Post by amberlyrose on Apr 12, 2021 12:09:30 GMT -5
I think circumstances can change this, but my personal rule is: -If it's not family, wait until someone from the family posts. -If it is close family (grandkid, cousin), wait until their closest relative posts (child, spouse) or at least 24 hours later.
My anecdotes: I almost learned about my cousin's tragic death on FB. Thankfully, my mom woke me up 10 minutes before my morning alarm to tell me. I checked FB and my AW cousins had already posted. My aunt had to ask that the posts be taken down, which is not something you want to deal with when your child passes. I'm talking, she passed around 1-2am and posts were up by 7am. Since then, any announcements in our family come with "please don't post this on FB for now/until x person posts" including when my grandparents were both in the hospital with COVID.
(semi-@@@ and trigger warning) I'm also from a small town and my HS grad class has had more than our share of tragic deaths. I have learned a lot of formerly close friends have died on FB and usually in a gossipy type of way. Unfortunately, the last death was a close family friend as well, who moved away and most of his immediate family did not know he was gay. He was close with them but they were religious and he never brought up boyfriends, etc. So when the manner of his death (abusive ex) came out before they could inform his grandparents or cousins, his family was very upset. Not only did his mom have to deal with the grief, she also had to do damage control with her family. It was a mess. All because a few AW girls from HS decided to post the gruesome manner of how he died all over social media. I'm still so angry about it.
Lastly, when DH's dad died, I actually got the phone call from the police. After I called him, he asked me to get a hold of his closest cousin and one aunt while he dealt with calling his sister. I told aunt she was welcome to tell people but we asked that it be kept off the internet for 24 hours until we could get to Arizona and figure it all out. We also asked if she could be the one to post because she knew more of his people and neither kid felt like dealing with condolences as they were not close to FIL. Very awkward dynamic. I think by being up front and designating one person to be the one to announce, it saved a lot of headache for H and SIL. There were a few snide remarks from two of his friends that H or SIL didn't acknowledge the death online, but they would've been hateful either way.
I think it's hard to give a hard and fast rule for this stuff. Like, "oh until the immediate family posts" I mean - sure but my aunt is absurd and will put shit on facebook 2 seconds after it happens (not an exaggeration). So then my cousin's wife thinks its ok to post too and the next you know somebody is finding out from the condolence text from their hairdresser that a family member died.
when some people aren't on sm at all and others are on it 24/7 you're going to have some weirdness because the social expectations are just totally different.
When my dad passed unexpectedly 2 months ago, we did not post anything on social media right away, however, that day one of his friends did. I was surprised, but was not bothered. However, we had already called and told all of the critical people already.
I am sorry for everyone who has had to deal with any "mess" because of this. It is a tough thing.
My mother in law died unexpectedly and tragically on St. Patrick's Day. My husband is an only child, and she was an only child. Since a lot of things fall to the daughters in the family, a lot of the end of life details fell to me.
We were incredibly close. I could complain to her about her son and she would lecture him to be better. She even told me that if he and I divorced she's keeping me (and he is her cherished only son).
I'm struggling not to cry just typing this.
And I am so grateful that his extended family had the sense and respect to keep anything off social media until they followed my lead (or my husband's but he didn't post). I wrote the obituary. Once it was posted by the funeral home I shared it to social media. That was 5 days after she died.
When you are choking on your breath to get through the day, the last thing you need to worry about is whether you are first to post to social media so a loved one doesn't find out that way instead of from your call. And when the family is small, the burden of calls is heavy on the individual. Not to mention there are calls to the funeral home, the morgue, the insurance companies, pension companies, etc. etc. It is exhausting.
If it's not obvious, I'm on team "follow the lead of the immediate family, and your need for public sympathy falls after the need of the immediate family to get their act together."
I wonder how this is going to change now that so much of our lives is lived online.
My grandma went to college in the 1930s, and she was best friends with her roommate her whole life. They exchanged letters about once a month until 1998 when my grandma started having mini strokes. We’re not sure when she stopped writing, because my grandma hid it when she started slipping, but by the time my mother took over her affairs and wrote to Inga’s address, there was no reply. Maybe Inga declined around the same time. It’s just such a sad coda to an epic friendship that started during the Great Depression and lasted through WWII, international moves, marriage, children, and everything else.
I don’t know, there’s a lot of downsides to SM, and I can understand being upset to learn of a death that way. But I also can see why you’d want to share. We don’t know where all of our connections are.
Post by basilosaurus on Apr 13, 2021 4:26:11 GMT -5
Semi related I just found both my grandparents obits a few days ago. They were very obviously written by the same template in the funeral home. They also both called my nephew the wrong name. His given name is often a nickname. It's like being named Chris and someone writes Christopher instead. But who reads obits anymore? That used to be notification which takes a few days. Sm is instant and some have expectations to access info instantly. My younger friends will obnoxiously call me 10x in a row if I don't pick up because they've never lived through answering machine or pre that world. No, I will not pick up if you call during dinner! My ringer will be off and the phone put away, or if I'm alone and reading my kindle app I still won't answer in public. Basically I'm 80.
I grew up in Emily post and cotillion ballroom lessons world where I literally had to curtsey and wear white gloves and sit while boys brought me cookies and punch because a lady never serves herself. Even with that anachronistic background I would give a second glance to any announcement in sm.
Ftr I've never ever had to use a single ballroom dance. Seriously anachronistic bullshit.
I'll amend my "no right or wrong" to include "if you're not an asshole"