I understand that when people are grieving telling them to get over it isn’t usually very productive, but I’ve been seeing a lot of #Fuck2016 posts recently about different celebrities that have died this year and I’m starting to see people responding with “get over it”. I must admit, I’m feeling a little bit more in line with the “get over it” crew.

Celebrities die every year; important ones, ones that have shaped our lives. It is sad. We grieve. We remember how they entertained us, how they brought meaning to our lives. A standard response this year, has been to add #fuck2016. Have a substantially higher number of celebrities died this year? I don’t know. Is it that the celebrities are now childhood favorites of people on social media? In 2003, instead of posting #fuck2003 online when Bob Hope died, did people express their grief over a beer at the American Legion? “Remember his Christmas Show in Saigon?”

Other people die every year too. Important to those who loved them. Children in Chicago killed by gun violence. Christopher Brandon-Luckett, Diego Alvarado, Jovan Wilson, and many others.

To put things all into perspective, today is the Feast of Holy Innocents, when we remember the children killed by King Herod in his attempt to kill the infant Jesus.

So, why is #Fuck2016 so popular right now? Is it that it has simply become the acceptable way to express grief over the death of celebrities? A new behavior normalized through its use in social media?

Or, is there perhaps something else going on, like Collective Trauma? Perhaps it is a combination of the two, since newly normalized behaviors may be a cause or result of collective trauma.

Perhaps most importantly, how do we respond? I posted links to stories of kids killed by gun violence in Chicago on Facebook. I wrote this blog post, and I’m exploring other ways of coping with trauma and grief in the digital world. What are your thoughts?