Tragedy and The Internet
What To Do and How To Act
I hate when this happens. I hate when the U.S. government fails us and we take to social media to talk about it. Everyone is coming at it from a different angle with varying degrees of trying their best. Everyone feels the need to say something. Everyone wants to get ahead of the story and put their own spin on it. We all have to talk about it otherwise there is a feeling of ignorance and sticking one's head in the sand. We tweet and we repost and we let our stance be known.
I’ve been on the internet a long time and this cycle is very frustrating to me. Partly because I think it is an unhelpful way to use the internet and an unhelpful way to promote and fight for the outcome we all want. Partly because I am a cynic and know people will try to capitalize on it, without ever really getting us closer to a solution. There is a belief that uninformed “raising awareness” is a form of activism that can still be useful in times like these. I used to believe that and I don’t anymore.
I now believe that the internet aspect of this, where everyone with a popular twitter account decides on their angle and talks about it until something new happens, is detrimental to the cause overall. I believe that it leads to despair and lack of action. I believe that people, even people who care about the issue, feel suffocated by the conversation and inaction and just want it to be over. That the feeling of everyone telling their followers not to look away with no tangible action on what to do while they are looking, causes people to look away. That the current way we use social media during times like these, gives us no indication for hope or a way out. The algorithms that dictate what we see just want us to keep looking, they don’t actually want us to help.
There is a way out. There is a way to use social media and the internet to make our lives better rather than focus on how our lives are getting worse. But they are conscious steps we need to take. It will not be automatic. It will not be served to us on a platter. The companies that make money keeping us scared and afraid will not give us the solutions to keep fighting them. I believe this is the best way to use your time (and the internet) right now, and in the future. It works for me and I hope it works for you.
Feel your feelings
This is overwhelming and upsetting. It’s scary and it feels like there is no solution. Feel that for a little bit. Remember what it feels like. Anger, Sadness, Despair, Depression, Fear. Feel it all. Feel it on social media if you need to but you don’t always have to. Journal, Cry, Scream into a pillow. Let it overwhelm you in the moment. But the fever has to break. It may feel impossible but the crying will stop. You will run out of tears and you will feel better after you release the emotion you are letting well up inside you. Drink some water and take some deep breaths. Keep going.
Know Your Place
The federal government denying that everyone in this country has an equal right to an abortion is disgusting and unfair. There’s a lot to consider when thinking about what this means for how the government is going to operate in the future and how safe we all may feel. However this decision being struck down is more of an immediate reality for some people. In states like California and New York, where a lot of people with popular social media accounts live, this decision is less immediate. We still have access to abortion that is codified into our state laws and therefore protected. It of course leads to speculation about what will happen in the future but there are many people for whom our “What ifs” became realities yesterday. People in states with trigger laws like Alabama, Wisconsin, and Missouri who may have had abortions scheduled and now cannot get them.
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This ruling does not affect us all equally. To pretend that it does is not helpful. What will be helpful in the coming days to figure out what category of person you are and act accordingly. If you do not need help right now, it is in your best interest to find a way to help those who do. Many people will straddle many lines but it will be helpful to place yourself in the reality of your situation, rather than catastrophizing a situation that is not your immediate reality and may not be for some time. I don’t want to get into the weeds of determining who is the most at risk or even dismiss someone who feels they are the most at risk. If you determine that about yourself, fine. I’m not dictating your place, I’m asking you to do a personal assessment and determine your own place.
Educate Yourself
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This can go hand in hand with the point above. Placing oneself within the movement requires knowledge of the movement. What should I do? What are the local abortion laws in your state? What are resources available to me should this happen? How can I help people right now who need it? Where can I donate money? Those are some basic questions that one should know the answer to if they want things to get better. Should you be at a party, or brunch, or talking to your coworkers, you should be able to know the answers to these questions if they come up. If the issue of abortion hurts you so much that the idea of it being taken away brings you to tears, you need to be able answer questions about it when the issue comes up. Become an expert. Be able to lead a conversation on abortion when it comes up casually. Be able to direct people toward resources and let everyone in your life know that you know what you’re talking about, either by telling them or by showing them.
Organize (OR even better, Join People Who Are Already Organizing)
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Now you have to actually do something. If you are not immediately at risk, it is time to help those who are. How does one do that? You can donate money, which is a simple action that can help a lot of people. You can volunteer to be an escort at planned parenthood. You can join an existing network of people who have been doing this a lot longer than you have, and try and help. It’s a scary thing we’re dealing with and it becomes less scary when we know we’re not alone. The way we know we’re not alone is by organizing.
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You are the newest link in a long old chain. You can be a part of this movement but you have to learn from the people who have already been doing it. They want to teach you. They want to provide as many well intentioned people with the information they need so that we all have safe access to abortion and that everyone who needs an abortion can get one. When organizing or participating in abortion activism, a lot of training is required to make sure all parties are protected. People need to be safe both medically and legally and knowing how to do that requires time and effort. In times like these, it’s important to have full understanding and training from experts on abortion access and activism rather than spouting off any ideas one has on twitter about how people should act in this situation. There are experts who want to protect you and there are pundits and personalities who want engagement. It is important to know the difference.
In addition to joining an existing organization, organize your friends. Once you know everything there is to know about abortion, make sure your friends know. Especially, if your friends come from a wide variety of backgrounds and places. Do everything you can to make sure everyone in your life knows their rights. If we make connections with others and get everyone as fired up about abortion as we are, we can spread the word far and wide. If we make everyone in our lives as knowledgeable and annoying about abortion as we are (or want to be), they can then be that for someone else. If I make sure all of my friends are well equipped to talk about and discuss abortion, they can help people I will never even meet. Have face to face conversations about it, throw organizing parties where you make sure everyone knows their rights, canvas together, volunteer together. Bring everyone into the fold with you.
Take Care of Yourself
This is the final step but it should also happen along the way. Take breaks. Drink water. Eat something. Shower. Sleep. Go outside and feel the sun on your skin. Breathe. Talk about something else for a little bit. Have fun. And then come back to it. Keep coming back to it. Take breaks so you come back stronger. Do your best. Do all you can. For many people this cements what was always true in their state and for others this will be a wake up call. It doesn’t matter where you were before, it matters what you do now.
We cannot keep condensing all of our emotions into the days immediately following a disaster. We have to keep the momentum going. We will not be able to keep momentum if we try to get out every thought we have abortion in the next week so we can move on better. It has never worked before and it’s not going to work now. We need to continue the conversation. It will be ongoing. We can tweet about what we had for lunch and also tweet about our continued work with abortion access. We have to change the way we talk about this online. We have to stop being casual observers to the pain of humanity and instead actively participate in making it better. Then we have to remind people that we can always be doing that.
Social Media can be good when things like this happen. I found or was directed to all of these resources through social media, a lot of them through Sarah E. Phillips on Tiktok. It connects us to people we might never meet otherwise, and then we can help those people. I do not think it is inherently evil but I do know that we have to work to make it good. Right now the default, is despair and doom scrolling and I’m not really interested in doing that anymore. So share the infographics and meditate on the suffering and let this present moment overwhelm you. Then make a plan. Do something.
Resources
Remember when donating, recurring donations are always prefered so that when the news moves on, there is still money coming in!
What is A Crisis Pregnancy Center and How To Avoid Them
Practical Support Organizations
Youth Abortion Support Collective (Become an Expert on Resources)
Donate To Independent Abortion Clinics (Planned Parenthood Is Not The Only Or Even Best Option)
Volunteer With Planned Parenthood
Yellowhammer Fund (Provides Abortion Resources in Alabama, Mississippi, and the Deep South)
Nice piece. My immediate thought when reading the first bit was that I wonder if the bystander effect is a less nefarious explanation of the "everyone's talking about this, nobody is doing anything" phenomenon.
While I think your take that the algorithms incentivize discussion over action, to me, the simpler explanation is that when you see hundreds and thousands of posts on something, it feels like "well, some of those people are probably doing things", as opposed to the pre-social media era where it feels like the only options of seeing wide scale outrage is at events where people are taking action (ie. protests).
I'm not sure that thought was super well articulated, but hopefully that makes sense.
Thank you for writing this, Kathryn. Very concise, clear, and actionable. This is a much more healthy way to use and interact with the internet than just looking at depressing tweets.