Cyber-Spaces of Grief
Maya Socolovsky’s article about cyberspace and grief focuses on the idea of online memorials and the ways in which they are different from their real life counterparts. She starts off by discussing the September 11th memorials and the speed at which they were created, such as the t-shirts and models that were being sold mere weeks after the attacks. Socolovsky then goes on to discuss the ways in which physical memorials seem more tangible and permanent as opposed to web-based memorials. Finally, Socolovsky discusses in further detail specific web memorials – three victims of the Columbine shootings – and the ways in which they affect people. In the process of discussing the Columbine shooting victims memorials Socolovsky also touches on the concept of religion and politics when used in conjunction with memorials.
What I would like to discuss more is something I feel the author didn’t bring any attention to, despite it being fairly relevant to the topic. While she does discuss the different ways web memorials make us think and feel I don’t feel as though she adequately discussed some of the reasons that they are becoming more and more commonplace. I feel that a huge reason they are more common is simply due to the fact that they are fast and fairly cheap. When discussing vitrualmemorials.com specifically, she says that a text base memorial is free, and there are packages running from $25 to $225 (12). Though I don’t have exact numbers on hand, I know that even a simple “real life” memorial such as a gravesite can cost much more than that – the gravestone alone can cost $225, if not much more. The time required for a web memorial to be created is also much less than a physical memorial. In a few hours or days time a decent web memorial can be created and viewed. For a physical memorial, the time investment is much larger. To go back to the simple gravesite example, a quick google search tells me that headstones can take several weeks to be created. That is quite a difference in time, and the gap increases as the size of the physical memorial increases (the Vietnam memorial took about 8 months to be completed). Though the point of a memorial is not to minimize cost or build time, those two factors certainly restrict people who might otherwise want to create a grandiose display to honor their loved ones. To conclude, I have the following questions:
1) What do you think the author meant by using the word “Other”?
2) Several times the author hints at the idea that online memorials are not as “effective” or emotional as physical memorials. What do you think of this notion?
3) Besides cost and speed, what other factors do you think have contributed to the increase in online memorials?
4 comments:
The idea of an online memorial is a great idea. It can allow for a person who has lost something/someone to create a piece of artwork to memorialize the lost so as to help them console their grief. For this purpose, an electronic memorial can be hugely consoling and effective. But web-based memorial does not have the same impact that a physical memorial can. This is because of the time and money that it takes to create one. A web memorial is cheap and fast, and really can help a single person or small group, but the combined effort of several people to create a physical memorial over a long period of time shows so much more thought, dedication, and love, which is why an electronic memorial cannot have the same impact.
I think that web based memorials are nowhere near as meaningful. I think seeing something memorialized is the best thing for the survivors, their families, and the families of the deceased. I think though, for people who have a true connection to what is being memorialized, that a wed-based memorial may still be meaningful. I personally like the physical memorials since they allow people to develop more of a connection to the event. I think that online memorials have grown because they are simpler to put together. People think that they still mean loads and they show how everyone has jumped on the charity bandwagon. I think that by making these memorials, they can be a part of the action.
I believe for the most part that memorials aren’t really built for those who have died, or strictly for the tragedy that has occurred but more as a coping mechanism for the living. It is a way to grieve and remember. Since people need things like memorials to grieve it only makes sense that in this day and age where the internet is so personalized that people would use it for their own grief. It is not just huge tragedies like Columbine, September 11, or Katrina or other natural disasters, it’s also people who have lost a friend to a car accident or a grandmother just to age and other personal, private things like that. The internet is very much used as an extension of ourselves as we can see in programs such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and even a site like this, Blogger. It is no wonder that more and more people are publishing their pain online because it has become the near equivalent of the real world and real world remembrance for some
Part of web-based memorials that I think everyone else overlooked is their reach. If I created a memorial Facebook group for a friend, I could have 30 of my friends view and comment on it within an hour. With a physical memorial, though, I would spend much more time working on it, and even though it might have a bit more impact, access to it would be much less convenient for everyone. When comparing the types of memorial on a cost/time vs exposure basis, online ones win easily.
On the other hand, however, physical memorials do have the ability to be much more moving. I was in Washington D.C. this summer and was able to visit all of the major memorials for various wars. For the Korean war memorial in particular, I held little interest in the beginning, but after spending time at the memorial, and seeing the ghostly soldier statues; not in glorified poses, but in raincoats and trekking gear, I was able to find an appreciation for both the memorial itself and who it was memorializing.
All in all, I think that online memorials have their place as somewhere easy for people to come to when nothing else is available, but nothing can compare to the meaning and physical presence of a live memorial.
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