Episode 14.
The world was gripped when OceanGate’s Titan submersible went missing on its descent to visit the Titanic wreck. Fuelled by relentless 24/7 news coverage, the internet went into overdrive with mocking memes and ‘eat the rich’ jokes at the expense of the 5 wealthy passengers, while a full-scale rescue mission was under way. With billions of views online, the Titan became the subject of what people were calling disaster voyeurism, with even calls for the Titanic film director James Cameron to make the film adaptation.
But why are we so obsessed with these global disaster stories? Are all disasters created equal? And have these tragedies become a form of entertainment?
Join us this week as we discuss the fascination with tragedy and what role dark humour can play in our own life in dealing with profound trauma and grief.
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Click here for the full transcript:
Speakers: Lisa and Sarah
Lisa 00:06
From the moment the news broke that the Titan submersible went missing on its descent down to see the Titanic, there was relentless 24/7 news coverage. The internet became completely consumed, unable to tear itself away from the unfolding events. In response to the tragedy, social media memes began to kick into overdrive, with some even revelling in the downfall of the billionaires on board by posting “eat the rich” jokes. Meanwhile, there was those online who questioned the huge disparity in media attention between the Titan submersible and the tragic sinking of a migrant boat. Today, we're asking - Why are we so obsessed with these global disaster stories? Are all disasters created equal? And have these tragedies become a form of entertainment? Join us as we go straight to the comments.
Sarah
So just a quick disclaimer, if my voice sounds a little bit weird at the moment it's because I've had a cold all week. So I'm sat here with lemsip.
Lisa
Oh bless. I wish I could get lemsip in Norway. I really miss it. They just bring you ginger and honey, it's just old school.
Sarah 01:06
Well, the global media has been completely obsessed with the Titan sub story and the billionaire passengers. There's been wall to wall front page coverage. There's been an international rescue mission involving four countries and potentially millions of dollars. And everyone, including even the director of the movie Titanic, James Cameron himself, has weighed in on the tragedy. As Bryony Clarke wrote in The Guardian - “passengers aboard the sub lost on a dive to the Titanic became characters in a tragic drama. The rest of us were spectators.”
Lisa
But the spectrum of reactions has ranged from shock and concern to a certain schadenfreude-driven glee based on the wealth of those on board, and reports that the owners of the Titan OceanGate, had built a subpar vessel and ignored safety warnings. Within hours of it going missing memes started spreading rapidly on Tiktok, Twitter and Instagram, mocking the situation, including, “I have nothing to say but eat the rich”, which refers to a political slogan associated with anti capitalism and class warfare. And you know, in one Tiktok video uploaded on Tuesday, it had 1.4 million views. And it said, “It's crazy to think we might only have another 30 hours or so of being able to make fun of the people on the submarine”. An apparent reference to the hours of oxygen left for the passengers, which I thought was really, really twisted and dark.
Sarah
You know, alongside that in what you could call one of life's strange coincidences, another sea based disaster had taken place just two days prior to that. There was a refugee fishing boat that sank in the Mediterranean. It had an estimated 750 people on board, but unfortunately, only 104 were rescued. And the international organisation for migration actually called it “one of the worst sea tragedies in the last decade”. So I mean, there was quite a stark contrast in terms of scale of rescue effort and press coverage between the two events. And this led to a lot of people making the point that Western society places very different values on life for the wealthy versus the poor. So there was a tweet that said “last week about carrying approximately 750 desperate refugees sank off the coast of Greece, only 104 survived. Today, a search is on for a submersible carrying five wealthy individuals in the Atlantic. Both are tragedies, but one achieved hour-to-hour media coverage. Guess which…”
Lisa
Yeah, and that was incredibly tragic. And even Barack Obama has questioned this disparity saying, “but the fact that this has got so much more attention, and the fact that 700 people sank is an untenable situation. In some ways, it's indicative of the degree to which people's life chances have grown so disparate.”
However, other commentators have pointed out the difference in stories, and this, there was this comment on the Mail Online. “The difference is time. The Titan disaster was an edge of your seat horror show that gripped the world because it had the chance to do so. Had the implosion been confirmed when they say it supposedly happened it would have hit the news then disappeared on to the next headline.”
Sarah
Yeah. And, you know, as we've said, it's been a huge global story. So I'm sure a lot of you know the basic details. But Lisa, I know you've actually been following the story quite intently. Can you fill us in just very quickly, a bit on the backstory?
Lisa
Yeah, I’ll try and give a very brief timeline. So yes, on Sunday, June the 18th, OceanGate’s Titan submersible or you could call it ‘sub’ loses contact with its mothership Polar Prince one hour, 45 minutes into its descent to the Titanic. It’s then reported missing after eight hours to the US Coast Guard. The Titan had only 96 hours worth of oxygen, which would approximately last until 12 o'clock or 12pm on Thursday, the 22nd of June. And obviously there was a huge international search and rescue operation put into motion. There were five people on board, the pilot and four passengers. The pilot was OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush. There was French diver and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a British businessman Hamish Harding, and Pakistani investor Shahzada Dawood and his 19 year old son Suleman. On Tuesday night sonar equipment detected banging noises, sparking hope that those aboard the Titan were still alive. But on Thursday 6pm UK time, a robotic vehicle discovered the tail cone of the Titan on the ocean floor, followed by the front and back ends of the Titan’s hull, not that far from the actual Titanic wreck. And the pilot and four passengers in the missing submersible, are believed to be dead. We also find out post this discovery that the US Navy detected the likely implosion of the Titan sub on an underwater sound monitoring device shortly after it disappeared, although this was never made public.
Sarah
So I mean, that's that's a really good, concise timeline of the events. And obviously, there are loads more details for people who wanted to follow the story. But you know, for us, our focus is always the reactions to the story.
Lisa
Yeah. I think that we need to start by saying, why do we become so transfixed or sort of fascinated by these disasters and tragedies? Why do they make such big news?
Sarah
Well, you know, there have been various studies that have investigated how there's, there's a negative bias in people. That refers to our sort of collective hunger to hear and remember bad news. So for example, researchers at McGill University found that participants, they often chose stories with a negative tone, rather than neutral or positive stories, even though they’d actually said that they preferred good news themselves. And there are various explanations for this. You know, the human brain is essentially wired to be hypersensitive to danger. And so disasters do get our attention. And it's useful because we've evolved to react quickly to potential threats, and that that makes sure that we stay safe, that keeps us alive. It's completely adaptive evolutionary wise.
There's also that element of curiosity. So Matthew Goldfine, who's a clinical psychologist, said “this is something across the board with humans in general, anyone who's driving on the highway and sees an accident slows down to rubberneck, and find out what happened”.
Lisa
I find that term rubbernecking so strange, like I know what it is. But I think in the UK, we would say oh it's gawping or even being a bit ghoulish.
Sarah
Yeah. I mean, it's definitely US slang. And it, it's inspired by this sort of idea of someone craning their neck and having a really flexible neck so they can look at everything. But the reason that we're so focused on accidents or tragedies, is we want to know exactly what happens so that we can work out how we would do it differently. We can assure ourselves that we would have survived in that situation, it makes us feel safer. So there was a comment on Quora that, you know, basically outlined this, and it said, “We're fascinated on natural disasters, for the same reason we're fascinated with true crime. We wonder how we would react and how to protect ourselves from the disasters we're watching or reading about? While I'm watching people prepare for Hurricane Dorian, I'm wondering how I would put up something to protect my windows and where I'd go if I had to evacuate.” And the same person goes on to say,” it also, I hope makes us grateful for the things we do have no matter how small or insignificant they may seem at the moment, it reminds us that things could be so very much worse”. And I think that's an important point. And something that hopefully a lot of people take away from that. But how much do you think these, these aspects played a role in the Titan disaster? I mean, what had you gripped to the news?
Lisa
My dad actually worked in a role directly sort of connected to the legacy of the Titanic tragedy. And as many of us know, when the Titanic sank, it led to sweeping changes in safety regulations, and particularly in communication sort of requirements for ships at sea. And that includes ships being required to have 24 hour radio communications. So a radio operator had to be on duty at all times, which was what my dad did, obviously, in split shifts with someone else. So the people, you know, so just to explain so the people that did all the radio communications back in the 60s 70s, they were still working on Morse codes and telegrams when he started out, which is where you get that famous SOS signal, you know, for a ship of distress, which is the dot dot dot, dash dash dash,dot dot dot, if I've done that correct.
Sarah
Yeah, no, I'm sure we did that in the Brownies.
Lisa
Yeah, exactly. And, in fact, he would come home, you know, he'd spend months at sea and then come back, and sort of regale us with all these tales. And I think that's where I've always had that fascination with the sea. And he actually did work on a diving support ship. So he’d tell me a lot about the deep sea divers and all the details about how they would get ready to go down to the sort of ocean floor, including being 30 days in what they call saturation chambers. And then they take 12 hours to get from the diving bow down to the ocean floor, when you really need nerves of steel. And it's just an extremely dangerous business. And he also told me some strange occurrences that would happen at sea, like, I think someone fell off a ship once and it's just so difficult to find people once they go overboard. And I think that was a lost cause. And just generally, I think you and I, we both talked a lot about this, there’s so much danger at sea and sort of mystery.
Sarah
Yeah,
Lisa
I think that's what drew me to the story is and also, you know, is this feeling of like, Is this happening again? Is the Titanic, Is there some sort of curse on it? But I also think it has a lot of the elements of a blockbuster sort of movie.
Sarah 10:06
Yeah, I completely agree. And there was an article by Pam Rutledge in Psychology Today. And she said, “it has extreme tourism. It has billionaires, mysteries, explosions, search and rescue missions, as well as the mythology of the Titanic”. So I mean, it pretty much ticked all the boxes.
Lisa 10:25
But not all tragedies capture the collective imagination in the same way others go by relatively unnoticed, as some people were highlighting with the juxtaposition of the Titan sub story, sort of versus the migrant boat story. And I read this Mail Online comment that said, “I think it's called compassion fatigue, there's only a certain amount of sympathy people can have, whereas the Titan disaster was a one off, hopefully.” And I think that they are basically saying that with the migrant boat sinking is part of a sort of series of tragic boat sinkings that have happened previously, and therefore seen as less rare and less newsworthy. As sad as that is.
Sarah
You know, absolutely, I think that's definitely one aspect of it, you know, the more unusual or unexpected an event is, it becomes much more newsworthy and more likely to get our attention. So for example, if someone famous, like John Lennon gets shot somewhere that, you know, we considered relatively safe. So a very expensive part of New York, it's definitely more of a surprise than if someone completely unknown get shot in a poor part of Mexico, somewhere where there is already gun crime on a daily basis. And unfortunately, part of that is about the victim profile. So for example, you know, there's this phrase called ‘Missing white woman syndrome’. It was coined by Gwen Ifill at the 2004 Journalism Conference, and it's now widely used to describe the disparity in media coverage that missing young, conventionally attractive white women receive over missing people of colour. And there was a 2013 study that found evidence of this, that news outlets covered missing white women and girls significantly more often and more intensely than anyone else. And a really good real life example of this is Madeleine McCann, who I'm sure everyone's aware of. I mean, she's one of the most famous missing people in the world. She was blonde, blue eyed female and a daughter of middle class parents. And what was interesting is on the exact same day, there was a little boy who also went missing, Daniel Entwistle. He went missing on the same day but didn't get anywhere near as much publicity. And the difference was he was male, and he was from a working class family.
Lisa
But the thing is with the Titan, those actually no attractive white women on board.
Sarah
No, no, there isn't. But in the case of the Titan sub disaster, there is a massive wealth disparity. At least two of the passengers were billionaires, but all of them were rich. Pam Rutledge said “many people envy wealth with a mixture of curiosity and envy. Based on ratings of shows like Real Housewives, there is a voyeuristic fascination with the rich. People also like to see wealthy people get pulled off their pedestals. When rich and privileged people run into trouble or behave badly and get caught. We feel better because it shows that underneath it all, they're normal and mortal, cracking the veneer of privilege, and it makes us feel less inferior”.
Lisa
Absolutely. And that is reflected in the comments. One tweet said “they're billionaires they absolutely deserve their fate”. Another tweet, “see. see rich bastards always think rules don't apply to them. That rules and laws are for the small people. How has trying to defy the laws of physics working out for you?’ Another tweet, “Admitted it’s foul, but most people assume that most billionaires are part of the elite, and are always supporting initiatives that hurt the average working person. Look at how the rich got richer during the pandemic. Classic schadenfreude”.
Sarah
Yeah, Jessica Myrick who's a Pennsylvania State University professor, who studies the psychology of media use, she explained this by saying “making memes about this event, especially early on before there was any bad ending is likely a direct response to the past decade of news coverage heralding billionaire explorers with their own companies. So think SpaceX, Blue Origin, etc. By showing that money alone may not make someone a hero or smart or successful.” And this of course, is referring to the billionaire space race, which seemed to heat up during lockdown while the rest of us were locked away. You know, when I think that's something that you you followed, right?
Lisa
I really did. And I just always loved this joke about the ex wife of just Jeff Bezos, you know, she got a huge payout when they got divorced. And someone wrote a meme saying, “oh my gosh, imagine getting all that money. And then your ex literally fucks off the planet.”
Sarah 14:43
Yeah, double tick.
Lisa
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, yes, we've been really bombarded with sort of all these stories about how out of touch billionaires are from the average person. And actually, when researching this episode, I didn't realise that Jeff Bezos’s personal wealth almost doubled during the pandemic, and you know, in something that actually effectively destroyed lives and livelihoods of millions. And people right now we're in this cost of living crisis, it feels really tough. So I think it feels particularly irritating to people who are struggling to see these billionaires spending vast amounts of money on something that is tantamount to extreme tourism. And I think this is echoed in this tweet. “So this billionaire space race is nothing more than dick measuring contest between Musk, Bezos and Branson. They're not investing billions to forward science or the bounds of human possibility. They're doing it with the first rich guy to bounce around uselessly up there”.
Sarah
That just makes me think of Tigger bouncing around on his tail.
Lisa
I know. They're all just bouncing from planet to planet. I think that seems to be playing a role in the reactions to this Titan story. And Boris Johnson, he sort of stepped out and said, look, “the Titan five died in a cause, pushing out the frontiers of human knowledge”. However, Charles Haas, president of the Titanic international society set up in 1989 to preserve the history of the Titanic. He said, “It's time to consider seriously whether human trips to Titanic's wreck should end in the name of safety, with relatively little remaining to be learned from all about the wreck.” But I've also seen a lot of commentators say this expedition seems nothing but just extreme tourism. They said, “There's something that makes me distinctly uncomfortable about wealthy tourists going to the Titanic wreck just because they can. There's certainly no longer any real scientific benefit to be gained from such thrill seeking.” And that sort of brings up is it appropriate to go and visit the Titanic wreck? Or should it be left alone in peace?
Sarah
Well, I think the main point is really more about the safety that's involved to go and visit it. Because I mean, tourism exists everywhere. I mean, I've been to the pyramids in Egypt, I've been to Pere Lachaise, which is the historic cemetery in Paris, where there’s Oscar Wilde. And that's quite a natural thing for people to do. I think it's all about whether you do it respectfully, I'm not having a picnic on someone's grave or anything. But in this case, there is a big risk in going down there. And that seems to be, I would say that's more relevant than the fact that it's a graveyard, personally.
Lisa
Yeah, it's interesting, because I asked my dad his opinion, and he said, I do see it as a site of great tragedy. And just to leave it in peace.
Sarah
Yeah.
Lisa
And you just got to remind yourself, it cost $250,000 per person, which is 195,000 pounds, to go down to visit this wreck.
Sarah
Yeah, and that's a lot of money, you know, a lot of money that most people don't have, just just for the things they actually need. And on top of this schadenfreude towards billionaires, there's also a real moral judgement on the hubris aspect. So like Icarus, who died when he flew too close to the sun. I mean, one of the casualties, Stockton Rush, who was, you know, the CEO of OceanGate, the company responsible, he'd claimed in in 2017 interview with CBS “that the carbon fibre sub model was pretty much invulnerable”, which is quite a statement to make. But since then, it's now come out that former employees, industry leaders and deep sea explorers had all tried to raise safety concerns as long ago as 2018 and that the company had just completely ignored them. And this weirdly mirrors the actual tragedy of the Titanic itself, the wreck that they were going to go visit. So Shane Tilton, who's an associate professor of multimedia journalism at Ohio University, he said “people are also drawn to this story specifically, because history is repeating itself. Basically, the Titanic was this luxury cruise that basically risked everything went way too fast, was way too reckless. And at the end, it became a death sentence for those on it, much like this Titan sub. The memes kind of make themselves because you have a parallel story that makes it very easy to tell and very easy to communicate”.
Lisa
Absolutely. And an aspect that I really found fascinating was the role of James Cameron in all of this. You know, we know him as the filmmaker behind Titanic. But he's almost become like inseparable from the Titanic and its wreckage. And I didn't realise, you know, in researching this episode, I found out he's visited an incredible 33 times the Titanic wreck and even contributed to the creation of a submersible called Deep Sea challenger. And this sub was used to explore the ocean floor of the Mariana Trench, which is the deepest known trench on Earth. So he's got extensive diving experience.
Sarah
Yeah. And I don't know if you remember, but he did another film that was sort of based on this as well, The Abyss.
Lisa
Yes! Exactly. And I think he's got like this role, where he's really cultivated this profound fascination surrounding the Titanic. And I think it's unsurprising that he was, he sort of became the go to person for this recent event. He was actually silent on the issue until they sort of concluded the search and they started finding the sub debris on June the 22nd. And lots of people on Twitter were eagerly waiting for his response and inquiring even about a potential film adaptation.
Sarah
Wow.
Lisa 20:00
And I think yeah, it's insane really, and I think with the insatiable demand for content on this story, I mean, the media was really sort of tirelessly pursuing every conceivable angle. And this included in sort of exploring counts of individuals who sort of contemplated going on this ill fated voyage, to people that have been on it before and had mishaps, to even social media interactions of the passengers’ relatives.
Sarah
Yeah, they really went deeply in. But I don't think it's true to say that people are only interested in disasters that affect the rich. So I mean, you know, one of the major draws of this, of a story like this is that it's happening in real time before our eyes, that there's still a possibility of rescue. And essentially, that we're dealing with the unknown. So there's, there's an air of mystery around it. And there was this comment that said, “it was due to the fact that it was drawn out over a number of days, if it had been reported as five people have died on day one, there would not have been the coverage, think of the Chilean miners, or the Thai children in the cave.” And those were also really big stories at the time, and involved people who weren't rich. And on the one hand, I think people are metaphorically holding their breath and hoping for a miracle. Because we've been conditioned to expect that from Hollywood disaster movies, we want there to be a rescue because it makes us feel safer that if we were in such a situation, we would also be rescued.
Lisa
But are the memes that were generated in response to this tragedy, are they schadenfreude? Or does some dark humour play a different role?
Sarah
I think it's really difficult to answer that because I mean, you'd have to judge it on a case by case basis. So as a society, I mean, we've we've used the words appropriate already. We definitely have a shared expectation on what's considered appropriate or inappropriate reactions to things like tragedy, to grief to loss, you know, all these things.
Lisa
And actually, that makes me think of people calling out the stepson of one of the passengers because he was publicly flirting with an OnlyFans model moments after asking for prayers for his sort of stricken relative. And he was also criticised for going to a blink 182 concert while the search was underway. Even Cardi B weighed in tweeting, “you're supposed to be at the house sad. You're supposed to be crying for me, you're supposed to be right next to the phone waiting to hear about any updates about me. You're supposed to be consoling your mom”. But he defended his actions by saying “it might be distasteful being here but my family would want me to be at the blink 182 show as it's my favourite band and music helps me in difficult times”
Sarah
It’s so hard to really judge what's appropriate because it's different for each person and each family and each in you know, group. I think shock can also definitely play a role and this famously played a role in the I don't know if you've heard of the Lindy Alexander case.
Lisa
Yeah,
Sarah
In Australia. She was you know, it was the “Dingo Ate My Baby” I think it was called. But she was wrongfully convicted and later exonerated for the murder of her daughter, who was attacked and taken by a dingo and Dr. Leah Williams Lecturer in criminology and criminal law, she pointed out, “she didn't cry enough or she didn't seem sad enough. All the judgments made about character then feed into perceptions of criminal guilt.” So people can definitely have a view that there should be no humour around anything tragic, but Viviane Ephraimson-Abt, a manager of wellbeing initiatives at the Colorado State University Health Network. She said “we can use humour to cope with life, the mundane, the ridiculous, inequities and tragedies”. And gallows humour which is a term that, it refers to the enjoyment of dark and twisted humour that takes its name from those about to be hanged. And studies have actually shown that this kind of humour, this kind of banter, it can serve as a common psychological weapon among surgeons, firemen, cops, all the first responders. And that it serves as a way of coping with trauma and keeping the darkness at bay. On Big Think, Johnny Thompson describes three theories that best explain gallows humour. So the superiority theory, and it says that we find things funny by asserting our dominance over the mocked item. So when you laugh at taboos or death, it's a way of telling the world - Oh, they don't have power over us. And then relief theory, it says we laugh to vent the anxiety or stress at something. We make the sick jokes because their content is actually deeply traumatic and we're trying to relieve our fear of it. And then Benign Violation theory says that jokes are a way to violate taboos in a safe way. We can say ‘I'm joking’, after saying something hugely inappropriate and mostly be let off the hook.
Lisa
I think that's a very British thing, isn't it? We really, really love dark humour. I know you've got a really dark sense of humour, don't you? I mean, has that ever got you into trouble?
Sarah
Yeah, I mean, so the dark humour comes from my mum. And it's always been a bonding experience between her, myself, and my sister. And as, as you know, Lisa, but the listeners won't know, my mum actually passed away unexpectedly just over a month ago. And that was actually one of the reasons that we took a slightly longer break than we'd planned between seasons because, you know, this had happened. And also what, I mean, I really wasn't following the Titan story as it happened because my life was, you know, so much was going on. And it was, it didn't seem that important to me at the time, there was just too much. But she’s had a massive stroke, and I jumped on a plane, and we had about five days with her before she passed away. And, you know, the weirdest thing was that, I mean, she was in the hospital. But not only was she cracking jokes while in there, so when my sister arrived, she said to her - oh, well, I'm probably not going to be up to skydiving next week. And, and also, you know, when we were finally told it was definitely end-of-life, you know, and it was just waiting. And we were keeping vigil. And then also, in the weeks after, when we were planning the funeral, my sister and I, we kept cracking jokes with one another, it was sort of a coping strategy. And I think there was part of us that were really worried that other people would think that we were being inappropriate, and that somehow, you know, because a lot of people immediately afterwards they go, are you okay? Are you okay? And sometimes, you know, and apparently it is very normal, the first bit, sometimes till after the funeral, sometimes till much later, you almost go numb. So you're not constantly crying, some people do and that's fine. But you worry that other people, if you know, when people are asking, Are you okay, that if you're not crying, or you're like not not getting out of bed, that then somehow you didn't love her somehow, somehow, you know, you're cold and heartless, and it somehow undermines the relationship you've had. When actually, I mean, my mum and I, we were incredibly close. We used to actually speak every day, even though we lived in different countries. So, you know.
Lisa 27:06
I was so shocked when this happened, you know, because I've only just met your mum. And I knew how important she was when I was in York. And I actually felt guilty as I said to you, oh I feel guilty because I forced her to watch Grey Gardens with us, which is one of my all time favourite films with Drew Barrymore, and Jessica Lange. And I just thought it was a brilliant story when a mother and a daughter
Sarah 27:15
…toddling around on their own in a dilapidated house, I think there was an element where you were like - guys, this might be your future, you're going to be feeding raccoons in, as your house pulls down around you like doing weird dance routines. And I was like, Yeah, I mean, it's possible, I can see that.
Lisa
She was loving it. She kept pausing it and doing really great observations. I can see where you got that from, you know that she's so insightful. She was so witty, and so funny, and self referential, I just loved being around her. And I'll never forget, when she drove me and dropped me off at the train station, she was so low riding in her car, like a gangster and went “see ya”. And like, she seemed like a woman who had many, many years ahead of her. That's the thing that was so shocking.
Sarah 27:53
Yeah. And I think that is, that is the thing that is, you know, I think both me and my sister and to, and are still are in shock, because I mean, we, she wasn't like super fit and healthy, but we really thought she had another decade. So I don't think, I think it takes a long time for your brain to come to cope with such a big massive change. And, you know, we're often in different in different countries. So for me, I'm like, she could just be in Australia. And I think, humour, I mean, I think it's just a way to cope with the unknown, which I have to be honest, for myself included, it's truly terrifying is the unknown not knowing, I'm, you know, I like to plan things, and I can be flexible, but we don't know what our future is. And that's really scary. And it brings up your own mortality as well. And I think, the late Joan Rivers, she also I mean she joked about her own husband’s suicide. And she said, “if you can laugh at it, you can deal with it. And don't start telling me that I shouldn't be saying it. That's the way I do it. I would have been laughing at Auschwitz”. And yeah, I mean, I get what she's saying. And Psychology Today, there was an article that said “comedy doesn't go away at times of death, it just takes him a macabre turn”. So I would say for myself, personally, I really try and judge who will be able to understand my humour and who won't. So I mean, me and my sister are on the same page. And we also, we know how much we loved and still love our mum. So it's not going to be taken wrongly. But I think the aim is never to hurt another person with the humour, that they shouldn't be the butt of the joke. You shouldn't be demeaning them. You shouldn't be like wishing their death. You know, it's that's, I never want to hurt someone else with humour. That's not, it's really more for me to cope with the issue, you know.
Lisa 29:47
And I think that really goes to the core of like the jokes that people are making about this, or this disaster and disasters in general. In your view, do you think they're an attempt at coping with this overwhelming emotion. Or, you know, is it a cruel meme at the expense of someone else?
Sarah 30:00
Well, Katie Watson from the Hastings centre, she conducted a study on gallows humour in medicine. And what she said was “deciding when gallows humour is okay turns on the ethical question, when is joking a form of abuse of a patient of trust or of power? A joke about a patient's condition told in front of the patient or the patient's family is unethical because it has the potential to harm them. Whereas ‘backstage humour,’ which is just between professionals, you know, not in front of the patients. If that doesn't harm anyone it can, it can actually help the residents integrate terrible events and get through the shift. In those cases, the bit of the doctors joke isn't the patient, it's death itself.” And I think that's quite a good way of judging where the line is.
Lisa 30:48
But in the Titan five case, though, we're talking about jokes on social media posted publicly that the families of the missing or like now dead passengers can see and cause them actually incredible distress. And some, like we said, we're even wishing death on them. And social media seems to drive these kind of responses because as Susan Schreiner, technology industry analyst at C4 Trends points out, “people can spout off anything with just a click and hide behind a wall of anonymity. No direct human interaction is required. And there's no sense of responsibility, or fear of accountability”. And technology entrepreneur Lon Safko, author of The Social Media Bible also says “it's also about narcissism. Oh, look, 79 people like my snarky posts, it's a form of heckling, and getting attention. The bigger the story, the more attention can be diverted from the story to them personally.” Which is what I think that I saw a lot going on, on social media
Sarah
in this particular case. Yeah, no, I think that's true. I mean, I wasn't following in real time, as I've said, but yeah. And Pam Rutledge again, she called this, which is a phrase, I just think’s amazing, but she called it the ‘entertainmentification' of tragedy on social media’. And there are people you know, there are plenty of people also speaking out against this. So there was a tweet that said, “two of the people on the Titanic submarine are a father and his teenage son, his wife and daughter are back home. absolutely terrified. Sorry to be a buzzkill guys, but maybe we shouldn't joke about it or make fun of these people for how they spent their money. They are real humans”. And there was another tweet that said, “I don't know, man, I know we hate rich people. But I think if you're laughing at the idea of any non-evil person dying, perhaps the most nightmarish death imaginable, it may be time to log off for a little”. And I thought that really put a lot of, you know, really put it in perspective.
Lisa
It does actually like, like, really just take a moment. I liked this term and to how do you say entertainment, entertainment
Sarah
entertainmentification
Lisa 33:08
Alright, let me try and get this right. But this, this, this new term? I absolutely agree. But it's not just individuals doing this. It's like, look at the way the media are covering it . I mean, again, going back to our, our Bible, the Mail Online, our main source of everything the Mail Online. I mean, they actually showed a video of a Coca Cola can being instantly crushed by water pressure, in order to demonstrate the implosion of the submarine. And it didn't stop there, I actually went over and looked on Tiktok and has been over 10 billion views on Titan related content. And I think there's been a, I mean, there's particularly a real fixation on the creepy sort of banging sounds apparently coming from the sub. And then there’s even audio clips of people screaming, and then there's an explosion. And there's a lot of this content that are like simulations and reenactments of what they think happened to the Titan, often accompanied by the Titanic soundtrack. And after a while, I've sort of scrolling through and it becomes sort of a bit morbidly fascinating. And you have to remind yourself that actually, no official audio clips have ever been released from any of the sonar monitoring equipment. And they made that quite clear on Twitter because people were sharing as if they were official news sources in the middle of this sort of mission, as if they had got hold of the official clips. And I think that's the danger in these situations is like, it's really difficult to tell what is real news reporting or just pure fantasy.
This Titan story has really gripped the world for seven days. What are your final thoughts on this?
Sarah 34:28
Well, you know, social media and the Internet has completely changed the way that we consume news. And it feels like we've become hungry for increasingly greater quantities of, well, essentially sensationalist content. And as with any drug, we become more and more desensitised. And we forget that behind the headlines, there are complex real people with real lives. Many of us grew up with the disaster movies from the 70s. They appeal to us because they allow us to safely explore our primordial fears of death and survival and to think about what we would do differently to make sure that we came out of it unscathed. And at the same time, they helpfully distract us from the more banal, yet pervasive problems in our everyday life. As humans, I think we spend, you know, we spend most of our lives walking a tightrope between our inevitable mortality, and our constant need to feel safe and secure. So last week's Titan Sub disaster, I mean, it unfolded like something out of a Jules Verne novel, with, with many people watching on their gripped with shock and concern for the passengers. And for them, it was eliciting a strong sense of empathy. But for many others, it was an opportunity to channel the anger and powerlessness that we feel living in a fundamentally unequal and oftentimes painfully unfair society. And to instead revel in the idea that a few of the 1% are somehow being punished for their hubris and greed. And it's really easy to forget that we're all human, that we all experience love, pain and fear, regardless of our bank balance. And also that it's possible to hold multiple competing feelings all at the same time, to feel both sad and angry that society places different values on different lives. And to acknowledge a person can make a choice you never would have done, but still feel sad when the consequences of that choice has a tragic outcome. And to realise that big tragedies are often just mirroring our own shadow and fears that already exist within us.
Lisa 36:29
That was brilliant. And I just wanted to say that I found this comment on Facebook. “I just said to a friend, you know who isn't doing this, women?” And then this next one, “dark humour is like food and clean water. Not everyone gets it”.
Sarah
That's true.
Lisa
Yeah. So thank you for listening.
Sarah
We'll see you next time.
Lisa
Thank you to our lovely producer Emily. If you enjoyed today's episode, please don't forget to leave a review and subscribe. It really does help us in reaching more people. You can also follow us on Instagram. Our handle is @s2tcpodcast. You can find out more about the show, get behind the scenes, come and say hello. Until then, see you next time.
Sarah
This podcast has been produced by Emily Crosby Media.