Global Courant
They had it coming. They deserved it. Who’s stupid enough to pay $250,000 for a ride in a can controlled by a video game controller? Why should we foot the bill for salvation?
These sentiments flooded social media as countless people sounded — and even said much, much worse — about the missing Titan submarine even before the fate and that of the five people trapped inside was known. And they didn’t stop even after news broke that the ship had imploded and the families of the victims began to mourn.
When a news story has all the hallmarks of a Hollywood thriller — billionaire characters, a mysterious adventure gone wrong, a massive search as the clock ticks down to zero oxygen — it’s hard to look away. Some say the tidal wave of cynical sentiment and bad jokes on social media that accompanied the coverage and continues today is gloating, or pleasure people get from celebrating the misfortune of others. Other experts say it is driven by wealth inequality, or that the response ultimately reflects a lack of societal discourse.
“Once you see a few of these memes pop up, make fun of the situation, and they get attention, it becomes easier to express the same feelings,” says Jessica Gall Myrick, a professor of communications at Pennsylvania State University and an expert in media and emotions.
‘I have nothing to say but eat the rich’ pic.twitter.com/S97WRWc8EV
She documented the same type of reaction when former US President Donald Trump revealed he had COVID in 2020. Online dictionary searches for gloating rose more than 30,000 percent, Myrick said.
“We’ve seen it before, but this was really more intense,” she said.
The response to victims’ wealth
At the core of the story are the wealthy characters: a chemical company executive and his son; a businessman who held several world records; a former French naval officer; and the CEO of the submarine company. The guests each paid $250,000 US for the experience.
Four of the five people who were on the submarine Titan are Pierre-Henri Nargeolet, top left; Shahzada Dawood, top right, whose son Suleman was also on board; Hamish Harding, lower left; and Stockton Rush (bottom right). (Getty, Reuters)
It was essentially “very, very rich people” pushing the boundaries of what is possible, and perhaps what is ethical to do, said Yotam Ophir, chief of the Media Effects, Misinformation and Extremism (MEME) lab at the University of buffalo. People can easily imagine that all that money could have been used for a nobler purpose, he said.
But he cautioned against taking social media’s response to the Titan as a true reflection of people’s feelings.
“We all perform online, right? The things we post on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, even between those platforms, often have different personalities that we project,” he said.
“Just because someone clicked share or retweeted a joke about the incident, I don’t want to deduce that they’re actually happy about someone else’s tragedy.
“I think they feel there’s an opportunity to maybe express their social identity, and part of their social identity is often resisting, again, the deep wealth inequality.”
LOOK | Who should pay the cost of finding the Titan?
Who should pay the rising costs of finding the submarine Titan?
The price tag to find the doomed OceanGate Titan submarine continues to grow as efforts now shift to salvaging wreckage. Ships, planes and other resources poured in from multiple countries, including Canada, the US, Britain and France before rescuers announced that all five people on board had died in a catastrophic hull failure en route to the Titanic site.
People’s fascination with the rich is fueled by both curiosity and envy. And when rich people get into trouble, the rest of us feel better, wrote Pamela Rutledge, director of the California-based Media Psychology Research Center, in a piece on social media and the submarine for Psychology today.
“At least in the United States, we like heroes and we like rich people, and we’d love to hear all about them, but we really like to take them down because it makes us feel better, because then we find out they really aren’t special,” she said in an interview.
“And so it’s a way to equalize or normalize.”
Amid all the online commentary, some good may have come from people focusing on the size of passengers’ bank accounts, Myrick said. Many people posting on social media pointed out the blatant disparity between the Titan passengers, who chose adventure, and the hundreds of migrants who drowned off the coast of Greece just days earlier, many of whom had little choice but to do so . ship.
This undated image from the Greek Coast Guard on June 14 shows dozens of people on a battered fishing boat that later capsized and sank off the coast of southern Greece. (Greek Coast Guard / The Associated Press)
As people mock the situation unfolding off the coast of Newfoundland, people may have learned something about the tragedy in the Mediterranean that they might not have otherwise heard about, Myrick said.
“Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad on social media,” she said.
Lack of accountability, politeness on social media
Rutledge, who has a doctorate in psychology with a specialization in media technology. pointed out that anyone can make a point on social media without accountability. Some platforms reward the most outlandish theories and points of view with more exposure.
“The internet is incentivized to be outrageous or funny,” Rutledge said. “If you get enough likes, it’s monetized, and so it completely disconnects from whatever the event was and becomes all about something else.”
It’s a trend she sees reflected in other aspects of contemporary culture, even offline. Rutledge pointed out that a lack of civility also affects the offices of political leaders.
Conservative MP and former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole received a standing ovation as he delivered his final speech in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill on 12 June. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
Just weeks ago, outgoing MP and former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole lamented the effect social media has had on the House of Commons, warning of the dangers of “performance politics” to generate clips.
“We become elected officials who judge our self-worth by how many likes we get on social media, but not how many lives we change in the real world,” he said at the time. “We become followers of our followers when we should be leaders.”
But Rutledge predicts the online commentary won’t stop anytime soon. It’s way too easy to give in to impulses.
“You need some good examples at the top,” she said. “Unfortunately, you don’t win at the top by setting a good example.”
