Today a friend told me about her good friend's brother who died of a heart attack. He was only 43. I could tell by the timber in her voice that she was broken up. She had grown up with the family and this hit her personally. A few minutes later, a friend emails me about Andrew Breitbart who had died. Turns out...it was the same person. There's no question that Andrew was a polarizing figure. But as a public figure, in death, there seem to be different rules. Earlier that morning, I felt bad for my friend who had lost someone. He was a brother, a father, a son, and a friend. The loss was tragic. But once my friend posted it on Facebook, the gloves of sympathy came off and the vitriol drenched the Facebook walls. People who didn't know the man but merely didn't like his political stance felt they had the right to celebrate his death with disrespect and filth that they would have never in thousands years said about someone they knew in person. What's worse is they said this to someone who did know him and was personally affected by his life. I don't know why people feel they have the right to say such hateful things about someone who has no power to defend themselves just because they have a soap box to say it. I think people forget that though our experience with the internet is done in solitude...everything we do is public. It's like people forget that the internet is written in ink. It's not always what you say that matters...but sometimes what your don't say.
Here are the 11 Best Songs By The School of Seven Bells:
- ILU (Disconnect From Desire)
- White Elephant Coat (Alpinisms)
- Heart Is Strange (Disconnect From Desire)
- Dust Devil (Disconnect From Desire)
- Half Asleep (Alpinisms)
- Sempiternal/Amaranth (Alpinisms)
- Camarilla (Disconnect From Desire)
- Bye Bye Bye (Disconnect From Desire)
- Face To Face On High Places (Alpinisms)
- iamundernodisguise (Alpinisms)
- Limb By Limb (Face To Face On High Places)
Buy the School of Seven Bells new album Ghostory...now!
<because they have a soap box to say it
ReplyDeleteWe're you saying that about Andy, or his detractors? I don't remember him ever giving anyone a fair response to any invective he spewed out. Hey the guy was an asshole when alive, you can't expect people suddenly to ignore all the foul and disgusting things he said, out of some weird respect for his memory.
It's nice to have YOUR soapbox and have your say and be completely anonymous though isn't it "acompleteunknown"?
Pot, kettle, black.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/post/shirley-sherrod-reflects-on-her-link-to-andrew-breitbart/2012/03/01/gIQAgP8ykR_blog.html
I'm saying it about both. And I think you make a valid point about having a soap box. That's why I am very conscious about what I say and who I say it about. And there's a big difference between people going on Facebook walls and spitting venom and me questioning whether that is acceptable behavior.
ReplyDelete