The way we express the pain of strangers is changing

At the end of March, Claire Rezba learned of the tragic death of Diedre Wilkes. Wilkes, a 42-year-old mammography technician, had died alone from COVID-19 at home, with her four-year-old son near her body.

Rezba, a doctor based in Richmond, Virginia, was shocked. “This story resonated with me,” he says. She was about my age. Wilkes’ death also increased Rezba’s anxiety and fears of bringing the coronavirus to his family.

His response took the form of a commemorative project. Anytime he could find a minute, Rezba searched for opinions from deceased healthcare workers. By mid-April, he had collected 150, which he began posting as an obituary for tweets on his personal Twitter account. The list, HCW from EE. UU. Lost ante Covid19“It has become a mission,” says Rezba, and it continues to grow every day.

Rezba’s Twitter account is just one of many emerging efforts to remember Covid victims online. Covid.memorial, for example, it’s a virtual album that invites people to discover the lives of the lost. NAIL Google Doc of imprisoned Americans who died from the disease shows the enormity and anonymity of the number of victims. Other catalogwhich is dedicated to the remembrance of Filipino health workers in the United States,

Although Google Doc is sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union, most of these projects are homemade, compiled by amateur Internet sleuths in honor of strangers.

In a year in which thousands of people have died, it only makes sense for people to want to find ways to understand the loss. Coronavirus patients often die on their own, with the usual rituals of observing death and treating pain being demolished by social distancing protocols. As the pandemic and rising death toll dominated the news, people trying to avoid the virus remained in their homes, feeling helpless.

Death, which is at the same time so widespread and so far away, is difficult for us to understand. Our brains are working against us researchers sayIt’s one thing to know that four people died in a car crash, for example, or that an airplane crash claimed the lives of around 100 passengers and crew. But with “big numbers” our ability to understand and empathize begins to wane.

The pre-2020 formula for dealing with death online meant remembering the deceased’s Facebook account, maybe opening an online condolence book with a funeral home, maybe a GoFundMe page to fundraise for the expenses. These new online memorials are different and invite strangers to take a look at the lives of those who have died and to participate in mourning their deaths.

Stacey Pitsillides, a design researcher at the University of Northumbria who focuses on the technology of death, says virtual worlds are among the most innovative spaces that bring aliens together to commemorate the death of covid.

“We have seen an increase in creative duels,” says Pitsillides. An example: In Animal Crossing, the best-selling simulation game of 2020, players who have lost loved ones will create monuments or in-game characters to honor them.

Even the funeral has changed. Gathering in a locked room, hugging a bereaved person, seeing a dead body – these are all potentially fatal acts in a pandemic, which has sparked a boom in Focus on funerals. “The pandemic only accelerates the funeral technology that was already in play,” says John Troyer, director of the Center for Death and Society at the University of Bath and author of Human Corpse Technologies. “Everyone can do it [webcast an event]. “

It’s not just coronavirus deaths that are commemorated in this way. AIDS deaths were commemorated this year on an Instagram account, for example. Ron Sese, a volunteer for the project, told NBC he helped an internet native Gen Z understand history: “‘If history books don’t write about us, how do we tell our stories? ? How do we share our stories? How does the next generation learn from the generation that came before them? “

Mohammad Gorjestani, filmmaker, also feels the weight of history. Gorjestani started 1800 happy birthday, which invites people to remember those killed in incidents of police brutality by leaving voicemail messages on their birthdays.

“It was limited that these police killings and outright killings were sensational in the media and, once it was no longer sensational, move on,” Gorjestani says. “It’s a disservice to the people who were alive. These were individuals who were just trying to live, not to be martyrs or symbols of political or political platforms. “

In 1800HappyBirthday, people can find the birthday of a person who has been killed by the police and who leaves a voicemail message accessible to the public. These messages are filtered to keep racists and other fans out, but are otherwise open to any memories or thoughts.

Gorjestani says the voicemail support, available to almost anyone, provides a brutality that is often lacking in a written tribute. “They’re nostalgic,” he says. “It’s sentimental, like someone is trying to contact you. It is a denominational tool. Any human being can use them.

This year’s distant life has shown that physical distance shouldn’t be a barrier to empathy. “There is a desire to translate death into a technological solution to help people experience and meaningfully understand what is far enough away right now,” Pitsillides says. “Millions of people are dying, but cell phones are a way to make these people more real, to use these spaces to create praise, record and take photos.”