Comments on: On Covering Tragedy

By: jacsta

jacsta — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 06:11:01 +0000

I love that monkeysphere article. Next time some loser from school wants to be friends on facebook I shall tell them, “sorry, whilst you’re probably not really a loser, you are outside my monkeysphere”

By: aarondoyle

aarondoyle — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 00:20:37 +0000

As a child. I used to hate the news mentioning if Australian’s were hurt, or not. It just seemed like all we cared about was our own populace. It felt a bit wrong.

As an adult of course, I look at it a slightly different way. I now know people who are travelling or living all over the world, we all do. If there’s a disaster somewhere in the world, there’s a good chance someone you know, or at least someone in your city knows and loves someone affected.

Tradgedy in London? I have friends in London!! Oh god. Oh, no Australian’s hurt? Well that’s a relief in an otherwise horrible situation. Now I can panic a little less while feeling sorry for the loss of others.

Maybe I myself am being too callous. I’m willing to discuss over a beer, or six.

By: Dan Beeston

Dan Beeston — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:53:25 +0000

This whole Haiti thing is an excellent demonstration of the Monkeysphere process. Terrible tragedies like this often occur around the world but they generally take place in poorer Asian, Persian and East European Countries.

In this case it’s still a poor country but it’s right next to the U.S. I’ve seen tenfold more expressions of grief/interest with this than any other recent tragedies. Celebrities and web comic artists all have posts about sending aid and supporting the Haitians.

But now they’re on Twitter and this global community is being affected. Haiti is close to the U.S. and the U.S. is close to cyber space. Suddenly, rather than a world away, this is turning up on my cyber doorstep and forcing me to have a reaction.

If you didn’t follow that link to the MonkeySphere article you MUST. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever read on the internet.