Friday, June 03, 2005

Requiescat In Pace

A blogger and his sister were murdered, and his last entry helped police find his killer.

It's a terrible tragedy.

What I find rather chilling is everyone's comments on the victim's last post. I would say about all of the comments are due to the NY Times article on the victims. Almost none of the commenters knew the victim before his death. The fact that all of these people are leaving simply three letters is rather irksome to me. Their sentiments seem almost trite.

They are posting on a dead man's blog wishing him R.I.P. That's just wrong to me. I couldn't bring myself to read the rest of his blog. He was a young man with hopes and dreams and now those aspirations will go fallow in the grave with him.

But the comments instead of touching me like I thought they would just irked me. I also dislike when people simply sign their name to a card and don't leave any note.

I don't know maybe I'm just in a judgmental mood today. I know that maybe they don't feel comfortable saying more than R.I.P. but still...Why leave a comment? The family may see the blog, but what solace will they get from R.I.P. a hundred times from people they don't know and will never meet and will never hear from again? Empty gestures really annoy me and before you jump down my throat, I'm don't think all the R.I.P.'s are empty gestures, but some of them are.

I'm holding back a good bit actually b/c I know I see things from a really cynical angle at times and may take things the wrong way so leave a comment of what you think of the whole thing so I can see if I'm really on my own on this.

Here's a link to the last entry with comments.

Giving credit where credit is due:
I heard about this at Asshole Roommate's Blog.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I know I see things from a really cynical angle at times and may take things the wrong way

You'll be right, mate. Just soak up some of that holiday vibe.

I'm thinking some of the commenters who left "RIP" are bound to be just lemmings who can't bear to be left out of anything and the occasional plain ordinary creep.

But looking at the nicks, a chunk of them are non-native speakers of English and literally don't know what to say. I teach this crowd and they tend to resort to lemming like language behaviour in stressful situations.

Also, I think a lot of the comments might be the internet equivalent of leaving flowers on the curb for strangers who got killed on the road.

But yeah, the whole thing has a creep-out factor way off the scale, what with the whole voice-from-beyond-the-grave thing. The 404 on his other site is a bit heebie-inducing also.

2:48 AM, June 04, 2005  
Blogger Vampire Librarian said...

"Leaving flowers on the curb for strangers who got killed on the road" that type of gesture doesn't bother me in a negative way. A lot of thought and effort went into that by the participant.

The non-English speaker angle, which I hadn't considered, does make me feel a little more charitable and expressing yourself in some situations even when you do know the language can leave you tongue-tied, but the whole chill factor still puts me off.

I can't bring myself to revisit the site. I hope they take it down or do something with it and not just leave it up as is.

8:31 PM, June 04, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, everyone now left "rest in peace".

And some other comments were just stupid, like "believe me I know exactly how you must be feeling" - wtf ? are you dead also . and some racist comment like "I'm only commenting here because you're Chinese, otherwise several people die"

And poor guy had ZERO comments on his blog before his death :(

1:16 AM, June 06, 2005  
Blogger Lee said...

All very sad.

Although thank goodness you clarified what was going on, dear. When you said people were just leaving three letters on the comments page, I was hoping it wasn't going to be 'LOL'...

11:25 AM, June 06, 2005  
Blogger Vampire Librarian said...

Lee, only you would have that thought.

11:54 AM, June 06, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

LOL, Lee.

I hope they take it down or do something with it and not just leave it up as is.

Yers. Because if they leave it up it will definitely get creepier and nuttier in the comments.

2:11 AM, June 07, 2005  

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