Dan Levin has an 11/27/2021 report at the New York Times with the headline shown above on how social media is being used to attack the memory of anti-vaxxers who died from Covid.
Before he died of Covid-19 in September, Nick Bledsoe was not shy about publicly sharing his opposition to masks and vaccines on Facebook. In April, Mr. Bledsoe, an auto mechanic from Opelika, Ala., added a frame declaring “I don’t care if you’ve had your vaccine” to his profile photo and urged his father not to get the shot.
...The details of Mr. Bledsoe’s death and desperation-fueled change of heart stayed largely confined to his Facebook page. That is, until they appeared in screen-shotted detail the following week on a website that compiles the coronavirus deaths of vocal vaccine opponents.
Almost immediately, strangers began barraging the dead man’s Facebook page with insults and mockery.
“They were making comments that he should have died, that he deserved to die,” said his father, Hal Bledsoe. “It hurt.”
These and many other losses fill a host of websites that claim to be educational, but are fueled by schadenfreude at the deaths of the unvaccinated whose social media posts included Trump memes and conservative conspiracy theories. An exhortation on one such site reads: “Everyone listed on this site helped spread Covid-19 misinformation and then paid the price for their views. Share to stop others from making the same mistake.”
emphasis added
Levin and his editors seem to have a problem with what appears to be a reasonable observation, lumping it together with some less justifiable actions.
The New York Times report does not list any specific websites by name, but does give some hints:
...in a hyperpartisan culture plagued by “alternative facts” and debates over the most basic scientific realities of the pandemic, many among the vaccinated are eager to brandish such accounts as the final, indubitable proof that the Covid deniers and those who are anti-vaccine are dangerously misguided.
Tapping into the outrage are Reddit forums where there are entries focused on “suicide by Covid” and “awards” granted to those who died.
Tapping into the outrage are Reddit forums where there are entries focused on “suicide by Covid” and “awards” granted to those who died. This one, perchance?
Let’s see: ...the final, indubitable proof that the Covid deniers and those who are anti-vaccine are dangerously misguided.
Avoidable death and suffering would seem to be fairly strong evidence that they were both misguided and dangerous, and not just dangerous to themselves alone but to everyone around them and everyone they influenced.
Kos has been running a regular series, the anti-vaxx chronicles, documenting how the social media posts of the deceased offer a window into the toxic beliefs that are killing people. (Here’s a post from yesterday.) He runs this preface:
Facebook is a menace. COVID-19 is a menace. Conservatism is a cesspool. Together, those three ingredients have created a toxic stew of malevolent death and devastation. We can talk about all those things in the abstract, look at the numbers and statistics, and catch the occasional whiff of seditionist right-wing rhetoric. But I hadn’t really fully understood just how horrifying that combination of right-wing extremism, Facebook, and a killer virus was until I became a regular at the Herman Cain Awards subreddit. This series will document some of those stories, so we are aware of what the other side is doing to our country.
I think we can add to the list of menaces the oblivious mainstream media that seem determined to not see certain things.
Levin cites how the efforts of documenting anti-vaxx stories work at one website, without naming names.
Furious with the anti-vaccine memes and conspiracy theories flooding social media, one administrator of such a site said he sought to highlight the political and geographic patterns of the Delta wave, which has disproportionately torn through conservative communities and red states with low vaccination rates.
The stories are often remarkably similar: Anti-government memes and posts dismissing the coronavirus or vaccines give way to announcements about feeling sick and testing positive for the virus. Then there are often requests for prayers. Sometimes there are selfies taken while hooked up to breathing machines and fearful updates about imminent intubation. Most end with loved ones sharing R.I.P. posts. Many include links to GoFundMe campaigns created to defray funeral costs.
Although no attribution is given, that sounds like a fair description of the anti-vaxx chronicles.
Levin cites experts explaining this as one more example of how polarization is going to extremes, and how it demonstrates schadenfreude in action:
Colin Wayne Leach, a psychology professor at Barnard College who has studied emotions like schadenfreude and gloating, said the sentiments underpinning these websites are an outgrowth of the nation’s extreme polarization.
“When it’s a serious rivalry, which is what politics is these days, it’s not just taking a little pleasure in somebody’s misfortune,” he said. “In many ways, it’s seeing your enemies suffer because of what they believe. That is the sweetest justice, and that’s partly why it’s so satisfying to the other side.”
emphasis added
Damn right there is satisfaction in seeing your enemies suffer from their own actions. “We pray for mercy because we would all be fools to pray for justice” — but I’ll take what I can get. It’s not a perfect world.
Seeing people whose actions put others at risk experience negative consequences from those actions — is that not what’s supposed to happen? Isn’t that what we try to teach children about the right way to behave?
It’s a lot easier to accept than seeing truly horrible people get away with terrible behavior time and time again. “We told you so” is one of the few pleasures left to us in the face of the deliberately stupid who fail to learn and refuse to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
How about some context, eh Mr. Levin?
Some other examples of extreme polarization: the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War II, the Cold War. But there were no significant differences between sides in those conflicts, right?
What is revealing is that the Times article by Levin decries polarization and schadenfreude, but makes no distinctions between sides, and seems to treat it as something that just happened without cause.
Anti-vaxxers are spreading misinformation and behavior that is killing people. They are undermining government, denying science, and committing acts of violence. While claiming it’s all about their right to choose what to do with their bodies, many of them are also people who would deny women the right to choose on other matters...
Perhaps those who are being judgmental about schadenfreude in this case should consider the decades of derision directed at “bleeding heart liberals”. Sympathy you want now? Considering the cesspool of sentiments on right wing media sites, to quote Steve Martin “Well EXCUUUUUUUUUSE MEEEEE!”
The wonder is not that people are experiencing a certain pleasure when anti-vaxxer beliefs prove fatal — the wonder is that more people are not openly taking steps to oppose them by more direct means. This is not a ‘both sides’ situation — there is a not subtle moral difference between what the two sides are fighting over.
While Levin is having a sad about people being mean to the families of dead people who not only chose what happened to them but promoted those destructive actions for others, here’s some other stories the NY Times might report on:
And here’s a big one:
New Revelations Emerge on How Donald Trump Killed 400,000 (or more) Americans.
If people are turning to schadenfreude, it’s because there Is little else to take joy in. Yes we have effective vaccines now — but their effectiveness is negated by those who refuse to take them. We have effective medications now, but we still have too many who insist on quack treatments and refuse to take precautions.
I have lost friends and family to Covid; am I not entitled to anger at those who are aiding and abetting its spread? Am I not entitled to anger at those whose actions are keeping us hostage to the threat of the virus? Am I not entitled to anger over healthcare becoming more expensive and unavailable because people who believe conspiracy theories are filling hospitals and burning out healthcare workers?
Am I not entitled to even more anger at the media, people, and politicians who have weaponized anti-vaxx delusions and Covid fatigue for personal and political gain? Am I not entitled to anger at the news media which continues to fail at holding people accountable for this?
Am I not entitled to anger at people who are making a bad situation worse, for no good reason?
If schadenfreude is the worst thing people are indulging in, consider the alternatives. The only surprise I have left is that no one has burned down a Fox News station yet for killing family members with lies, or tried to take out an anti-vaxxer whose ‘advice’ proved fatal.
UPDATE: I would suggest The NY Times could spend its efforts more profitably on the way the GOP is deliberately killing its own base to make Biden ‘fail’ at controlling the pandemic, instead of being concerned that some people seem to be happy that anti-vaxxers are dying and are no longer able to threaten the health of others with their actions. Per these two posts at Digby’s place:
Republicans gleeful over Omicron
...This is an old Republican trick. They leave the country in shambles when they are voted out of office, obstruct the Democrats every step of the way when they try to fix it and then blame them for failing to fulfill their promises. And they’re doing it again:
“A creative mechanism”
In case you think my post below was too cynical and hyperbolic about the Republican tactic to keep killing their own supporters to own the libs and make Biden look bad. It is a formal strategy:
Republican officials around the country are testing a creative mechanism to build loyalty with unvaccinated Americans while undermining Biden administration mandates: unemployment benefits.
Driving the news: Florida, Iowa, Kansas and Tennessee have changed their unemployment insurance rules to allow workers who are fired or quit over vaccine mandates to receive benefits.
The big picture: Extending unemployment benefits to the unvaccinated is just the latest in a series of proposals aligning the GOP with people who won’t get a COVID shot.
More at the links.