The Five Stages of Grief (When Getting Dragged Online)

Gabriela Barkho
Jul 30, 2017 · 2 min read

Denial

I logged off like 20…er 5 minutes ago. When did this even happen? No way was that as un-PC as these mentions are reaching for it to be. Whatever. Just remember: you’re like, verified. You have too many followers to be dealing with this (lol).

Anger

Are you kidding? “Kim, there are people that are dying!” I mean, have they seen the president’s feed? You thought this would’ve blown over by the time you got outta yoga. Who even are these avatars, and do they have nothing better to do than to scroll three weeks deep into your timeline to find vaguely terrible tweets? Hit the block button.

Bargaining

Otherwise known as the “Draggggg her” stage. We all know the best policy is to never engage your trolls. No, you didn’t try to “come for anyone” but such is life/the internet rage machine. Time to make some strategic follows and get a few thinkfluencers on your side. Maybe you could pander your way out of this one, right? Wrong. Not even the quality filter can save you now.

Depression

You’re running low on Xani bars and convince your doctor to refill your dose early. The Minibar delivery guy is judging your third boxed Malbec order in one weekend. Things are bleak. Will you ever be able to get out of bed…or worse, open your social apps again? Everything hurts. Productivity is low. You consider moving to Trenton and getting “a normal office job” like your parents always suggested.

Acceptance

Approximately four days into drag-gate and things are slowly looking up. Your mentions have calmed and trickled down to a couple of quote tweets with hardly any engagement. You start to read your timeline and cook a real dinner again. One of your supportive teen followers in rural England tweets a Trump meme at you to cheer you up. You’ve survived your first online slaughter-fest, and vow going forward, to always follow the ancient proverb: “never tweet.”

Gabriela Barkho
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