![]() ![]() Way to kick someone while they're down, society. Society can make cybergrievers feel like crap.The Guardian tackled this topic again in an article by Nicky Wolfe on the death of a social media friend, echoing some of the same ideas and adding a discussion on the impact of grief in a world where we connect with so many people online and stay in touch with, or at least aware of, people for so much longer because of social media. His questions aside, what seems clear reading the article is that Collier was certainly grieving the loss - his friend, George, impacted his life in a real way and that loss was significant. In the piece, he struggles with the question of whether "a virtual friendship is the equal of a 'real' one" and what protocol is around attending the funeral. There was a great opinion piece in The Guardian a few years ago written by Edward Collier who was grieving an online friend he knew from a cricket forum. That may impact the form and shape of the grief but it certainly does not change that it is, in fact, grief. In some cases, the relationship you had was an entirely online relationship. The grief of any loss is unique to the person grieving and their relationship to the person who died. Just like grief is our natural reaction to loss, cybergrief is the natural reaction to cyberloss. Cybergrief is the natural reaction to a cyberloss.These relationships also form in forum-like social media communities (like reddit and closed facebook groups), online gaming communities, online support groups, online learning communities, and on and on and on. No surprise, many friendships and even romantic relationships are born in forums. Forums exist around almost every topic and interest you can imagine and people head there looking to connect with people with common interests and find support from others struggling with similar challenges. I don't even know where to begin in listing examples because there are so many, but forums come to mind first. Just like in real life, these online relationships happen all over the place, with varying levels of intimacy. I am talking about online relationships you form that remain online. I am not talking about and okcupid style relationships, where you meet online with a clear intention to meet in real life. Whether you know it or not, whether you do it or not, people meet other people and build real meaningful relationships online all the time. Yes they are a newer phenomenon in the history of humanity, yes there are things about them that are different that real life relationships, but that does not mean they are not valid, significant relationships. But before we can talk about cybergrief, we do need to establish that cyber relationships are real, meaningful relationships. 8 Things You Should Know To Understand Cybergrief Clarity is on the way in the form of a list of important truths. ![]() If you are feeling as confused as Alex Blumberg during a game of Yes Yes No, fear not. All the talk of online gaming communities and online forum friendships (and engagements) and weird twitter has made me feel incredibly guilty as a grief blog that we didn't tackle this topic sooner. Luckily I have been binge-listening to the Reply All podcast for the last week (I know, I am totally behind the eight ball on that but my podcast schedule has been tight and it just now made it to the top of my list). We have mentioned cybergrief and loss before (you may remember it from this post on disenfranchised grief) and it has been on my list to write about for at least two years, but it keeps falling to the back burner. Ah, finally WYG is writing about cybergrief.When you saw the title of this post my guess is you had one of two reactions: Grieving a Friend, Lists, Grieving Online, Disenfranchised Loss ![]()
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