5 Things You Learn When A Facebook Friend Dies
You're going to die one day. It might be a lot sooner than you think, and, when it happens, your social media friends will have no idea how to deal with it.
www.cracked.com
We're living in this weird era where the death of an internet friend is a thing. For example, I've noticed we lost GeorgeJL recently.
Seeing his name crossed out feels weird, honestly. Same with ILoveRockART. She used to post here about pretty rocks. We didn't talk at all, but it's the little things I'm noticing, mainly that there are no pretty rocks anymore, it seems.
I occasionally liked her posts, and... that was it. Just liking her posts every so often.
@Nem is still with us, I just don't see him on the chat this much. @Nem, if you see this, was it you, the batshit crazy guy who streamed himself eating unholy spicy chips and chugging milk?
Also, "Deeeeaaaathhhhhh". I no longer see "Deeeaaaaaaaathhhhhh" in the chat and... I kinda miss that.
My point is, this place is quite possibly the best (or worst, depending on your perspective) place to experience this. You make acquaintances or friends with somebody, and then they're gone one day. Did they CTB? Did they manage to recover and decide to leave this place? How do you cope with this kind of question? How do you ingest it?
Honestly, I want people to recover. I want them to accept and try to better their shitty lives. I want to better my shitty life too, but... we'll see. And now I'm asking myself a weird question: "will anybody on the internet miss me?"
I think my best example of this (for myself) is when I just made an account. I looked into the shoutbox and saw some shit unveiling in real-time. Out of respect for all parties involved, even though I doubt they are still here or... you know... alive... I won't recall any of the details I remember, even though my memory is shit, and what I remember is most likely not what happened.
Here's how I see it, at least: I log in for my daily (at least one) dose of SS, click "WHAT'S NEW", and every so often somebody posts in one of George's threads. I see his name crossed out and think "George? Why is HE ban-- OH! Right... dead... not banned, d-- NEW INFO SN? That's my thing! What's that about?"
I became kind of... what's the word? Disentisized to it? Accepting?
I'll mourn crossed-out names a little. Those of us who CTB... well, they were in a shit place, but they're still human. They still deserve respect, honor, they deserve somebody to remember them in a positive light and not the one their surroundings put them in.
Right now, as I write this, I see @Rachel74's thread "In hospital and confused but want help."
I'm happy for her. She found her calling, she found a reason to not CTB.
Below that, I see "I want to live finally" with a crossed-out name. Banned or...
I read it out of respect. I searched all content by this guy. Guy? Girl? Who and what were they? Their last post was yesterday at 8PM. Less than 24 hours ago. So close, but at the same time... what were their final hours like? Good? Bad? I hope more good than bad. I always do. I hope they self-banned instead of CTB.
So yeah... weird feelings. Mixed. Will somebody sometime in the future have mixed feelings for me? Just some guy over the internet, a fuckzillion miles away in a shit place?
Will I ever start hanging out in the recovery section in some vain attempt to actually recover and not root for people?
