Explosions at the Boston Marathon finish line

[maconmagnolia]

Sending thoughts and prayers to all of those affected. What an awful tragedy.

I kept seeing a photo on Facebook, of a young girl who was running with the caption, "This eight year old girl was running for the victims of the Newtown shooting, and was killed during the Boston explosions." The photo is fake, as the only child who died in the explosions was an 8 year old boy who was not a runner. I can't imagine why someone would make that up!

[lovespink88]

Originally Posted by maconmagnolia

I kept seeing a photo on Facebook, of a young girl who was running with the caption, "This eight year old girl was running for the victims of the Newtown shooting, and was killed during the Boston explosions." The photo is fake, as the only child who died in the explosions was an 8 year old boy who was not a runner. I can't imagine why someone would make that up!

Me too, and it's stuff like this that drive me absolutely crazy about social media.

It's hard to describe it, but when people "share" a picture like this during a tragedy, I feel like they're basically attention whoring. "Look at me, I care about this issue too so I'm going to make it my profile picture or share it even though I don't know anything about what it means!" It just comes off as so selfish and fake to me. (I know I posted about this in another thread, but this bothered me with the red equality sign too. Changing your picture does not make you an activist.)

I mean, I'm not saying you CAN'T show support through social media, but there has GOT to be a better way than mindlessly passing something along that you saw. Be respectful about it! Stuff like this is just soooo over the top.

In my opinion.

Off my soapbox now...and any use of "you" in the above should be interpreted as a hypothetical you.