Funeral Selfies? Yes, They Do Exist
Proving once again that bad taste on social media has no boundaries. Apparently, taking selfies at funerals and other serious places like Chernobyl, Pearl Harbor, ad Auschwitz is the new trend.
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My father was a homicide detective in a large city when I was born, and the first and foremost thing he taught me about self-defense was that it means we must defend ourselves, and that the police cannot protect people . . . If There Ever was an Argument for Owning a Gun, This is It! This woman was in a rural area, but it happens in cities, too.
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As the writers in the Cyberverse are aware, it’s that NaNoWriMo time again — National Novel Writing Month. The challenge is to write 50k words in 30 days.
Jenny Hansen helps folks out with Tips for Surviving the Agony and Ecstacy of NaNoWriMo.
M.J. Wright has some great advice for NaNoWriMo-ers, as well. Launching NaNo from the Starting Blocks.
Good luck, everyone, and may your muses be generous!
Not much inspires a light heart like a pile of autumn leaves. Funny Siberian Husky Playing in Leaves.
Campaign Style Question of the Week:
Love the new page & design, it’s fantastic! 🙂 I was unable to see any videos though :(. As to selfies at a funeral, I would rather stick with taking selfies from my toilet. LOL
LOL. I’m sure there must be an internet page for those out there somewhere. 🙂 Thanks for the compliment. Not sure what’s happening with the videos. I’ll ask the people I work with who actually know something about it to check into it. Thank you for the heads up.
Love the new site design! You won’t see me taking selfies at a funeral, or anywhere else for that matter. Not until my mirror and my camera show the same image. For some reason, the camera adds not only ten pounds, but ten years! 🙂
Thanks for the compliment! I’m with you on the selfies. At this point, I’d have to take 75 to get one I’d be willing to let anyone else see, and who has that kind of time? 🙂
If I may, I would like to add a couple of other trends in funerals. First is the hiring of a “professional sobber” (a moirologist) to mourn at your loved one’s funeral, http://nyc.barstoolsports.com/random-thoughts/the-hottest-new-trend-is-hiring-professional-sobbers-to-come-to-your-funeral-and-cry-for-your/.
The second, a trend in my beloved island of Puerto Rico, where they had the first “muerto parao” (dead man standing) at a funeral. The family had the body tethered to the living room wall. Another young homicide victim, was embalmed hunched over on his motorcycle. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/16/nation/la-na-exotic-wakes-20100616
Funeral Selfies suddenly don’t seem so bad. 🙂
Paid mourners? I’m way too cheap for that. Gotta give Puerto Ricans props, though, for finding creative ways to pass the mourning period. What a hoot! I just got an image of rednecks in Arkansas seeing this and duct taping dead Uncle Freddie up by the beer cooler. 🙂
Can’t wait for the next funeral. Me, next to the casket. Post in the blog.
LOL. You’re on. 🙂
Thanks for the shout-out! Great mash-up. Can’t get over the funeral selfies. Kind of in the same league as North Korean leaders being photoshopped into pictures, pointing at things…..
Your new site looks fabulous – very impressive indeed!
LOL. Great analogy. Thanks for the compliment. 🙂
Yes, I take selfies at every funeralistic opportunity. In fact, I look forward to funerals for that reason. I keep the pics on my wall next to my collage of bikini-in-the-bathroom selfies, which more people need to see…
…Er, no. It’s interesting that this is the first post to enter my inbox after signing up. On a serious note, I was awarded a travel grant at university to go to Eastern Europe. I read theology at Cambridge and studied the Holocaust over my final year – in contrast to the dissertation I was then also writing on utopia and the possibility of human fulfilment. I went to Auschwitz and Birkenau and immersed myself in Holocaust arts and literature. It was profoundly depressing and upsetting and difficult to detach myself from it to have a happy life while learning about what humans are capable of.
When I was at Auschwitz, there were people taking photos of themselves outside gas chambers and beside walls where groups of prisoners were shot. They were smiling. There was graffiti on the walls. I thought about adding, ‘Sar woz ‘ere 2005,’ but for some reason it didn’t seem quite right. I actually took a photograph of the famous train track and entered it into a photography competition later that year – even that gave me pause for thought and one of the essays I submitted was on the appropriateness of all artistic reproduction and remembrance following such events.
The impression that has remained with me ever since is how compounded the atrocity is when people in the future are so desensitised that they can ever feel that such irrelevant and irreverent behaviour is justified – so much so that they would post such pictures on Facebook? If I think about it too much, it just hurts.
Thanks for a thought-provoking but fun post! I do want to write about the Holocaust on my blog at some point but don’t want it to be too dark. This approach would be a good way to bring it up – thanks for the inspiration!
Sara
ps. I love that you are a Recovering Attorney – I’m a (now part-time thank God) Reluctant Accountant.
pps. I’m so far winning NaNo! *pats self on back despite only being one day in* – Jenny Hansen’s post is brilliant. I’m writing a dystopian tale that I hope is half as good as Firelands!
I went to Dachau in 1981. I’m glad the few people I was with were silent and respectful of the profound evil which took place there. The greatest danger I see in the irreverence of the youthful people who take smiling selfies for the internet in such places is their complete and total lack of awareness that while technology may change, humans do not. Without some humility in that knowledge, we are as vulnerable under the right circumstances as the people of Hitler’s Germany, we could one day see Dachau here. What would someone like Hitler justify with PRISM? It is hubris to think all evil is in the past, particularly when we stack the building blocks higher every day.
As for being a part-time Reluctant Accountant, that fact that you are rocking the NaNo is most impressive. You go, girl! And don’t give up if you fall off the wagon here and there. My standard is to open the WIP every day and keep my head in it. Some days are 5k days, and some days, that 5k only happens in my head to record later. Consistent, uninterrupted dedication will get you to the finish. Keep me posted. 🙂
I agree completely.. It’s hard to teach that history isn’t just history, it’s meaningful for today and tomorrow and it’s important for the future-possible.
Thanks for the advice 🙂 It’s definitely a do-everyday thing! I’ll let you know *when* I win 🙂
LOL. The husky made me laugh. We have a Siberian and she get’s just the same kick out of a pile of washing – clean or otherwise!
The selfies on the other hand …
Cheers!
How fun! I actually thought of your fur-baby when I saw this dog. 🙂
Love the new look Piper. No selfies from me…I actually hate getting my picture taken anywhere.
Thanks for the compliment. I know quite a few folks who are camera-shy. You’re keeping good company. 🙂