The video above is by Caitlin Doughty via her Youtube show, Ask A Mortician. She's a funeral director, authoress, and founding member of The Order of the Good Death. I dig her stuff, so I watch a lot. Got into her because of a friend. It's a good watch and I agree with her statements, it's just I feel like, yet again, I'm trapped in The Mandela Effect. OK, so she quotes the date as happening in 1999. Upon further research, all I can find is 1999. Why is this impossible in my world you might ask? I shall tell you. I know memories can be muddled, but I'm having a hard time finding that this could be muddled so much. It's one of those "Do you remember where you were when _________?" scenarios. Yes, I do remember. It was first break, I was in high school. A junior. I was sitting on the low cement wall in front of L building and everyone was talking about the shooting. THE shooting. The only one that had ever happened in a school. It was Columbine. We were all loner kids and everyone was talking about it. Speculating on mainly all the misinformation that Doughty tackles in the beginning of the video. "Were they guilty?" "Would we shoot up a school too?" "You know you would _________!" "They were wearing trench coats, _________ you'll be singled out." I was listening, because lots of days I just didn't engage. None of them were worried someone else would shoot up our school or that they'd be killed. They were worried one of our group would shoot up the school and that certain of us might be targeted as potential killers by the staff because of what was circulating in the news. Marilyn Manson listening, trench coat wearing, loner rebels. "Hey, Sarah! You wear those boots and you have that big coat, you better watch out." "Ah, fuck off!" was my response. But I was slightly worried. I didn't want to give up my military issue combat boots or my old lady coat from the 60s (I looked more like a degenerate or a homeless person than a fabulous lady from the 60s) just because some fuckers had shot up their school. But the teachers had already been hurrying around campus; anxious, throwing suspicious glances are way. They'd been busy too. By the end up the day we were all sent home with a sheet of paper addressing the new dress code. And by the time I did wear that coat again (surely it couldn't have been that spring, but in Mississippi, it's possible), several teachers pulled me aside saying, "Sarah, you know you can't wear that type of coat to school anymore." Also by the end of May we had two security guards, which my little po-dunk school had never had security guards. They mainly had their reign of terror the next autumn and following spring. When I read the Harry Potter books later, I was reminded of these security guards in the characters of the Death Eater Carrow siblings. Sure you're thinking, OK good memory. I can see that happening or whatever. You're also possibly asking, so what's the deal? The deal is that I graduated high school early. I was to graduate in May 1999, but I graduated in December of 1998. I was no longer in high school in April of 1999, but in the center of town attending the local University. Sure, I did have to keep coming back to school that spring semester, because the councelor still hadn't send my transcripts to USM. However, I was never there early in the morning, only afternoon, and rarely saw any of my former school mates (so I'm not hanging out with them over at L Building, which was on the opposite side of campus from where I was). I generally only saw the custodian lady I was friends with and occasionally a teacher I had gotten on well with. Also, the issue was resolved by mid-March at the latest; an entire month (& some days) BEFORE everyone's recollected date of Columbine happening. That's my issue. Nothing Doughty said about the myths or the glorification, etc, just the time line. There's simply no need for anyone in my school to be talking about a school shooting or for the staff to hire security guards or implement a stricter dress code if nothing had happened. What happened at a school before Columbine? Nothing. Columbine was the first one that anyone actually took notice of. There were loads of school shootings, apparently, if you look it up for all of the twentieth century as well as the latter half of the 19th, however, they weren't major news worthy. None of my fellow students really knew about any of them, none of the teachers or parents were talking about them. Perhaps one was briefly mentioned by someone "Did you hear on the news...?" and they stopped talking about it within ten minutes and all was soon forgotten. I mean that Columbine was the big one. That's the one that resonated with people, whether because it was the one actually being reported (actually being reported on every single radio and TV station, even nationally?) or with the most up-hype and fear mongering? I don't know. But, I do know that's the first major and national media attention to a school shooting where everyone, and I mean everyone, knew about it and couldn't stop talking about it for months and months. That's the one that put schools on lock down. That's the one that changed dress codes and peoples perceptions of who a shooting might be. That's the big one. It's like World War I. There were loads of other wars before that one, but that one was the game changer. In fact because nothing like it had ever happened, to that extent, before it was called The Great War, because it was the first major one. Not until World War II, did that one get called World War II, with the first one then becoming known as World War I. At the time, Columbine, in the collective consciousness was THE shooting or THE school shooting. Now, it's Columbine because there have been so many (either reported in the same manner or were the same extent?). Who honestly was recalling any of the myriad of other school shootings prior to this in their minds when they first heard the news. People weren't, until news stations started digging around and pulling information from the past to go with their news stories and then some people might have remembered something else happening. Mainly I remember hearing references to Kent State, and that's about it, which isn't really the same thing at all. If you're unfamiliar, Kent State is a university in Ohio. In May of 1970, students were protesting the Vietnam War. There were Ohio National Guardsmen about. They opened fire and killed four students and injured nine. Yes, people were shot at a school, but this school was a higher education institution and the shooters were members of the National Guard. It's also, all any news people could bring up in their correlations, because in the collective memory, this was the only prior school shooting that anyone remembered. So you see my conundrum? The only thing the news could latch onto was an incident, nationally reported, that had happened almost 30 years prior. That's how huge Columbine was, so to get it so confused for me seems impossible. Yet, here were are. Doughty and any news service puts the date at 20 April 1999 an entire year after I remember the event taking place. Do other people remember it taking place in 1998? Do I just have a really good alibi for that memory (the whole I wasn't in high school, on the campus, having things effect me during this 1999 date)? Is it a good enough memory to make someone say, "Well, now that is interesting!" Or am I just crazy imagining myself back into high school? I have thought about that possibility, but it seems highly unlikely. I was too busy to formulate some sort of scenario of "What would it be like, now after this shooting, if I were still in high school?" Would you have done that had you been in University at the time? More than likely not. It's like when people ask where you were when 9/11 happened. I remember that too. I was in this room, because it was my bedroom back in 2001 (it is still 2001 right? We haven't changed it to 2002 or 2010 have we?). My bed was just a double sized mattress on the foor in front of this north facing window that I look out of now when typing on the computer. I was asleep. The Sister came into wake me up. "Dad called. Left a message on the answering machine. Someone's bombed us? They bombed New York and the World Trade Center." "Are you sure?" "Yeah, I turned on the news." I went to see the news, then went to the bathroom and violently vomitted. I, like the rest of the country, didn't know what was happening. Why were people attacking us? Would they continue to attack us? Is this war? Will this be a World War? Will there be rationing? Will people I know die? Will I have to join the resistance? What about the cats? It was a big deal then. It made you realize what a precursor to war must be like (one can say we did go to war, but it's not the same thing as WAR!), or what other attacks must have been like that you'd heard of before or the one's that followed for awhile. Now it's not so harrowing when news of an attack comes from somewhere. It should be, but there's been so many, that now people are desensitized to it. So, it's just very perplexing since I have this strong memory that directly effected me and my school life, yet apparently happened a year after I remember it did; a full five months after I officially left school and a month and some days before I never stepped foot on that campus again. How can that be? The Mandela Effect is really all I can think. I decided to test this theory, as well as I was able. So after submitting this post, I took to Facebook to gather information. Though it's registering 22 comments, there were only 12 participants. One comment is mine (which I did not screen capture) thanking everyone for their participating and stating only that it was an experiment of memories within a collective society. The rest were participants replying to their initial comments with second guesses & also some guy who can't read felt it was his duty to inform certain people of the "correct" year. I had posted this in the morning and then was out all day running errands. By the time I saw the comments, five hours had passed, and it was too late to correct. But my initial response was to audibly exclaim, "What is he doing?!?! He's ruining my experiment!!!" You might wonder how, but it is the simple reason that I did not want people to associate Columbine with any certain year. I didn't want them associating it with the news given date of 1999, nor my remembered date of 1998. By stating a number up there, it constitutes as influence. I didn't want the participants to think any certain way or be influenced by any numbers, which is why I didn't say "I think it's 1998" because in doing so, people might be like, "Yeah... 1998... that feels right." I wanted, as I stated in my preface, what they personally remembered. So, him personally declaring a number could have influenced any of the people who them chimed in with his number. But it's interesting to see, socially, this uppity do-good mentality & also begs the question of why he only commented to two people. Instead of the seven people who also didn't remember it as 1999 (or were unsure if it was '99 or 2000). Why did he half ass it, I wonder? I might have thought, "Oh, it's because he knows the people he commented to...", but he only knows one of them. The other girl he's never met. He possibly knows one other commenter, but I'm unsure. He was in grammar school with me and left in the third grade (& now I'm wondering why the hell I even have him added as a friend on Facebook. We didn't get on back in grammar school!). There's the full account (minus my ending comment). I have obviously marked out the full names and cropped off the photos. I have also added the @ symbol for the two specific replies (I realize that's not how it shows up on FB, but it also looked confusing to have Taylor__________Lola______________1999... without the full format that FB generally gives).
I can not be sure one way or the other if the people commenting 1999 have done so because that is truly the date they remember, or if it was influenced by the recent media or by that guy (Taylor... grumbles). I also can not be sure that the people second guessing themselves with the, "Oh, that's right! 1999" bits aren't because of some type of influence. I'm not throwing the responses out, I just can't be sure either way. Especially considering that most commenters either only had a vague idea of when the event occurred (which is good, that's interesting, it shows what they personally remember), or else did have a specific date stamped out in their first comment, only to then either say "Oh, it must be the anniversary" or "I was close". As I say I can't be sure one way or the other about Connor (having commented right below Taylor's declaration of 1999) or Melody's; though hers is more plausible as what she really remembers because the previous statement of 1999 happens well above her comment, instead of directly before. I find it interesting that both Christina and Josh's initial feelings are of 1998. I also find it interesting that Mathew's initial feeling is exactly 1 year after the news date, where Josh's is exactly 1 year before. It's also interesting that most of the commenters really don't know, pegging it as somewhere at the turn of the 20th century. Or that Courtney remembers it as happening in Autumn of 1999 (six-ish months after the news date of April 1999), as per her initial statement. So all in all not a bad social science experiment. I garnered a whole lot of information from this, more than I even thought I'd get (like the people typing more words than just the year or even giving a different season) or even that one guy who can't read or the one who thought it was a game, like there was a right answer to my questioning; which there wasn't. Also, Rebecca up there is The Sister. I had come home in between sections of running errands and went up stairs to see her. She's who informed me that loads of people had commented. "They have? Really? How many?" I wasn't even certain I'd get one person, so though twelve people might seem paltry for this experiment it was honestly twelve more than I thought I'd receive. "This is about that Mandala Effect, right?", which makes me laugh because now I keep saying mandala instead of Mandela because of her. She thinks it shouldn't be about him (though it's named for him because that's the first instance), but instead a mandala because it's all circular. When I stifled my laugh and said yes, she responded with, "I knew it!" Then she starts in about "Well, what was the whole thing in Oklahoma with that memorial I saw?" Well, I knew what it was, but I also remember her telling this story a lot and I remembered what she'd said and relayed the story back to her. "It was the Oklahoma City Bombing. Timothy McVeigh. You'd been driving through Oklahoma and came upon that memorial and were like, "What is this about? What happened here?.... Oh... yeah, that bombing, that's right."" I wanted her to remember it wasn't a "mandala" Effect, but that I remember that she knew it was the Oklahoma City Bombing. "Yeah! That's right!" "Now what was that? Why did they bomb it? What was the building?" I honestly wasn't sure. I stated that it was some type of government building, but not secret service or anything, just federal, and it was deemed tragic because there was a day care there." "That's right! I remember it being about kids, Ok, yeah, that's why..." So, that concludes Sarah's Social Science Experiment.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
Categories |