Public grief

An interesting phenomenon in terms of online social media is mourning. Around a tragic event, people come together and manifest their mutual sorrow. In Sweden, some time back, we had the case of Ricardo, a young man who was killed in the streets of Stockholm. The violence was perceived as meaningless and a facebook group gathered thousands of followers. This could have been a pure online phenomenon, but as it turned out, the founder of the group was really an entrepreneur, and he soon organised a public manifestation in central Stockholm. The event drew thousands of visitors, many of whom probably were members of the online group. This example show how few things are just online. Were the connections tap into a real need or real emotions, the virtual community also finds a counterpart IRL.