AFRICAN PECULIARITIES: Death and Social Media

It has always filled me with disgust and wonder, the hurry that people are in to post of the demise of ‘friends’ and ‘loved-ones’ on social media. A person is barely dead, and the images are already flooding the pages, images from the years back and now. It is only then that somebody you barely talked to becomes your girlfriend and boyfriend, when the brother you fought all the time becomes beloved, or the mother you called names becomes the greatest ever loss.

Some of these people you have not contacted in years, some you have not seen. Others you could not see eye to eye when they were alive, but the moment they die, they become your beloved brother, best of friends. Your grandmother was walking barefoot while you had the best of lives in the city. You could not visit her in the village when she was sick, save for the measly Christmas visits where your desire is to show off to the low-lives that were left behind when you went to the city, to show off your car and your babies, to show them pictures of the city you come from. You were not there when she walked half-naked in the village, but as soon as she is dead…

This I must ask, is it really genuine thoughts and a conscience that pushes people to post, or an irrational harvest for sympathy? Is there a criterion for one to post such sensitive matters? And after posting it all, do you go to the ‘comments’ to like and favorite the best? Worse it is when we are literally falling over each other to post it, way before the owners of the grief even make it known. It is almost like a rat race to bring out the collage of pictures that you have created out of nowhere. If we get rational for a moment, take a step away from the screen and think about it, why exactly are we in this rush to post on social media, if not to fish for sympathy? What purge do you get after social media has seen just how close you were to this person? Where is the respect and dignity for the deceased and for their families? If we really sit down and interrogate this, don’t we really share the opinion that social media has become a disease that has permeated every corner of our existence?

I think that each and every one of us should think before we join the mad rush to become unashamed, illicit overnight celebrities and objects of pity. I think we should think and ask ourselves why we are this selective in terms of the things we post on social media. If we cannot post our dirty and convoluted moments, then the same way we should respect the deceased and their families. There are no medals for the ‘first to report a death’, and there is nothing that comes your way in the name of pity when you barely even knew the deceased. It’s really a SHAME.

J.P. Simiyu©