GABBY's DEATH SOCIAL MEDIA and UNFAIRNESS ABOUT MISSING PERSONS

Gabby Petito made headlines in the worst way possible, through her death.  And since then, because of her presence on social media - specifically YouTube - as she and her boyfriend attempted to document a carefree "van" lifestyle, citizen activists and citizen sleuths have been trying to help law enforcement solve the mystery.  I watched dozens of these videos, much of them repetitive without much new to say.  It helps to use the filter "last hour" to make your way through some of these. 

A criticism that I think is unfair is that Gabby got all the media attention because she's a blond, blue eyed White woman.  While I do suspect that Black missing people might not get the same attention as White in some places, the reason this story - one of an easy half million missing people a year in the United States - grabbed our attention was:  

That the couple did seek attention in the first place.  Like others who document their van life hoping to gain a following and enough interest to get paid by YouTube, the couple set out to depict their travels to National Parks.

The irony of their happy together photos and the reality that there was domestic violence taking place.  (The Titanic was not the only steamship that sunk but we are riveted by that story because this was the ship that was marketed as unsinkable.)

Our ability to inspect the photos and judge.  I think they did have many a happy moments together. I think it's difficult to fake such happiness in photos.  We are all examining photos and making judgements about what has been Photoshopped or otherwise altered, be it happy photos or UFO photos.

Perhaps the racist idea that White women are so advantaged that they don't have domestic violence issues in relationships. (I've been told to my face that I'm advantaged for being born White and I think that's ignorant. People who say such things don't know the history of an individual or that White people come from various ethnicities and cultures. It would be like thinking all Native Americans have the same ethnicity or culture.)

The knowing that if this couple had therapy or learned anger management, the outcome could have been so different.

I'm writing this a few days ahead of some of the information that will be forthcoming such as the cause of death in actuality, the timeline, and the whereabout of boyfriend Brian.  At this time I'm open minded enough to think it is possible that Brian, who is being tried and convicted in the media, might not have killed his girlfriend.

C 2021  Christine Trzyna

MRI PROVES READERS EXPERIENCE WHAT THEY'RE READING

SALON : RISE OF SOCIAL READER - GOODBY VIRGINIA WOOLF'S SOLITARY

EXCERPT:

Virginia Woolf, writing to her pal Ethel Smyth, noted that “the state of reading consists in the complete elimination of the ego.” Hers was a 20th-century vision of a reader — someone who gets lost in books, someone whose identity is subsumed by the identity of another mind, a narrator. She’s describing a metaphoric experience: the reader becomes someone else.

York University psychologist Raymond Mar has done the MRI scans to back her up. We now know that when we’re reading novels, our brains light up as though we were experiencing the same things the hero experiences. When we read, we rehearse the lives of others. We are, in other words, exercising our empathy.

But Woolf’s ideal reader, who disappears as she reads and tries on alternate identities, is now under siege. Our stories are going social and, as new platform technologies remake the reading experience into something increasingly interactive, we now must ask what we’re giving up in the bargain.

JAKE REILLY's "AMISH PROJECT" 90 DAYS WITHOUT A CELL PHONE, E-MAIL, or SOCIAL MEDIA : I CAN DO IT

End of January 2012 I started reading reports about Jake Reilly, who decided to go 90 whole days without a cell phone, e-mail, or social media. He did it.

I've done it many times. In fact, I'm very annoyed that Google keeps bugging people to link their cell phone numbers with their e-mail, Bloggers, and other "products." I don't want anyone from Google to call me up in part because HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO CALL GOOGLE TO ASK A QUESTION WHEN YOU HAVE A TECH PROBLEM? It just wouldn't be fair. (Besides I have my passwords in more than one place and in code!) Since when does everyone have a cell phone, even if phone booths are disappearing off every corner?

You see, I believe that tools are meant to make our lives easier and more simple. I believe we are to use the tools. I do not believe that the tools should use us or make our lives more complicated to take more of our time. I obviously use Internet, Google Blogger, and other tools. When technology starts obligating you to use it, when you find your time that ought to be spent getting exercise or interacting with live people, when you find that you spend more time going through JUNK E-MAILS and SPAM instead of going out to the museum, when you become a brain wired up without a body to travel through earthly life with...

If you're going to hide, do it behind a door with a lock on it, where you can take a leisurely tub bath alone or with a friend. I'm troubled by all the people who want to substitute texting or e-mail with phone calling when with cell phone calling long distance is no longer a hurried "Can't afford the long distance" matter. If you know someone who is local and has never given you their cell phone number, e-mail address, or any other link to you, why are you deluded?

C 2012 Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved Including International and Internet Rights