Grief, Loss & Bereavement Edublog

I was following Twitter the morning reading tweets that Farrah Fawcett had received her last rites.

Over the course of a few hours the tweets went from people wishing her well and hoping she would have a chance to marry her long-time companion Ryan O’Neal to news of her death at 9:28 AM.

I head the news first on Twitter, within 20 minutes of her passing. I tweeted at 9:58 AM:

dr_kdyer: Amazed by the speed of Twitter. Found out about Farrah’s death before Google News posts an update. Also the outpouring of sympathies.

News was on Twitter before I saw it on Google News. It was an hour after her death before the news reached a top spot on Google News.

RIP Farrah Fawcett became one of the top trends on TweetStats within 4 hours of her death.

People were already coping with the loss of American icon Farrah Fawcett. Then more news came…Michael Jackson was not doing well… he had suffered a cardiac arrest. Soon after that he had died. Time of death for Michael Jackson was 2:26. I tweeted a report from the LA Times at 3:32 PM that he had died.

In one day we not only lost Farrah Fawcett, but also Michael Jackson. One was a more anticipated death, the other a sudden unexpected death. These two deaths followed Ed McMahon’s slightly more anticipated death earlier in the week. It has been a very difficult couple of days with the passing of three icons of American pop culture from three different generations, one in his 80′s, one in her 60′s and one in his 50′s.

Josh Groban tweeted at 4:03 PM on June 25th

joshgroban: Definitely a “Where were you when…” day.

June 25, 2009 will become one of those days like when JFK was assassinated or 9/11 that people will remember where they were when they heard Michael Jackson had died.

Tweeting Death Announcements, Condolences and Rest in Peace Messages

For me, I think one of the most remarkable outcomes from the new social networking Web 2.0 tools is the ability to connect people instantaneously during times of grief. Twitter went into overload with news of Michael Jackson’s death. Most of the top tweets for the 25th were Rest in Peace or RIP messages for Farrah, for Michael and also for Ed McMahon. (Many people recognizing the superstition that celebrity deaths go in threes).

Within the span of a few hours the Squidoo page that I started writing after hearing news about Farrah Fawcett’s death looking and people tweeting their condolences turned into a page that also explored using Twitter as a way to announce deaths. With applications like Twitter and Facebook, people are able to send and receive messages almost as they were happening.

I am curious to know if how many people use this new type of social media communication as a way of sending messages, so posed the question on the lens and on Twitter “Do you tweet condolences, sympathies or RIP messages on Twitter?”

As noted by Mimi on the Squidoo page, with Twitter

“We have no better way of connecting with the family and friends of well-known folks who have passed on.”

Share Your Thoughts on Tweeting Condolences

You can share your thoughts on twitter with the hashcode #twcondole or on the “Twitter to Announce Deaths, Send Sympathies and Condolences” lens at: http://twttrlist.com/11X1

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 27th, 2009 at 10:01 am and is filed under Dr. Dyer, Grief, Grief and Loss Resources, Grief in the News, Grieving Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.