SERAPHIN22

On May 29, 2015, seraphin22 posted to GriefSupport this post, titled, "My son should have been six months next week. I can still smell him on his onesie. I can't move forward, every day there are just flashbacks." It consists of text that describes the death of her eight-day old baby, the impending lawsuit against a negligent hospital, and her day-to-day recollections of the pain surrounding her child's brief life. The post recieved 23 votes, 93% of which were upvotes. The ability to upvote and downvote in this community serves the sole purpose of weeding out the "trolls" and other misplaced posters. There's little to agree or disagree over, as the community harbors supportive discussion for grieving users. Yet, this post was downvoted by four members. As cruel as it seems, this is to be expected on an anonymous online message board. The downvoting option provides people with an easy way to dismiss sensitive and somber content. Seraphin22's post certainly falls under those descriptions. This subreddit differs from OffMyChest and AdviceAnimals in that its content is pure, raw grief (hence its name).

Seraphin22 mentions, "I think I posted here before but need more support." This comment piqued my interest and I decided to find her original post to compare with this one - perhaps looking for a difference in the language she uses given the closer proximity in time to the death of her baby. Given seraphin22's son's age when he died and that he "should have been six months next week," it's clear that she has been grieving for just under six months. After searching through her history, and that of GriefSupport, no results revealed an original post to GriefSupport. Instead, her comment and post history is mostly within the community ttcafterloss, a "sub for people who are trying to conceive (or waiting to try) after any type of pregnancy or baby loss." It's evident that this anonymous mother uses Reddit to its fullest potential in her grieving process. I decided to learn more about seraphin22's uses of Reddit by using the analytics site, Snoopsnoo.com. The site generated the following user activity graph for seraphin22:

Image courtesy of Snoopsnoo.com

Her activity, represented by "posts" in orange, ascends right around January/February, when her son died. It's clear she turned to Reddit, increasing her activity on the site exponentially, to help her cope with her loss. Below is a visual that represents her activity in individual subreddits. The larger the box, the more posts the user submitted.

Image courtesy of Snoopsnoo.com

Most of seraphin22's activity resides within the subreddits under Snoopsnoo.com's "Lifestyle" category. These communities are ttcafterloss, BabyLoss, Relationships, BabyBumps, CautiousBB ("For cautious pregnant Mommas on this great perilous journey to motherhood"), ptsd, and others. Recollecting the lawsuit she mentions in her GriefSupport post, one notes her next most frequented subreddit is LegalAdvice.

These graphics are helpful in understanding Reddit as a cultural resource for performing the work of death. This user relies on several communities for connection, comfort, and advice in the wake of profound loss.

References:

[1] peachizncream, “My Husband Died Today.”

[2] Snoopsnoo.com