Humor
The 7 Stages of Grief Porn
What happens when you break your smartphone and can’t exploit a tragedy
1. Shock & Denial
You log into Twitter and find out there’s been another deadly tragedy. You’re in such shock that you drop your smartphone onto your hardwood floor, shattering it instantly. You try to convince yourself that it still works, even though it’s in hundreds of little pieces. How the heck are you supposed to express your public grief for this very personal event, if your followers don’t see you posting in the Thoughts&Prayers hashtag?
2. Pain
You regret breaking your iPhone, then start to experience physical and emotional pain. Waves of nausea hit you whenever you walk by the accident scene/your living room, and you realize there’s no point to eating if you can’t upload a pic of your vegan spinach ravioli to the True Crime subreddit you’re always on. Your life has officially lost all meaning.
3. Anger
As your pain subsides, you become furious that you have to spend another thousand dollars for a phone. Your only wish is to post TikTok videos about how this horrific tragedy, twenty-five hundred miles and four time zones away, affects you. But now without the necessary hardware, your artistic jump cuts and insightful hot takes will never get the chance to go viral.
4. Bargaining
You begin to contemplate ‘what if’ scenarios as a way to postpone your sadness. Like ‘what if’ you kept the wall-to-wall carpeting that came with your loft, instead of wasting money on those hardwood floors that your destructive German Shorthaired Pointer just ruined anyway? You might still have a phone.
5. Depression
You spiral into a pit of despair when you’re not able to flood social media with your armchair psychology. You feel the loss you’ve suffered isn’t that different from what the victims are going through, since #YoureAllinThisTogether. You toss and turn all night, barely getting your normal twelve hours of sleep. You blame the sad events for taking away so many innocent lives, and at least one innocent 5G Apple product.
6. The Upward Turn
Just when you think life can’t get any worse, the new smartphone you ordered finally arrives! You’re a bit sad that the news cycle has already churned, but heartbroken/oddly excited to read that a minor celebrity has died in a motorcycle crash. Your high school boyfriend used to pick you up on a Harley Davidson, so this hits really close to home.
7. Acceptance
After some time has passed, you find it easier to talk about the loss of your previous phone and the missed ‘likes’ and ‘retweets’ you certainly would have received from your inspirational cover of ‘In the arms of an angel’ that you would have dedicated to the victims’ families. You decide to #LiveLifeToTheFullest and buy the thickest, strongest, phone case that’s on the market, so this tragedy #NeverHappensAgain.
