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"Look at what a good person I am".

Jetboogieman

Jetboogieman

Somewhere in Babylon
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So look, I want to get something out of the way immediately, I am not saying the primary motivation for every single person doing this is them being a selfish, narcissistic asshole.

The following post was inspired by the reaction of many Canadians to the tragedy in Humboldt, as a parent of two boys I did find myself shedding some tears after reading about this and I am a little overwhelmed at the incredible generosity and support Canadians have shown to the survivors and families of the victims.

However there is one thing that kind of bugged me about some peoples reaction, there is been a two pronged showing of support for individuals to participate in for the tragedy, it was a great idea, a lot of places allowed their workers to wear hockey jerseys to work to show their support and others have opted to place hockey sticks on their porches and by their front doors.

This kind of symbolism is powerful and it genuinely gets me a little choked up, especially the hockey sticks as I was driving around the other day.

However here's where I depart a little bit from the whole episode, I can't shake this nagging thought in my mind of people that take a picture of their hockey stick on their porch, next to the door, sporting their hockey jerseys and upload it to social media, to me its kind of saying "hey look what I did!"

I'm not saying that every person that does this is some heartless, selfish bastard but to my sensibility, it is simply the LAST thing I would think of doing, I, am not important in any of this, the hockey stick thing, the jersey thing is a quiet, dignified, individual and very nice symbolic gesture BUT to my sensibility there is a bit of a "hey look at what a good person I am for doing this" that I simply cannot shake in the way I feel about this about people that feel the need to take photos of their gesture and put it online.

But I dunno, what do you think, am I overthinking things and being a bit overly critical here, or am I pointing out a glimmer of narcissism born out of a horrific tragedy?
 
This is my answer:

We live in a world where people place the smallest trash can they can next to the road each week, accumulating the rest and making runs to the dump every few months, as they build their brand as saviors of the planet.
 
Jetboogieman said:
So look, I want to get something out of the way immediately, I am not saying the primary motivation for every single person doing this is them being a selfish, narcissistic asshole.

The following post was inspired by the reaction of many Canadians to the tragedy in Humboldt, as a parent of two boys I did find myself shedding some tears after reading about this and I am a little overwhelmed at the incredible generosity and support Canadians have shown to the survivors and families of the victims.

However there is one thing that kind of bugged me about some peoples reaction, there is been a two pronged showing of support for individuals to participate in for the tragedy, it was a great idea, a lot of places allowed their workers to wear hockey jerseys to work to show their support and others have opted to place hockey sticks on their porches and by their front doors.

This kind of symbolism is powerful and it genuinely gets me a little choked up, especially the hockey sticks as I was driving around the other day.

However here's where I depart a little bit from the whole episode, I can't shake this nagging thought in my mind of people that take a picture of their hockey stick on their porch, next to the door, sporting their hockey jerseys and upload it to social media, to me its kind of saying "hey look what I did!"

I'm not saying that every person that does this is some heartless, selfish bastard but to my sensibility, it is simply the LAST thing I would think of doing, I, am not important in any of this, the hockey stick thing, the jersey thing is a quiet, dignified, individual and very nice symbolic gesture BUT to my sensibility there is a bit of a "hey look at what a good person I am for doing this" that I simply cannot shake in the way I feel about this about people that feel the need to take photos of their gesture and put it online.

But I dunno, what do you think, am I overthinking things and being a bit overly critical here, or am I pointing out a glimmer of narcissism born out of a horrific tragedy?
Click to expand...

About 3 months ago a friend of mine was diagnosed with brain cancer. He has been in the hospital since then, although he is doing quite well now, I hear.

When he was diagnosed it was a real shocker to everyone. He's only about 30 years old. That's one short life to live, if he goes. It doesn't look that way now, I think he's going to beat it. But, the point of me sharing this with you, is that when we found out, lots of us changed our profile pictures to pictures of us, with him. It wasn't so much us proving that we are doing something. Because anyone who could, gave to his fund too. The action of putting a picture up wasn't self-serving. It was for him. It let him know that all over people were thinking about him and caring about him.

In my opinion, this is much the same with the hockey incident. Even though, these fans or citizens don't have personal relationships with the team. I don't think people are bandwagoning grief in order to make themselves feel better, so much as wanting to participate in a community that is healing.
 
Jetboogieman said:
So look, I want to get something out of the way immediately, I am not saying the primary motivation for every single person doing this is them being a selfish, narcissistic asshole.

The following post was inspired by the reaction of many Canadians to the tragedy in Humboldt, as a parent of two boys I did find myself shedding some tears after reading about this and I am a little overwhelmed at the incredible generosity and support Canadians have shown to the survivors and families of the victims.

However there is one thing that kind of bugged me about some peoples reaction, there is been a two pronged showing of support for individuals to participate in for the tragedy, it was a great idea, a lot of places allowed their workers to wear hockey jerseys to work to show their support and others have opted to place hockey sticks on their porches and by their front doors.

This kind of symbolism is powerful and it genuinely gets me a little choked up, especially the hockey sticks as I was driving around the other day.

However here's where I depart a little bit from the whole episode, I can't shake this nagging thought in my mind of people that take a picture of their hockey stick on their porch, next to the door, sporting their hockey jerseys and upload it to social media, to me its kind of saying "hey look what I did!"

I'm not saying that every person that does this is some heartless, selfish bastard but to my sensibility, it is simply the LAST thing I would think of doing, I, am not important in any of this, the hockey stick thing, the jersey thing is a quiet, dignified, individual and very nice symbolic gesture BUT to my sensibility there is a bit of a "hey look at what a good person I am for doing this" that I simply cannot shake in the way I feel about this about people that feel the need to take photos of their gesture and put it online.

But I dunno, what do you think, am I overthinking things and being a bit overly critical here, or am I pointing out a glimmer of narcissism born out of a horrific tragedy?
Click to expand...

I don't think you're crazy...it's a bit campy, but we're Canadian...we can't help it. :) The thing you have to remember is that a lot of people up here, and I mean a LOT of people, have kids in hockey, so it's extremely easy to relate, and in fact envision their own kids in that horrible tragedy, for a big chunk of people - either you have a kid in hockey, or you know a bunch of other parents who have kids in hockey, so this one definitely struck home... Very often people do seemingly superficial things to deal with grief...I mean, the whole funeral thing is rather superficial, if you think about it. It was a meaningful gesture of grief and support for a lot of people who could easily imagine the spot all those families are in right now. I don't think the gesture was made lightly or flippantly. I can tell you that the conversations at my work place were extremely somber after this all went down, and three of the six in my department have kids in hockey at higher than community house league level, and ride those buses all the time.

But I don't blame you, I don't have a kid in hockey, and while my son's school had a jersey day, I didn't really participate in the whole thing, except to feel extremely bad for the families, and for a sec I felt a bit jaded about it too. But I guess I settled on what better way to show these parents your support while also working out your own feelings of helplessness and grief than by doing something a bit campy on FB, in connection with tens of thousands of other people feeling the exact same way. Sometimes it's ok to use the Internet for good, even if it feels a bit cheesy... hehe If nothing else, it was nice to see something that was non partisan for a change.
 
I first saw something similar in Australia (over three years ago now) when one of our Australian cricketers was killed when a ball hit him in the neck while he was playing.


Phil Hughes death and the story behind "put out your bats."

It only goes for a few minutes, please take a look if you have some spare time. How it originated and the impact it had on people all over the world, people paying their respects and silently supporting each other.

Phil Hughes was much loved and admired by many of our younger cricketers. It was heartbreaking to see pictures of their little bats and pads outside of their doors. It's not always easy for people to come together and publicly share their grief in situations like this. This was one way that they could.

 
Jetboogieman said:
So look, I want to get something out of the way immediately, I am not saying the primary motivation for every single person doing this is them being a selfish, narcissistic asshole.

The following post was inspired by the reaction of many Canadians to the tragedy in Humboldt, as a parent of two boys I did find myself shedding some tears after reading about this and I am a little overwhelmed at the incredible generosity and support Canadians have shown to the survivors and families of the victims.

However there is one thing that kind of bugged me about some peoples reaction, there is been a two pronged showing of support for individuals to participate in for the tragedy, it was a great idea, a lot of places allowed their workers to wear hockey jerseys to work to show their support and others have opted to place hockey sticks on their porches and by their front doors.

This kind of symbolism is powerful and it genuinely gets me a little choked up, especially the hockey sticks as I was driving around the other day.

However here's where I depart a little bit from the whole episode, I can't shake this nagging thought in my mind of people that take a picture of their hockey stick on their porch, next to the door, sporting their hockey jerseys and upload it to social media, to me its kind of saying "hey look what I did!"

I'm not saying that every person that does this is some heartless, selfish bastard but to my sensibility, it is simply the LAST thing I would think of doing, I, am not important in any of this, the hockey stick thing, the jersey thing is a quiet, dignified, individual and very nice symbolic gesture BUT to my sensibility there is a bit of a "hey look at what a good person I am for doing this" that I simply cannot shake in the way I feel about this about people that feel the need to take photos of their gesture and put it online.

But I dunno, what do you think, am I overthinking things and being a bit overly critical here, or am I pointing out a glimmer of narcissism born out of a horrific tragedy?
Click to expand...

I know what you mean, but to be charitable I'll say people uploading those pictures to Facebook or whatever are just taking their participation in the demonstration of solidarity into another medium. Yeah, some want to be seen to be doing the right thing, but I'd guess most are just figuratively, virtually repeating the gesture online.
Remember when those RCMP were killed in Alberta? Where I live it's so small and remote that there's a detachment of two, in a converted house with a sign and flagpole out front. In a few days the base of the flagpole was buried under flowers. There was no organization involved, no announcement, just a spontaneous gesture by the community.
That's how we are up here.
 
Okay, I love what everyone has said so far and I appreciate what you have said.

I do kind of feel perhaps a couple of you have missed what I was saying, it's not the gesture I'm knocking at all, in fact I'm in support of it.

I want to emphasize what I felt was that, I just felt a little weird about people uploading to social media pictures that they did the gesture, as it's just not something I would be personally inclined to do.
 
Jetboogieman said:
Okay, I love what everyone has said so far and I appreciate what you have said.

I do kind of feel perhaps a couple of you have missed what I was saying, it's not the gesture I'm knocking at all, in fact I'm in support of it.

I want to emphasize what I felt was that, I just felt a little weird about people uploading to social media pictures that they did the gesture, as it's just not something I would be personally inclined to do.
Click to expand...

Minus the insane ramblings of post #2, I agree this has been a productive thread.

People grieve in different ways. Some are withdrawn, others not so much. I understand feeling uneasy towards an action you feel may be superficial in a stoic backdrop.
 
Serenity said:
I first saw something similar in Australia (over three years ago now) when one of our Australian cricketers was killed when a ball hit him in the neck while he was playing.

Phil Hughes death and the story behind "put out your bats."

It only goes for a few minutes, please take a look if you have some spare time. How it originated and the impact it had on people all over the world, people paying their respects and silently supporting each other.

Phil Hughes was much loved and admired by many of our younger cricketers. It was heartbreaking to see pictures of their little bats and pads outside of their doors. It's not always easy for people to come together and publicly share their grief in situations like this. This was one way that they could.

Click to expand...


Yeah Phil Hughes was a tough one.

I played cricket in South Africa and England, to go like that in what should be absolutely impossible in the context of cricket, just shockingly sad.
 
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