Recently I've been seeing a lot of people overlaying the French flag over their pictures on Facebook and making all sorts of posts and sharing items declaring their solidarity with the French people. At the same time I've seen a camp of people arguing about how there's been a lack of coverage of the Beirut bombing or the ever increasing risk of a genocide happening in Burundi and saying that we are focusing too much on the suffering of the first world.
A third encampment has been stating their view that all lives matter and that solidarity with one is solidarity with all, and then there's the whole group of people that would rather have nothing to do with any of this via social media. It's kind of exhausting but at the same time interesting.
Do we find ourselves making these posts and altering our images in an effort to comprehend the incomprehensible and to attempt to help those who have suffered, despite their distance? Is there any point to expressing any support or argument against support in such a reactionary period? Has anyone else noticed this recent flare-up, and how it seems to happen every time there's an incident like this?
Edit: Maybe a better question is why do we convince ourselves that the actions we make after these kinds of events matter at all.
I feel like this time around is fast tracked version of what we've seen before. At least on my (American young-adult Facebook Feed) It's been ~24 hours now and we've gone from:
- Initial reaction of shock, world leaders make statements. We listened to NPR on our drive home thru rush hour traffic. The numbers were still at 35 confirmed...then 40 confirmed. 7 locations, then 7 shooters...etc.
- Shock echoed on social media, numbers go up and down and up again, most people sharing live threads from reputable news sources (BBC, NYTimes, Reuters) and sharing prayers. (When we got home (5pm PST)). Cue misinformation.
- Started getting notifications that people I know in Paris were safe. Turns out, a whole crew of flimies I went to school there were on location for a shoot. Luckily, all safe.
- "Remember that this is happening everywhere" ... "Beirut" ... "Pray for everyone not just Paris" ... and the first sign of what I take as "too cool for the standard 'my thoughts/prayers are with those in Paris' messages"
- Muslims begin preemptively posting "remember these people are Muslim. I pray for Paris." and images about the difference between a Muslim and a terrorist. (No one has taken responsibility yet and no one official has blamed ISIS yet. But it has begun)
- People begin changing profile pics to either: Eiffel tower drawing, pictures of them in Paris, or creative Paris/France related other things to show solidarity.
- Misinformation, recaps of the idiotic things politicians have said, "guns in the hands of victims would have prevented this." (This morning (3am PST)).
- Arguing about refugee crisis. Merkel makes statement.
- Analysis on idiotic things people said the previous day. Dems bash GOP, GOP bash Dems.
- Misinformation galore (Eiffle tower goes dark!) and personal stories come out, "my phone saved my life", "this american girl was one of the victims", more details emerge about the shooters and passports are found but who knows what is true or not at this point.
- Discussions about gun laws, information collection, security, blame game begins.
- Everyone changes their Facebook profile photos using Facebook's tool.
- Refugee argument ensues again. One of the gunmen (?) supposedly arrived via refugee routes. Predictions and analysis of Merkel's earlier statement.
- Preemptive predictions on tonights Dem debate. All we know for sure is it their talking points are being rehashed for Paris.
- Analysis on design of the now iconic things we're seeing on our feeds begins. Analysis on Facebooks Safety feature begins.
- Full blown confusion of blame, more details, videos, misinformation, grief, solidarity, "we should always be solidarity with everyone!", statements, more blame, more analysis, analysis on the analysis of the analysis.
- This upcoming week: Profile pics slowly return to normal, factually accurate details emerge but are quickly swamped by other news stories so only their politicized remnants remain. No one gets nuked, but those calling for nuking make it easy for you to cull your friends list.
- Next months: politics / war happens slowly and quietly, policies change, privacy invaded, security beefed up, everything returns to the new "normal".
posted 3083 days ago