Letters to the Editor
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A Mess of Prudery and Sensationalism Infotainment unworthy of Salon
I am not immune to expressing uptight and judgmental opinions about Society Today and Online discourse. Yet this article and many of the resulting comments display a depressing reactionary myopia.
This article is another DECADENT THREAT TO SOCIETY FROM THE ONLINE YOUTH, a mix of salaciousness and high-minded scolding posing as informed opinion. It might as well be the script from 20/20 or a local news sweeps week: NEW WEBSITE DESECRATES THE DEAD - IS SOCIETY DOOMED?
The dishonest hot button manipulation starts at the headline: "Morbid curiosity and ridicule have replaced respect for the deceased"
This is a single website, not people desecrating graves, disrupting funerals or even - and this is important - harassing families of the dead. It presents material readily available to anyone who googles a name on a death announcement. The allegedly shocking incivility can be avoided by not reading and, more importantly, not participating.
Gallows humor and morbid disrespect existed long before MyDeathSpace, the web or Modern Society. As has debate about whether nasty irreverence is a valid reaction to death or not.
Jamie Pietras uses Fox News type rhetoric to imply something nefarious is going on with little proof: "By evening, total strangers have already visited Kraft's MySpace page and begun chiming in on his discussion board" And? How many comments are negative? Are they a direct result of MyDeathSpace? Pietras doesn't say, because cause and effect is tenuous at best.
Other rhetorical gems:
"If Patterson's motivations were altruistic, he revealed them in peculiar ways...a tag line read 'Myspace Deaths! We need to cut back anyway.'" Gallows humor is A New Evil!
"Twenty years ago, death was discussed in muted tones, the deceased treated reverently...The Internet has changed all that."
And we get to the hard of the real thesis: scolding the internet as a newfangled pit of depravity. I can relate, but how old is Pietras? I suspect not old enough to understand speaking ill of the dead, gossiping and snide comments about strangers predates the internet and is not caused by it.
".the response to death is more like a free-for-all than the respectful hush of yore. It's not just MyDeathSpace. Even forum postings on mainstream news sites can read more like angry restroom graffiti than even-tempered letters to the editor."
It's posts on a website, not text displayed at a wake.
"For better or worse, this is a new American way of death, where a MySpace page takes the place of your obituary and becomes fodder for worldwide forum banter." Only if you have a myspace page, die and your family has no means of deleting it. Which even at 2,800 is still a tiny percentage of humanity.
"Asked why she thought she or anyone else had a right to pry so deeply and comment on the death of a stranger, Perry admitted this was 'a good question,' though she fell short of an answer. 'I don't know,' she says. 'I just like to put my opinion out there.'" Thus proving all users are emotionally shallow if a self-righteous journalist is determined to make you look like an idiot.
"While some have written to Patterson threatening to sue MyDeathSpace or have the site shut down, there is little First Amendment basis for actually doing so..." proving this is a lawless threat requiring legislation to stop a *gasp* website using information in the public domain. Clearly this must be outlawed!
The lowest point is the implied yet evidence-free accusation MyDeathSpace retaliates against critics. Visitors who write Patterson e-mails critical of MyDeathSpace run the risk of having the text of their e-mail (and oftentimes, their e-mail address) publicly displayed..." Note how "oftentimes" is unquantified. "Salon contacted several people who are critical of the site, but none would speak for the sake of an article, fearing repercussions by the MyDeathSpace community." Oh bullshit. Are we to believe no-one would even comment anonymously?
"Patterson argues that if you don't like the site, don't come...tell that to those who arrive at MyDeathSpace inadvertently, having Googled the name of a deceased friend or relative." Tell that to the innocent victims, Mr. Patterson. Good god, did O'Reilly ghostwrite this?
This article is almost a textbook example of the sort of dishonest rhetoric Glenn Greenwald regularly deconstructs in his blog. So why did Salon publish such reactionary, exploitive junk?