Kevin Robinson, a student at Virginia Tech University, spent late morning and early afternoon Monday under lockdown in a campus lecture hall. When he finally got back to his dorm room, one of his first moves was to log on to Facebook.
With a few keystrokes, Mr. Robinson formed “VT Unite,” a Facebook group that offered students a place to grieve — and to show solidarity — in the wake of the day’s deadly massacre. “After this horrible event,” he wrote on the group’s main page, “it is our responsibility as students and community to unite and support all those affected.”
“When I first thought of starting a group, I was kind of surprised that no one had done it yet,” he says.
Within a day, more than 5,400 students and alumni joined “VT Unite.” Students contributing to the group’s discussion board offered prayers for the families of the deceased and for all of “Hokie nation.” The students helped spread word of a candlelight vigil held last night in Blacksburg, and they posted commemorative images that have already become iconic to many of Virginia Tech’s Facebook users.
One such image — showing Virginia Tech’s logo in front of a black ribbon — has become especially popular. Hundreds of students have changed their profile pictures, which are typically flattering candid photographs, to that icon.
Many Facebook users with no affiliation to Virginia Tech have done so as well. The social network’s “global” users — people, like high-school students and adults without .edu e-mail addresses, who are not connected to college networks — cannot view the “VT Unite” group. But groups that are open to those users have already popped up, and one of the most widely-visited is “VT Unite Global,” which was also created by Mr. Robinson.
Mr. Robinson says he hopes both of his Facebook groups will continue to expand — as signs of support to Virginia Tech students, and, possibly, as tools to raise money for the families of the victims.
“Once we’ve had a little more time to grieve,” he says, “I’d like to use this as a forum to make suggestions about how we could offer some tangible support.” —Brock Read
10 Responses to Virginia Tech Student’s Facebook Group Offers a Way to Grieve
solidagojuncea - March 22, 2012 at 7:13 am
Small fallacy here of “liberals” or “conservatives” all being alike within their respective groups. Didn’t see “broad brush” on the list. Oh, well, nobody’s perfect.
jranelli - March 22, 2012 at 8:36 am
all of it…the categories and our “really, really bad” grasp/employment thereof (prof khaneman notwithstanding) are teachable/learnable/remediable…that our facility for argument has given way to our preference for the relative simplicity of the bumper sticker is all a part of our developing addiction to convenience…abetted no doubt by some considerate concessions within the academy.
dank48 - March 22, 2012 at 8:37 am
Great article. It’s so much more comfortable shining a bright light on others’ shortcomings than on our own. It’s interesting how easily our belief in the rightness of our beliefs can blind us to the wrongness of our actions.
wclibrary - March 22, 2012 at 9:16 am
No, they rip Newt Gingrich for ripping Bill Clinton for philandering while Newt Gingrich was philandering. The target ought to be hypocrisy. By all means rip the Catholic church for being pro-life and anti-death penalty except where the lives of children being abused by priests are concerned in the present and recent past and all manner of persecutions of non-catholics in the more distant past (google how recently the Vatican got around finally to renouncing Inquisitorial procedures for dealing with heretics).
11182967 - March 22, 2012 at 10:42 am
For a light but pointed take on a variant of the “double standard” see Max Shulman’s short story “Love is a Fallacy.” I used to use this in class to start students thinking about fallacies without having to get too far into formal logic.
cwinton - March 22, 2012 at 1:06 pm
I agree regarding hypocrisy. The double standard weighs against those who lead the duality, in this case Gingrich is the hypocrite, those who criticized Bush for gas prices but not Obama are hypocrites, those who gave rappers a pass but condemned Limbaugh are hypocrites, and the Catholic church ignoring its adherents use of birth control while arguing its right to preclude it from employee health plans on religious grounds is hypocritical.
lazybones - March 22, 2012 at 3:48 pm
I was fairly sure I’d seen a post either here or in Language Log commenting on “advocate for”, but my searching failed to unearth it. Is this phrase standard US English? Can one “advocate against” in America? Google offers evidence of that phrase, so maybe this is a US change (a reduction) in meaning.
Why is it that verbs attract such unnecessary, even superfluous, prepositions? I still remember my shudder the first time I encountered “headed-up” paper.
gavin_moodie - March 23, 2012 at 4:11 am
An inconsistency in higher education is to oppose affirmative action but accept legacy admits.
marka - March 26, 2012 at 7:31 pm
Hmm … I doubt this is evidence-based:
‘ Ninety-five percent of the time, when you hear someone accuse someone
else of following a double standard, you can just stop listening. And
that’s no fallacy.’
It is a fallacy, in my book. The rest of your article would lead me to believe that when we hear a charge of double-standard – we should stop to evaluate it. Not just stop listening.
Stopping listening is something I thought you were criticising. At least Kahneman does (great book, BTW).
I believe we should be encouraging more listening – and thinking – not less. Or is there some double-standard being applied here?
On another note … don’t know whether to give you points for being honest about your source for fallacies (Wikipedia), or demerits for relying on such an unreliable source. See other Chron articles on this topic.
marka - March 26, 2012 at 7:33 pm
But easily argued: affirmative action and legacy admits are both improper in theory.
But … legacy admits keeps the $$ flowing, and I want to keep my job/position.