing.

Sadder than a hungry orphan in the rain, feeding his angry parasitic twin a single serving box of cornflakes he found in the garbage.
posted by ernielundquist at 2:58 PM on October 17, 2013 [4 favorites]


The saddest thing ever was the Adidas commercial showing Kevin Garnett, who was at the time playing MVP level basketball on a team that, to put it gently, sucked.* It showed him going from role to role, from Batman-esque superhero, to gladiator, to standup commedian, to a laughing kid on playground. I can't seem to find it (it's from a good long time ago).

Free Darko (RIP) explained the depth of sadness captured in the commercial in one of the best things to ever grace the web.

* This was before Garnett went to Boston and went from fan favorite toiling in obscurity to most obnoxious player in the league.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:30 PM on October 17, 2013


ernielundquist that is horrible
posted by Bookhouse at 4:30 PM on October 17, 2013


You're right, Bookhouse. If I could edit in a warning, I would. That story just sat there in my gut for a good two weeks before I could stop thinking about it; and now I think it's back for a while.

I'm sorry.
posted by ernielundquist at 6:04 PM on October 17, 2013


This is not the saddest thing ever, but it did make me feel irrationally bad for a robot for days.
posted by eponym at 6:15 PM on October 17, 2013




Nothing is sadder than watching the love of your life slowly unwind and die from sepsis related total system failure over the course of four days in an ICU, when they seemed perfectly fine a week earlier. Particularly if they were just 47 years old and you were with them for 23 years, and their heart stopped the moment you opened their eyelids to check on them, and everyone said they had waited to die until they caught a last glimpse of you.


This happened in early 2009, and I've been meaning to compose my first FPP educating folks about the warning signs/symptoms of sepsis, so others can be rescued in time. Even if it helps prevent one such death, it would be the greatest thing/use of an FPP ever. I'm afraid I'm not up to the task though, and would not do it justice. I'd really appreciate a skilled poster tackling the task.
posted by Devils Slide at 9:01 PM on October 17, 2013 [7 favorites]


That is heartbreaking, Devil's Slide. You would think that since there must have been hundreds, thousands, millions even, of personal tragedies nearly as poignant and affecting - that must surely be sadder. I have my own and know personally of others. And yet strangely I don't find it so. A single star by itself is unbearably close and bright, and the galaxies seem in some way more comfortable an idea.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 9:25 PM on October 17, 2013 [1 favorite]


This is the saddest thing: Harlow's Studies on Dependency in Monkeys
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:34 PM on October 17, 2013 [1 favorite]


Virtual hugs to all the saddest sads posting here. :(
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 12:03 PM on October 19, 2013


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