Using the death of an acquaintance for attention and sympathy

[Tellybuttons]

A childhood friend / boyfriend from my teenage years passed away this week in tragic circumstances and news of his death has unfortunately circulated on social media.

An old friend, somebody who knew him only through me, is sharing things and writing emotional attention seeking statuses about being gutted, in shock and the rest of it.

As usual they have the nosy people commenting asking if they're ok and to inbox them. Etc

AIBU to think this is a gross disrespect to not only the deceased young man but to his family aswell? Why do people do this shit.

I knew him very well and have posted absolutely sod all, because I don't want to ride on the coat tails of an awful, tragic event.

I have privately contacted his family to express my condolences.

I've unfollowed this person as the urge to give them a piece of my mind is strong.

Attention seeking, bandwagon jumpers.

Awful behaviour but sadly so common nowadays due to SM.

I use social media a lot and I never put anything too personal on their, especially not if it's actually someone else's story so I understand how you feel. But not everyone deals with stuff in the same way or feels grief and shock in the same way. Just because you were closer to the person who has died it doesn't mean that they are not affected by the death. And some people use social media to deal with their grief.
Of course they might be milking it for attention but if they're not then giving them a piece of your mind would be a horrible thing to do.

We had this following the death of a close family. None of the family put anything on SM at all, and yet there were a lot of posts from people who hardly spoke to him, had anything to do with him saying how heartbroken and gutted they were.....its a bitter pill to swallow, but you have to let it ride i'm afraid x

I don’t know why people do this, IMO only the family (if they desire) should share anything about the deceased on social media. Then I think it’s fine to comment and give your condolences in the same medium. The instant you put something on your own page though you make it more about how you feel than the deceased’s family does and only the most selfish of people do this.

On another note what about any mutual friends that might find out about the death from your own grief junkie post? Like I say, very selfish.

Grief thief. It's disgusting and I've never understood the amount of people who fuel those that do it.

@Noooodles - this happened to us although in our instance it was family who lived abroad and due to the time difference we hadn't had chance to ring and tell them. They woke up, had a look on FB and were greeted with various posts from friends (who they were mutual friends with), and rung us very upset to find out what on earth had happened!

We as a family knew who needed to be contacted and told, and deliberately stayed away from SM until we had had chance to contact them....even after people had been told we didn't post anything as it wasn't appropriate.

The fact that other people thought it was ok to do this was very upsetting and annoying, particularly as they used the family member's name!!

Well, a colleague of mine's father died at least one for every job she had. He was on his third death when I met her. She loved everyone giving her condolences and making a fuss. My dad died, only once, when I was 16, so in my opinion she was a scumbag. But that's just me.

This is so much a thing that there is a name for it, which I see a PP has shared: grief thief (or grief vulture).

In fact, it’s actually quite apropos that the second example in Urban Dictionary could easily happen with your FB “friend”:
Example 2.
Person 1: Why are you wearing black and crying?
Person 2: Didn't you hear? Trevor that we used to go to college with died.
Person 1: What? And? You never even spoke to him in four years of going to college with him. You have had no contact with him for the last 7 years and his death will have exactly no impact in your life what-so-ever. You're such a grief thief.
——
And yes, to answer your question, it’s a gross way of crying out for attention, and one can only hope they gain the self-awareness to look back on it someday and cringe. It sounds like you made the healthy decision by unfollowing, because it is extremely difficult not to tell people like this to fuck off with their selfishness.

My cousins partner is renowned in the family for doing this, the worst was the 23 condolences, songs, poems and tribute posts we where treated to when her friend from school's granny died, she hadn't spoken to the 'friend' in the 8 years since leaving school. I don't even think she'd met the woman who had died.

I was fortunate enough to be in the room when my own Gran read her the riot act about how inappropriate she is, how she is horrible piggybacking on someone else's grief to get attention, and if she even dares post one thing when she (Gran) passes on she'll haunt her from beyond the grave.

My gran has no filter... I love her... still hasn't stopped my cousins partner though.

It all started with Princess Di’s death. Recreational Grieving. Of course you’re sad if you see something tragic has happened to someone, but all the faux grieving is a disrespect to those who were close to the deceased. By all means send the family a note to say you are sorry if you know them. A little boy in the south of England drowned recently and for the last couple of months complete strangers have been flocking to a memorial to leave toys, candles at the spot. Of course it is tragic the lad has died, and I can’t imagine what the parents are going through, but the number of people posting photos of what they have left at the memorial to gain attention is a bit awful, especially when they ‘I didn’t know you little man, but...

It’s an awful thing.
I get how for some people it can start accidentally- perhaps a genuine loss where the attention remained in their minds as welcome kindness in a difficult time. But I have one who is a relative and watching her endlessly seeking attention for some losses that were significantly less significant to me than her is difficult. A lot of it comes from her misrepresenting the dead person. She is so wrapped up in it that she reminisces about things that never happened and views and opinions to them that they didn’t hold.
With one of these people I had a shared love of a poem and now she has it on her Facebook header

Grief vampires. I had lots of them after my children died.

They like the attention and don't care who they trample on to get it, lots of them even convince themselves that their grief is that real and use others to seek validation for it, Facebook is their tool of choice for that usually.

It's disgusting and I just cut them out of my life.

I agree, its very inappropriate behaviour and I think it's very disrespectful, I see lots of it and it blows my mind, why anyone would overstep the mark and be so insensitive, is beyond my understanding. I remember being very angry when a good friend of ours died and a random, who had very little connection with our friend, kept posting pictures of his grave. I've deleted her off my friends list, she makes my blood pressure rise.

Disgusting, it brings to mind that woman who,pretended she was in the twin towers for attention

@WhatToDo999 I’m sorry to hear that, as I am with the rest of the awful examples on this thread. I think @DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult has the most apt term for them I think, grief vampires.

Pure attention seeking I'm afraid - and while true that social media's encouraged it, this certainly isn't just a recent thing

My late, exMIL didn't even need to know whoever had died; she'd go to any available funeral anyway, often browbeating grieving relatives to insert herself into things they wanted to keep private ... little remembrances, the actual interment, later ash scattering and so on

The tantrum she'd throw if thwarted in any way was quite something to see, but then to a narcissist it's all grist to the mill

It's bad enough going through the grieving process when you have to, why anyone would choose to, or even choose to fake feeling that shitty is beyond me.

It is possible to feel very shocked and upset at the death of someone you weren't neccessarily close to though. I wouldn't post about it on social media, but a girl I worked with and who was a casual friend of mine died in a car crash when we were 21. It pre dates social media and I only found out when I read about it in the local paper a few days after. I can still remember how shocked and upset I felt when I saw her picture and the headline. There is a song from around that time that always makes me think of her, even now. I think of her fairly often, despite the fact we weren't close. I have a still frame in my mind of the last time I saw her and spoke to her, a few months before she died. I think of everything that I have done since then and all the things she didn't get to do.

So I am not excusing the social media circus, but it is possible to be quite affected by the death of someone you weren't especially close to.

Yes I agree. I became aware at the end of last week that an acquaintance had killed herself earlier in the week and actually it really upset me, I was in tears at work. However I wouldn't have dreamed of drawing attention to myself in that way on social media, the tragedy was one belonging to her close friends and family and all I did was express my condolences to those who were close to her.

Well I wonder what she is missing in her life and why she needs all that attention. :( She doesn't sound very happy to me. Perhaps just let her have this, and hopefully one day she'll seek help for the hole in her she needs filled by others ...

We had this...a woman who only met the deceased once, for a hour, put up a photo of them on her fb which comments of grief etc. Then they came the funeral and told everyone how much they loved them, and even managed to get in the funeral car.

Ugh, I have a ‘friend’ who did this not so long ago. She has a very empty life and her social media is full of people she has never met, just connected with them online due to ‘mutual love’ of something. They don’t really know her, so she regularly posts these kind of attention seeking statuses because she knows they will all comment! 🙄

My cousin does this. Virtually every day she paying tribute to someone who's died 'uncle John who she'll miss so very much' she never saw him and he's not her uncle. When a distance uncle died who none of us barely knew she posted a tribute then said 'thinking of my cousin's too' she's never met them! The rest of the family were best of it is, she works in a hospice and sees death on a daily basis and she's really good at her job, I had the misfortune to witness this. The family just roll our eyes now.

Tis strange whet people get out of this shit.

My sister does this. It's part of the reason I don't see eye to eye with her. I understand she garnered a lot of sympathy from others when I had a miscarriage...

There isn’t anything people like this can’t twist around to make it about them.
Selfish arrogant attention seeking bastards.