Does the situation change for you that your former 'FBfriend' were mocking them after they had already died? Or is it the fact that no one knew if they were alive or not that the jokes were ghoulish and tasteless?
It does not change anything, no.
There's no real time objective truth here; it's about peoples' attitudes. My former FBriend was "giggling with glee" at the prospect of people dying horribly because he had an opinion about their business practices ("oligarchs") and how they had no sympathy for suffering. He's a smart guy; it cannot have escaped him how he has no sympathy for suffering - i.e. he has lowered himself the very thing he despises.
I would say mocking people and saying they deserved to die a horrible death is ghoulish as they are dying and after they have died.
I'd categorize mocking people who are dead is more
crass than
ghoulish. The dead are beyond fear and suffering, so there's no "harm" that can be done to them.
I'm not a complete prude (or whatever the cynicism equivalent of prudeness is). I
get mocking dead people. Hitler weas an asshole, and jokes about him are acceptable.
But there is a somewhat disconcerting aspect of it, as we may believe that someone deserves a horrible death and it can come down to a matter of who the person is and matter of degrees, wouldn't you say?
I think I stop short of anyone "deserving" a horrible death. What I think someone deserves says more about what's in
my heart than anything objective about them. I try not to colour my heart with too much blackness. (But that's just me. I have led a privileged life, free from violence and crime, so I may
sympathize, but I am unable to
empathize with sufferers of calamity. I grant that they may have a VERY different take on what terrible people "deserve").
(It's also a funny place for an atheist to be in. There's no higher power or ultimate justice to appeal to. So it's not like my FBriend's glee can actually be heard by - let alone hurt - the victims. Realistically, there should be no difference in feeling about before versus after death mockery.)
For example, if a child sex offender died a horrible death or was in the process of dying a horrible death, then people may joke about it or make some ghoulish comments, because society as a whole has a belief that some people deserve 'what they get'. Would the same sentiment apply here? Perhaps.
I'm perfectly fine with mockery after death. It's the before death that rankles me.
The CEO of OceanGate has mocked and derided safety measure
s that would have seen him and the passengers alive today. Do I think he deserves to have died a horrible death? No. But, and there's a big "but" here, there is a sense of irony. Tragic, yes. Ironic? Also yes.
Indeed. More and more is coming out. And it's looking really bad.
Nothing that happens after their death though can change how I feel about my former FBriend's gleeful giggling at people who - at the time - we thought were suffering one of the worst possible looming deaths (slow asphyxiation, alone).
But then there is the discomforting part of this particular case. There is something primal about being stuck in a metal tube deep in the ocean, and the thought of oxygen running out makes us feel a sense of horror - which is probably why so much attention was given to this story
That's the thing I can empathize with. When I transport myself into that capsule for even a second my heartrate and beathing rate speed up in a rising panic. Adrenaline boost is not a good way to try to get to sleep at night. I have to actively turn way from the thought.
and continues to be given to this story, as the news now suggests that some human remains were found in the bits of wreckage that was brought up. Is it something to joke about? It depends on the individual. Not everyone responds to that primal horror in the same way. Not everyone grieves the same way. For many, humour is a coping mechanism as it allows them to hide their true horror of what is happening (and let's face the reality here, the thought of suffocating to death in a metal tube in the ocean is a horrible prospect and while their deaths are a tragedy, there is a blessing in that it happened instantly). Blaming these victims, and particularly the CEO and owner of the sub, for their hubris, may also be a coping mechanism.
Yep. All of which I'm OK with
once their fate is sealed.
I tried to give my FBriend plenty of warning. I simply said
it is bad form to mock people while they are in the process of dying horrible - maybe wait till after they're dead. I even 'snoozed' him to get a break from him.
But he persisted - in fact, doubled down - with how they're heartless oligarchs that deserve to die horribly. It didn't matter to him that one of them just just a 19-year-old who couldn't have made his living off the backs of slavery and poverty - he was just "the son who's inheriting his fortune made on suffering".
I think what is interesting about this sub is what people choose to focus on. A boat full of refugees and asylum seeker sinking, leading to many deaths barely registered. But a 'tourist' sub full of billionaires disappearing in the depths of the Titanic saw wall to wall coverage around the world. In this case, the coverage itself became ghoulish, as news media were counting down the hours of oxygen left, praying on people's primal horror. While that refugee boat barely registered on the media's radar. But I think the media played a lot in the ghoulish aspect of it all and feeding that primal fear of suffocating to death, led many people to respond in ways they probably normally wouldn't have.
Yep, That's what happened to me.
I'm not going to lie, I did chuckle at a few of the Orca jokes I saw on Twitter when it came to rich people and 'boats'. But I was very cognisant of why I was chuckling or found it funny.
Yes. No trouble laughing at that.
I wasn't doing so to laugh at people dying of suffocation. There are many reasons why the people you followed on Facebook may have responded as they did. Maybe it's their way of covering their own terror? Maybe they just decided to pile on because everyone else was? Or maybe, they are just sadistic arseholes.
He is, granted, a troubled soul. Known him since high school. Has Bipolar Disorder (even
he didn't know that back then) - and is coping with hating humanity by living alone on a swamp with only enough electricity for an hour of internet trolling a day. It does not seem to be helping.
But his friends - who chimed in with their own ghoulism - have no such excuse (Jesse and Wesley in OP screen shot).
Which is why I have to act to protect myself from that particular toxicity. I feel a
little bad - he doesn't have a lot of friends.