In the event that you don’t follow the guidelines, social media taunts will haunt you even in death
In the spring, Rick Rose drew the wrath of strangers after he practically shouted on Facebook that he wasn’t investing in a face mask. 8 weeks later, he contracted COVID-19 - and, he posted, he was struggling to breathe. Days later, on July 4, he was dead.
That post, among the Ohio man’s final public words on Facebook, attracted attention in the form of a lot more than 3,100 “haha” laughing face emoji and a torrent of criticism from strangers.
“If they could have known him, they would have loved him like everyone else did,” says Tina Heschel, mother of the 37-year-old Rose. She says she’s “sick and tired of all the hate.”
“I just want him to rest,” she says.
Shaming persons who get sick or don’t follow the rules in a public health crisis is a thing since prior to coronavirus, researchers say. However the warp speed and reach of social media in the pandemic era gives the practice an aggressive new dimension.
“It’s like someone just resulted in the quantity on stigmas which were already there,” says University of Pennsylvania professor David Barnes, who has studied pandemics and stigmatization.
People shame or stigmatize when they feel threatened by something. They want an explanation, and they find a scapegoat. It can help them reaffirm their thinking and make sense of what’s happening. That’s an essential notion throughout a pandemic, that may feel vague and invisible.
“There’s never been a society that hasn’t moralized disease, ever,” Barnes says.
Social media sites like Facebook take this practice, that used to be confined to social circles or by geography, and scale it to mass proportions, rendering it effectively limitless.
“It’s changed the expectation to be in a position to speak up,” says Pamela Rutledge, a psychologist who studies the impact of social media as director of the Media Psychology Research Center. “Everyone includes a voice now.”
And those voices are used.
Whenever a Florida sheriff said in August that his deputies wouldn’t be allowed to wear masks except in limited circumstances, Twitter users swiftly branded him a “#COVIDIOT.” When doctors diagnosed Ecuador’s first coronavirus case earlier this season, pictures circulated within hours on social media showing the retired school teacher unconscious and intubated in her hospital bed.
Rose’s death was reported by national media, and visitors from around the united states have stopped at his Facebook page to post messages or memes shaming him. Many also left messages wishing him well or scolding those that criticised.
Shaming can help persons feel reassured that they have done things right and that your partner must have made a mistake, says Sherry Turkle, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who studies social media. She calls this “magical protection and fantasy.”
“It’s a means of putting a wall between ourselves and the persons who are receiving sick,” she says.
Social media also gives persons isolated in a pandemic a quick way to join communities that share their beliefs. So when someone joins an organization, that broader identity helps it be easy to pile on.
“You behave with techniques that you would not behave individually,” Rutledge says.
People may well not even realise they are piling on as they click an emoji or leave a comment while scrolling through their feed. Social media, Turkle says, could make shaming very addictive.
“They’re not even dependent on this content anymore. They’re just type of addicted to the procedure of participating,” she says.
Plus, Facebook, Twitter and the like give users ways to quickly pass judgment - one which Rutledge says can create “legal, financial and all types of ramifications that never could have happened before.”
Julian Siegel figures business dropped about 20% earlier this spring at his Fort Lauderdale, Florida, restaurant after someone posted a picture on the Nextdoor software of individuals waiting in his parking lot for food. The person said the customers weren’t following social distancing guidelines at The Riverside Market; Siegel insists that these were.
“It was crazy. Those who have never been here were bashing us, saying how exactly we were spreading COVID,” Siegel says.
From then on, he started seeing people drive slowly by his restaurant, apparently capturing or video with phones. “We call them social media warriors. There’s nothing you could do,” he says. “We'd wave.”
Siegel saw three or four posts on the Nextdoor iphone app and Facebook, and he says arguments would use on the posts about whether patrons were being safe. In the end, he figures more people defended the restaurant than criticized it.
Christy Broce used social media to fight stigmatization rather than fuel it. The Pocahontas County, West Virginia, resident spent practically a month in quarantine this summer after she and her two sons came down with the virus.
She says members of the family brought them groceries, and she and her boys kept to themselves. However they still felt scorned, especially after someone falsely reported to the local health department that she was shopping at a supermarket a couple days after she tested positive.
That prompted her to create a public plea for compassion on Facebook. Hundreds of folks liked or loved that post, and many sent cards or messages of support.
“Folks have reached out and been a bit more caring,” Broce says.
Such a reply doesn’t surprise Rutledge. She says sharing empathy or support on social media makes both giver and the recipient feel better. Like shaming or criticism, it can also help reaffirm a person’s views or beliefs.
And there’s this benefit, too: “It’s also a way to sort of make the world seem to be just like a kinder, gentler place.”
