Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Don't Watch the Video

Today, a madman with a gun did what has become one of the most mundane, everyday incidences to lead the day's news headlines in America: he killed several people; however, this time was different. The man took a video of the shooting on his phone as it happened on live TV.

The man shot a reporter, her interview subject, and the cameraman, filmed it, and posted it on his Facebook and Twitter accounts. As you'd expect, it was taken down by the sites, but many have saved it and uploaded it elsewhere. Don't watch it.

Why, you ask? You probably expect to hear the usual "this is what the killer would have wanted you to do" from many people, but that isn't why you shouldn't watch it. You shouldn't watch it because this is a video depicting a brutal act that shows the end of someone's life. We shouldn't want to watch people die, regardless of whether or not we know them, or hate them, or what have you, because it isn't at all like a movie or a TV show. These people won't appear in other shows, or movies, or talk about their death scenes in an interview: they're gone.

Death isn't a fetish, it is a fact of life and something that just about everyone will try to avoid in the course of their lives. It is both fascinating and perverse, but we do not set up shop in a hospital's ER just to watch incoming patients fight for their lives.

What's more, who wants to be remembered solely for being killed on tape?

That's all for now.
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