If everything we do is online, is the omission tantamount to forgetting?

October 1, 2019 8:28 AM

Grieving in the internet age is weird. Despite what many make out, millennials are actually reticent to get real on social media. Instead of being emotionally candid we’re perpetually sarcastic, self-deprecating and deliberately unpolished. Being “too online” or oversharing too readily is uncool. There’s a saying that you get one sincere online post a year; use it well. So then what do you do when someone has died? Grieving in the internet age: would posting photos of my dead friend look performative? (Katie Cunningham for The Guardian)
posted by filthy light thief (49 comments total)

Small point, but is it time to give up the fight on “reticent?” It’s traditionally not a synonym for “reluctant,” but I’ve watched the word just collapse over the past 10 years, like one star collapsing into another.
posted by argybarg at 8:34 AM on October 1, 2019 [13 favorites]

The timing of this... A photo of my dad and sisters and me came up in my Facebook memories this morning; I think it was the last photo we took together before we lost him. I wanted to share it, to say "this moment is important to me" -- but I don't want to come off as playing the "Hey, look at my dead dad" card. I don't need Internet sympathy, but I live 300 miles from his grave, and some days I just want to remember that we had him, not that we lost him.
posted by alynnk at 8:38 AM on October 1, 2019 [34 favorites]

I'm experiencing this right now. I barely use social media, but it feels... too performative even though I do want to post my thoughts and a poem.

Well, here's the poem for you by Mary Oliver. “I Ask Percy How I Should Live My Life”

Love, love, love, says Percy.
And hurry as fast as you can
along the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust.

Then, go to sleep.
Give up your body heat, your beating heart.
Then, trust.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 8:39 AM on October 1, 2019 [22 favorites]

Minor point, really, but "performative" needs to go in the sin bin a couple years until people calm the hell down on its mis/over-use.
posted by ominous_paws at 8:42 AM on October 1, 2019 [15 favorites]

This is something I think about a lot. I don't share my important personal stuff online, pretty much at all. This means all my love for my friends and family (who I love very much indeed), all the funny little stories about the kids in my life etc (who are hilarious and wonderful and individual) don't get posted, and don't get archived. I feel like it's protecting their privacy and because this job is weird, protecting them from potential harassment. But what it means is if they look back through my activity here, they will see no mention of themselves or of significant family events like deaths (of people I love very much, but who I don't mention here). As young people growing up with their lives extensively publicly documented, will that absence feel like someone was consciously protecting them? or will it feel like not having been seen?
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:48 AM on October 1, 2019 [36 favorites]

Maybe my social media conundrum is all part of accepting the futility of grief, something humans have had to grapple with long before Instagram came around.

Going through my own year of grief after suddenly losing a lifelong friend: I would swap “futility” here for “mystery.” Something about losing a peer at a younger age sends you on a weird journey of grief that includes time thinking about your own way of life and (at least for me) some profound changes about the way I live. Part of that is caring less about social media (or at least, social media having a different kind of meaning to me than it did) but also caring less about what others think, whether about me or about the person I’m missing. Part of it is coming to terms with the temporary nature of life. When I think of her it’s a kind of communication between me and the mystery of grief, and I don’t really have that urge to post something as a way of communicating with people who are still here and aren’t her. But we all grieve differently. Sometimes it’s as simple as: I just want to see her face again...
posted by sallybrown at 8:51 AM on October 1, 2019 [4 favorites]

(Not a criticism of the author, just to be clear, it sucks that they're even worrying about that)
posted by ominous_paws at 8:54 AM on October 1, 2019 [2 favorites]

In its traditional formulation, it makes no sense to be “reticent to [verb]” any more than it does to be “quiet to [verb].” But I get it, words wind up changing rapidly when nearby similar, more common words. (I’ve seen a lot of “I’m weary to take part in this” sort of thing; “wary” is becoming vestigial.)
posted by argybarg at 9:05 AM on October 1, 2019 [3 favorites]

I will go to my grave on the distinction between reticent and reluctant, damnit.
posted by suelac at 9:11 AM on October 1, 2019 [12 favorites]

As young people growing up with their lives extensively publicly documented, will that absence feel like someone was consciously protecting them? or will it feel like not having been seen?

I know people who keep their kids names and images off of social media, to protect them from information harvesting. Instead, they share photos and information via other platforms, with family and friends who are given access.

I post photos intermittently, but I also have a Google phone, which has automatic photo back-up on the Google Photos platform. I didn't think much of it until it created selections of photos by identifying my kids faces in photos, which I should have expected, but was still a bit of a surprise. Otherwise, I've tried to be better about making photo albums once or twice a year, to capture family trips or the year at a glance. I should start including more anecdotes about them, in addition to the images, to capture those fleeting memories. (This also means I should be jotting down the fun things that occur throughout the year.) Thanks for the reminder :)

As for remembering the dead, I like the idea of celebrating lives, in person and online. Granted, I don't personally have any young family or friends who have passed, and I realize it's harder to celebrate a short life when there was so much more potential ahead. (Also, I don't have an impersonal social media presence - people I'm "friends" with on Facebook are all actual friends and family, including some folks from schools past, but I'm not trying to be a social media influencer, so I feel like what I share is always authentic.)

Still, social media fuzzes the bounds of what it means to be "friends" with someone. There are lots of people who I haven't talked to in years on Facebook, so maybe it's not really that different.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:12 AM on October 1, 2019 [2 favorites]

I will simply say that being able to discuss my brother's death on Facebook - and on my favourite message boards - has helped TREMENDOUSLY over the years. Shared grief is lessened grief.
posted by tantrumthecat at 9:18 AM on October 1, 2019 [8 favorites]

The last year's been a zinger. My husband banged his head hard enough that his personality changed and we're now wrapping up a divorce I didn't want. Our beloved, sweet dog died. Our youngest kid left the nest. Our middle kid had a series of serious mental health crises. I got diagnosed with cancer and started to go through the surgeries and treatments.

Throughout, Facebook's "On This Day" feature has alternately mocked me, shoved my past in my face, made me cry with delight at forgotten moments, and wracked me with worry and wonder that those moments amounted to nothing more than sands through the hourglass. On top of it all, I just look back in wonder at how earnestly I used Facebook back then. A decade of keeping in touch with friends and family across the country and world in short paragraphs and pictures. I can't imagine doing that anymore, or ever again, but a part of me is very grateful that the last decade exists in there. And I still can't look at a picture or video of my pup--running along the beach with her favorite stick in her mouth, jumping in slow motion to snatch a treat from my hand, asleep on her other daddy on the couch--without tears welling up. Social media, man. Even just as an extension of our imperfect memories, it's a stunning thing.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 9:23 AM on October 1, 2019 [39 favorites]

I post my mom and dad's pics every year because I miss them. I don't do it for likes.
posted by emjaybee at 9:23 AM on October 1, 2019 [7 favorites]

I think everyone grieves differently. I've had several friends die over the last year-ish, but I never felt like I was "inner circle" enough to go too far into grief in public. But shouldn't this be a "you do you" situation? Who's to say what's appropriate, as long as you're doing the ring theory thing.
posted by wellred at 9:30 AM on October 1, 2019 [2 favorites]

Friday is the one-year anniversary of the death of my best friend. I want to scream out to the world I'M NOT OVER IT and I MISS HER and I STILL CRY EVERY DAY and post a million pictures of her. But it doesn't feel right or allowed, it feels yeah, performative and like deomonstrating hysteria and "omg look at me" when all I really want to do is for everybody I know to think of her, even people who didn't know her. Grief is so, so hard.
posted by BlahLaLa at 9:42 AM on October 1, 2019 [24 favorites]

There's a difference between public and private online, too. I post a once-yearly memorial on my public Facebook for MrsMogur, but in a widow's FB private group, I talk about her *constantly*.
posted by Mogur at 9:51 AM on October 1, 2019 [14 favorites]

This really hits me where I live right now.
posted by rednikki at 9:58 AM on October 1, 2019

Google says "reticent" means not revealing ones thoughts or feelings readily which seems perfect for this.

Social media is strangely isolating. I think we would all do well to use it sparingly and reach out in one-to-one interactions with difficult feelings like grief.
posted by agregoli at 10:32 AM on October 1, 2019 [2 favorites]

But what it means is if they look back through my activity here, they will see no mention of themselves or of significant family events like deaths (of people I love very much, but who I don't mention here). As young people growing up with their lives extensively publicly documented, will that absence feel like someone was consciously protecting them? or will it feel like not having been seen?

Good reminder to write things down or record them for loved ones privately.
posted by agregoli at 10:35 AM on October 1, 2019 [2 favorites]

My sister died twelve days ago. I only mentioned it once on Facebook. Three short paragraphs. I think I got away with it.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 10:37 AM on October 1, 2019 [12 favorites]

"Small point, but is it time to give up the fight on “reticent?” It’s traditionally not a synonym for “reluctant,” but I’ve watched the word just collapse over the past 10 years, like one star collapsing into another."

It is always time to give up the fight against people using words. Language is defined exactly by the people using it, grammar and dictionaries are just goobers playing catch up.
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:38 AM on October 1, 2019 [7 favorites]

This question twisted me up so much when my husband died 7 years ago, it's a big part of why I've posted maybe three things on FB since then. Between the sort of 'am I showing off my grief' question in the linked article, and the massive freakout his sister had when I was tagged on a photo captioned as a memorial (it was a few candles lit at a regular annual event) where she assumed I had deliberately excluded his family, I just gave up on facebook at that point.
posted by buildmyworld at 10:45 AM on October 1, 2019 [3 favorites]

A friend of mine died suddenly last year after two years of cancer. She was my age, a fellow triathlete, and we'd see each other sporadically at races. She was always bright and cheerful, even when she was massively in the pain cave and cursing her slow pace, she had some magic way of presenting it as "yeah, it sucks, still beats housework". And we interacted occasionally on Facebook; even a "like" was a moment of "oh hey K saw my post, nice" and it was like she reached out and said "thinking of you!" ever so briefly.

I never even had a question about posting the half a dozen pictures I had of the two of us at races. My favorite was one where we had both placed in our age groups, and she ran up to me and gave me the biggest hug in the world. I was wearing my kit with the red/black shorts, and the way the angle lined up, I looked down south like I was part of the Polish cycling team. And very happy to see her. I did edit that one before posting.

I have thought about it, though. Do I want to get hundreds of likes on those pictures? HELL YES. I want everyone to know that this is my friend, and she made my life fractionally better, and I'm the athlete (and person) I am in large part because of her positive attitude and demeanor. If someone wants to think of me as an attention whore, it's no skin off my balls. They can think what they like, I can't change their minds, and it doesn't affect me one bit. The rest of the people who like and comment, they're helping me as well.

Works for me.
posted by disconnect at 10:46 AM on October 1, 2019 [5 favorites]

Reticent about....

Reluctant to....
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 10:52 AM on October 1, 2019 [10 favorites]

I'm certainly not the arbiter of social media currency, but in my head, I give out "keeping it real" social media awards to friends who air their difficulties and griefs, and try to reflect that in my interactions.

I appreciate the friends who post periodic memorials for their family. There's already too damn much evidence that love is too often disposable. It's nice to be reminded that the opposite is true too.

There are some things that I might judge as performative, as done to be seen rather than felt. To the extent I worry about that, it's as much to reflect on ways in which a performative approach to my own emotions has at times cost me terribly as it is to roll my eyes at anyone else.

You can't be an uninsulated live wire all the time, but you have to have points of connection, and there's no point to this social media stuff if it doesn't serve to convey real feelings sometimes.
posted by wildblueyonder at 11:12 AM on October 1, 2019 [5 favorites]

Just as there's no right or wrong way to grieve, there's no right or wrong way to grieve online. Everyone needs to cope and express themselves in their own way. I'mm sure there are some people who are doing it for clicks, just as there were some Victorians who used grief to manipulate others, but that's on them. We need to support our friends through loss, and if we think they are overdoing it, call them on it. But we can't judge others for the way they cope with death. It comes for us all, and we all deal with it differently.
posted by YoungStencil at 11:22 AM on October 1, 2019 [5 favorites]

This is something that's been on my mind for a while -- I wouldn't say I've been struggling with it, but it's something that makes me go hmm. My grandmother died a little over a year and a half ago, and since she was my only actual family, I'd told stories about her on my social media accounts and had posted things about her final decline and death. I haven't posted much about her since, because my grief is complex (our relationship was WEIRD) and if I post anything at all about her the response will be sad emojis and more condolences, even if I'm posting a Facebook memory of the time she held out a candle and said to me, "Hey, smell this, it smells just like horse piss" and then got SUPER pissed off at me when I declined to smell the piss candle, which... no. I don't want to deal with that, with other people's feelings about my feelings. I want to be able to talk about her as she actually was, without having to deal with the sad feelings of people who never met her, never knew her, and don't understand AT ALL what my relationship with her was really like.

So, I don't talk about her. And as a result, people seem to think I don't care, or that I'm not still grieving the loss of the only parent figure I ever had. Because I'm not posting pictures of her, or maudlin memories, or anything. The way I display my grief in this public forum isn't on the approved list of ways to display an emotion, I guess. And I don't know how I feel about it. I'm glad that I have a couple of trusted friends who know the complexities of my relationship with her, at least I have them when I really do need to talk. But when the subject of my grandmother has come up among other people who mostly interact with my social media presence, there's just... the implication that I'm doing grief wrong, because they do their grieving of their loved ones in a more public way than I do, and somehow my way is just not passing muster.
posted by palomar at 11:24 AM on October 1, 2019 [12 favorites]

My father passed away a few years ago and I've shared that pain with my friends online a good bit. I was a Daddy's girl, so his loss hit me very, very hard. Every year on the anniversary of his death, Facebook or Instagram will remind of the photo I posted the day I announced his death. Which hurts. But it's the photo of my dog that I posted an hour before I found out he was dying that makes me sob when it comes up in the timeline. Or the pictures posted after his death of me putting on a brave face. It's so bizarre when that "On this day" in Google photos shows selfies of me or with friends and you can clearly see the Before Dad Died pictures and the After Dad Died.

It's all in the eyes.

But I still talk about his death and what it meant to me pretty openly.

On the other hand, I found out through the beauty of DNA testing this summer that the man who raised me wasn't actually my biological father. I haven't shared that with anyone but my closest friends until now. It's like having him die a second time and it's sometimes more than I can stand. But I don't feel like it's grief I'm able to have publicly yet. Mainly because my mother is still alive and it's her story too. But also because I worry that if people know he wasn't my "real" dad, would that lessen how much I should hurt from his death? Would they think it's all drama and no llama?
posted by teleri025 at 11:46 AM on October 1, 2019 [8 favorites]

Most of the people I am friends with on social media make a point to write huge, grandiose eulogies on Facebook regarding deaths of people and pets. I was more inclined to do so on platform such as Livejournal when I was much younger but I find it very...odd at this age (mid 30s). Then again, they also post about their engagements, jobs, all of that and I think it is just...using the platform the way it was originally intended. But there is something about the addition of comments and "likes" that adds a layer of squick to it.
posted by Young Kullervo at 11:53 AM on October 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

My best friend died of cancer last year; I live in another country. Facebook has been a big help in the grieving process as all of us who were part of her friend group can commiserate even though we don't all live in the same town anymore.

It does sometimes worry me that people will think it's performative, but, y'know what, fuck those people, she was my closest friend in the world and I'm allowed to be publicly sad that she's gone.
posted by joannemerriam at 12:29 PM on October 1, 2019 [5 favorites]

I am really grateful for everyone sharing why they do or do not post about their grief in public forums.

We're rapidly approaching the third anniversary of my brother's death and first anniversary of my Gran's passing. I want to shout about them, and their lives and how much they mean to me... At the same time I want to hold them close and precious to my heart and not share them with anyone. But then, what if I forget them, am I letting them down if I don't do everything I can to share what they taught me?
posted by Braeburn at 12:35 PM on October 1, 2019 [4 favorites]

I post "real" stuff on FB, even if I'm one of the last people I know who even goes on FB, because I need the support and the one or two likes I get are the only support I have access to. Sad state of affairs.
posted by bleep at 12:35 PM on October 1, 2019 [6 favorites]

Performative grief (like performative love, which is scarcely less aggravating) is like pornography: difficult to define, but I know it when I see it.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:44 PM on October 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

Despite what many make out, millennials Gen X'ers people are actually reticent to get real on social media. Instead of being emotionally candid we’re perpetually sarcastic, self-deprecating and deliberately unpolished. Being “too online” or oversharing too readily is uncool.

posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 1:01 PM on October 1, 2019

When I think about Facebook and the like as a social space, then it doesn't feel strange at all to process grief there with your friends and family. But, when I think about social media services for what they are, advertising platforms driven by engagement with content provided by users for free, it feels wrong.

I don't want my grief to be monetized.
posted by Reyturner at 1:09 PM on October 1, 2019 [8 favorites]

I don't worry about being deemed "performative" by anyone; I just don't believe in putting my business on the street (and also donating it for free to a social media giant). People have censors in their heads which are beyond my comprehension. You think I'm too sad about a rescue dog whose adventures I've followed for years dying? You are cordially invited to jump into the nearest lake. (Oh, Roo. Roo loved splashing about in lakes.)

"Will someone think I'm being Extra" rather than "is this a matter better dealt with in privacy" is just such a weird way to frame expressing your feelings.

One issue that can come up on social media is different people interacting with the news in different, conflicting ways. When a relative who had difficult relations with much of the rest of the family died last year, I had to ask people not to comment on the Facebook post I made mentioning it (there's no way to turn off comments on individual posts!). I didn't want to have to manage a controversy. I just wanted people to know.
posted by praemunire at 1:17 PM on October 1, 2019 [3 favorites]

A peer that I had served with passed away 3 years ago. He and I were roommates on a deployment and spent a fair amount of time together for 9 months. Even though we had both moved on to the next thing, and not talked in about 2 years, I shared online my memory of that time we spent together. Facebook was the place that I, and others, could share that in a way that his family, that we had never met, could see. I wanted to in some small way be able to tell his family that he touched others' lives and would be remembered. That seemed important. So I don't think it is just about our grief, sharing can help other people who are also grieving.

Does that mean that sometimes there might be insincerity and performance? Perhaps, but I think it is safe to say that if we assume those grieving posts are from folks doing the best they can, and that they are sincere, that will probably be okay.
posted by HycoSpeed at 6:54 PM on October 1, 2019 [2 favorites]

Reticent/reluctant < If someone wants to think of me as an attention whore, it's no skin off my balls. They can think what they like, I can't change their minds, and it doesn't affect me one bit.

If you are concerned about sharing your feelings or grief about someone you love to a small gathering of folk--some of who you know and some you do not know--then do not share it. If you feel as though that group will feel accepting and embracing, then share it. Everyone who hears you will argue whether or not it is being shared to get some self-centered attention. Those people do not concern you.

Honestly, grieve how you need to; analog, meat, or digital. Fuck the noise, your signal is honest. Yell, be quiet, be public, be shallow, be personal. Post a photo because you love and miss that person and do not sweat the consequences. Love should not have consequences.

But please be thorough with your grief. Do not let anything hold you back.
posted by Johnny Hazard at 8:23 PM on October 1, 2019 [3 favorites]

Studies show that the awareness of potential surveillance changes behaviour. People are aware that everything they post to Facebook/Instagram is analysed and goes into a sort of behavioural dossier (typically used for sorting people into advertising demographics). As such, posting X online becomes primarily not about X but about the act of posting X: am I living a #blessed life, am I too narcissistic, and perhaps soon, how will this affect my insurance premiums?
posted by acb at 2:41 AM on October 2, 2019 [2 favorites]

Real life : Come and look at this beautiful sunset!

Online : Come and look at this picture of the beautiful sunset that I just took!
posted by Cardinal Fang at 3:19 AM on October 2, 2019

(Pssst: the earliest citation of reticent used like reluctant is from 1875. The earliest citation of reticent overall is from 1825. Probably time to stop worrying about it.)
posted by Panthalassa at 4:16 AM on October 2, 2019 [3 favorites]

This is difficult to navigate. A friend died in tragic/somewhat-public circumstances. As the media trolled around for people to talk to, they grabbed some folks who were more peripheral but actively mourning on social media. His very closest friends were hurt and thought that the others were grandstanding. I think the others just wanted folks to know about this great person we had all lost, but it caused a rift that I don't think has healed or even been addressed in the intervening years.
posted by the christopher hundreds at 5:57 AM on October 2, 2019 [2 favorites]

Come to think of it, I once grieved for the death of someone who I didn't really know well, because he was a good person and so young and it happened completely without warning and he left a partner and young children behind, and I thought it was very tragic and unjust, and I was accused of grandstanding by an ex-friend even though I didn't even post about it online at all. Maybe that's why I feel like I'm certainly not going to be sharing feelings of grief etc on social media any time soon.
posted by Panthalassa at 6:53 AM on October 2, 2019

How afraid we are of being our authentic selves, no matter what the medium! It's not like we are able to brag about our children or celebrate our wild successes or mourn our losses openly in real life, either. We worry that talking about our children too much comes across as boastful or crying in public two years after a divorce is unseemly or whatever. The label "performative" has always been weaponized against the expression of our true selves. This isn't about social media, really. It's just that social media has made the conversation that much bigger. Where before it used to be just our mean aunties and catty grandfathers trying to shame us into silence, now it's... everyone who happens to be uncomfortable with emotion.
posted by MiraK at 10:57 AM on October 2, 2019 [5 favorites]

I would wager that many of us wary of sharing very personal, private things like grief on social media are wary not because we're "afraid" of being our authentic selves, but because we've had a number of negative experiences as a result of others misunderstanding our previous expressions of authentic selfhood, interpreting our lived experiences through their own distorted lenses, and we're tired of dealing with that. It's a lot of emotional labor, putting one's raw emotions out there and then having to correct misapprehensions in a loving and kind way. It's akin to being a young mother venting child-related frustration or exhaustion and getting a wave of "don't complain, you'll miss this when it's over"-flavored responses.
posted by palomar at 11:40 AM on October 2, 2019 [7 favorites]

It's been, well, interesting recently. My favorite dog in the whole world, the dog of one of my closest friends, the dog who got me over my lifelong wariness of dogs, the dog who I travel a few thousand miles twice a year, at least, to hang out with (well, and with the dog's person, too), has multiple myeloma. Right now he's doing really well on chemo, but that lasts only as long as it lasts. He's going to die, probably within the next year or so, maybe a little later if we're all lucky.

And when I first got the news, I thought...this dog has never shown me anything but open and unconditional affection. He loses his mind every time I first walk into his house on one of my visits. He flops on his back and waves his legs in the air ridiculously to tempt me to pay attention to him. He's not a huge cuddler, but when I'm sad he graciously consents to provide soft warm fur to bury my face in. As cautious as I am about being vulnerable around people who are not close friends or family, I'll be damned if I'm going to hide how I'm feeling about his illness and eventual death from the other people in my life. If they think it's weird I'm heartbroken over a dog I see for less than two weeks a year, well, let them think it's weird. I owe this dog that much, who has always been so open with me. Right? What am I afraid of?
posted by praemunire at 11:47 AM on October 2, 2019 [7 favorites]

Agreed, Palomar, I was saying we are afraid to be authentic precisely because of the reasons you mentioned. So many social strictures against authenticity and in favor of, idk, decorum? And ironic that "performative!!!" is the epithet used to shame authentic expressions of whatever we are feeling in the moment, when what is being demanded of us instead is precisely performance - performance of respectability and acceptability, which are above all else scripted, predictable.

We would all be better off if voices in our head that say "Performative!" - to ourselves or to others - were shut up.
posted by MiraK at 12:27 PM on October 2, 2019 [3 favorites]

Ah, I see. I don't really see fear of authenticity and unwillingness to perform emotional labor as the same thing.
posted by palomar at 2:58 PM on October 2, 2019

What an intriguing distinction! You're probably right, fear might be the wrong word to use here. "Discouraged" from authenticity is more true.
posted by MiraK at 6:08 AM on October 3, 2019