Everything’s accelerated these days, and the same must be said for grief online. The Internet cycles through all five stages in as many tweets. We find it hurtling toward us: unavoidable, wall-to-wall.
And then, before we’ve processed it, the grief’s already gone.
In the four days since extremists slaughtered 129 people in Paris, millions of witnesses — present only through their computer screens — posted prayers and pictures and promised solidarity. For four hours, then five, then six, they trended Twitter hashtags like #PorteOuverte and #PrayforParis. They laid French flags over their Facebook photos and shared images by artists like Jean Jullien. And just as quickly, their posts reverted: back to quips about sports teams, viral videos, pictures with friends — now posted by little avatars striped in the French blue, white and red.
These posts feel inappropriate — indecorous, somehow. As if their posters were telling jokes at a very somber funeral. The world must move on, of course; no one’s saying it shouldn’t. And social media makes an imprecise weather vane for our collective conscience. Still, it makes one wonder: Is there a half-life to grief? And has the Internet shortened it, as it has all other things?
On Twitter, the hashtag #PrayforParis trended globally for only five hours and 35 minutes on Saturday; #ParisAttacks did a little better, at six hours and change. (The Twitter algorithm is biased toward novelty.)
By Sunday, not a single solidarity hashtag made the