1 00:00:10,960 --> 00:00:14,165 Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a 2 00:00:14,165 --> 00:00:16,565 podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike 3 00:00:16,565 --> 00:00:20,325 Ragnetta, and we have a collectible show for you this 4 00:00:20,325 --> 00:00:24,405 week. In this episode, our senior producer Hans Buto works 5 00:00:24,405 --> 00:00:27,845 with contributing producer and friend of the show, Kurt White, 6 00:00:28,190 --> 00:00:33,070 to look at a new form of bereavement posting to see what 7 00:00:33,070 --> 00:00:36,670 it contributes to the process of mourning and how it might help 8 00:00:36,670 --> 00:00:41,150 us through our grief. But first, you're gonna hear a few ads 9 00:00:41,150 --> 00:00:45,785 unless you're on the member feed and then Hans and Kurt on 10 00:00:46,025 --> 00:00:47,625 Inheritance Posting. 11 00:01:06,670 --> 00:01:09,630 Hans Buetow: I am a big feelings kind of guy. Big feelings. I say 12 00:01:09,630 --> 00:01:13,265 it all the time in therapy. Big feelings. Hello. 13 00:01:13,265 --> 00:01:18,065 Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. 14 00:01:18,065 --> 00:01:22,945 So it was no wonder then that I was having big feelings a year 15 00:01:22,945 --> 00:01:27,380 to the day after my grandfather died. So my family had gathered, 16 00:01:27,380 --> 00:01:30,740 and I was sitting on the floor of my grandmother's living room, 17 00:01:30,980 --> 00:01:34,100 and I was surrounded by uncles and aunts and cousins, nieces, 18 00:01:34,100 --> 00:01:37,540 nephews, kids, like, the whole crowd that would be at every 19 00:01:37,540 --> 00:01:41,385 Christmas, every family picnic. And those big feelings were very 20 00:01:41,385 --> 00:01:44,745 present for me in that moment. It's the one year anniversary of 21 00:01:44,745 --> 00:01:48,345 my grandfather's death. It's a gathering of my loved ones who 22 00:01:48,345 --> 00:01:49,225 knew him. 23 00:01:51,065 --> 00:01:54,985 And somewhere I got the idea that we were gathering that day 24 00:01:54,985 --> 00:02:00,960 to honor him, So I was hoping to talk about grandpa. I was hoping 25 00:02:00,960 --> 00:02:03,760 to hear memories from other people. I was hoping to share my 26 00:02:03,760 --> 00:02:08,480 memories of him with the group, but that's not what was 27 00:02:08,480 --> 00:02:14,085 happening. It was lovely, but grandpa wasn't there at all. We 28 00:02:14,085 --> 00:02:14,885 weren't saying his name. 29 00:02:14,885 --> 00:02:17,045 It was just a regular family hangout. 30 00:02:17,045 --> 00:02:18,085 Kurt White: That's gross. 31 00:02:22,005 --> 00:02:26,245 Hans Buetow: I remember feeling confused by this. Like, maybe 32 00:02:26,410 --> 00:02:29,610 what I was expecting isn't what everyone else is expecting, or 33 00:02:29,610 --> 00:02:32,810 maybe they don't want to talk about him, or maybe their big 34 00:02:32,810 --> 00:02:37,290 feelings happen elsewhere. My big feelings, they were on the 35 00:02:37,290 --> 00:02:42,535 floor with me. I was hoping to talk about grandpa. I just 36 00:02:42,535 --> 00:02:44,855 didn't know how to do that. 37 00:02:44,855 --> 00:02:49,655 So in a lull in the conversation, I thought, okay. 38 00:02:50,135 --> 00:02:54,375 I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna try to bring him up. Well, grandma, 39 00:02:54,760 --> 00:02:57,640 it's been a big year. Yeah. 40 00:02:58,280 --> 00:03:09,825 Yeah. It has. And I remember this moment so clearly, and I 41 00:03:09,825 --> 00:03:14,705 remember the feeling of starting the sentence and then losing 42 00:03:14,705 --> 00:03:19,345 absolutely all confidence in it, and feeling like it was just too 43 00:03:19,345 --> 00:03:25,320 big to say what was in my heart, but I had already started 44 00:03:25,320 --> 00:03:31,800 talking. And so so I just kinda Well, grandma, it's been a big 45 00:03:31,800 --> 00:03:33,080 year. Yeah. 46 00:03:33,880 --> 00:03:40,585 I mean, what a nonspecific, absolutely sideways, deeply, 47 00:03:40,665 --> 00:03:44,025 just awkward way to bring up my dead grandfather and expect to 48 00:03:44,025 --> 00:03:47,785 have any heartfelt conversation about him. And this wasn't 49 00:03:47,785 --> 00:03:51,710 anyone's fault. I didn't even say his name when I brought it 50 00:03:51,710 --> 00:03:56,590 up. And surprise, surprise, the conversation just moved on. No 51 00:03:56,590 --> 00:04:00,030 one took me up on my big feelings because I didn't share 52 00:04:00,030 --> 00:04:01,230 my big feelings. 53 00:04:01,630 --> 00:04:05,525 And I don't think I'm alone on this. I think a lot of folks can 54 00:04:05,525 --> 00:04:10,005 probably relate to wanting to bring up something big with a 55 00:04:10,005 --> 00:04:21,390 group of people, but not having a mechanism to do that. Since 56 00:04:21,390 --> 00:04:26,590 that moment, I have produced literally hundreds of stories 57 00:04:26,590 --> 00:04:30,910 about death and about grief. And one of the things that I've 58 00:04:30,910 --> 00:04:36,345 definitively learned is that we, and this is the collective we, 59 00:04:37,065 --> 00:04:42,985 we have become shit at grief and mourning. And I don't know that 60 00:04:42,985 --> 00:04:47,065 we've ever been very good at mourning, but it feels to me 61 00:04:47,065 --> 00:04:50,120 like, especially since the decline of participation in 62 00:04:50,120 --> 00:04:54,040 social groups and the loneliness epidemic and just general 63 00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:59,640 socializing confusion, it feels that we have lost something 64 00:04:59,640 --> 00:05:00,760 really important. 65 00:05:01,160 --> 00:05:05,545 We've lost mechanisms for contextualizing, for elevating, 66 00:05:06,025 --> 00:05:11,385 and maybe most importantly for sharing our grief. Even on the 67 00:05:11,385 --> 00:05:16,745 Internet, in our most sharing happy environment, we're mostly 68 00:05:17,305 --> 00:05:18,905 not operating as a group. 69 00:05:21,520 --> 00:05:23,920 Kurt White: In group therapy, it's an interesting thing. 70 00:05:23,920 --> 00:05:28,320 Sometimes, you know, it's a paradox of group process, and 71 00:05:28,320 --> 00:05:31,600 that's that you'd think that the best thing for someone would be 72 00:05:31,600 --> 00:05:34,880 to have all the individual time and attention. Right? One on 73 00:05:34,880 --> 00:05:37,255 one. Someone's paying attention just to you. 74 00:05:37,815 --> 00:05:40,775 Hans Buetow: This is friend of the show and friend of mine and 75 00:05:41,335 --> 00:05:46,135 psychotherapist Kurt White, and he's making our hard pivot 76 00:05:46,455 --> 00:05:50,440 transition into group therapy because, well, because Kurt has 77 00:05:50,440 --> 00:05:53,080 what he calls a weird optimism about the Internet. 78 00:05:53,080 --> 00:05:55,880 Kurt White: I have a weird optimism about the Internet. 79 00:05:57,480 --> 00:05:59,480 Hans Buetow: Look. I don't think having optimism about the 80 00:05:59,480 --> 00:06:03,425 Internet is super weird. It is there to be found, but Kurt 81 00:06:03,825 --> 00:06:07,425 definitely applies that optimism faster, and also more 82 00:06:07,425 --> 00:06:11,345 comprehensively than I do. And he was telling me about group 83 00:06:11,345 --> 00:06:14,785 therapy because of how well it works for grief. 84 00:06:15,280 --> 00:06:18,000 Kurt White: And I think that's because when one person is 85 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:21,200 talking, the other person is listening and finding their way 86 00:06:21,200 --> 00:06:26,400 into that experience and silently also working alongside. 87 00:06:26,400 --> 00:06:30,105 They're having their own experience associations. They're 88 00:06:30,105 --> 00:06:33,465 doing their own work while the other person is there and 89 00:06:33,465 --> 00:06:38,345 connecting to them and seeing them as a whole unique person. 90 00:06:38,505 --> 00:06:43,110 And and maybe they don't even say anything in that group. What 91 00:06:43,110 --> 00:06:46,070 if there are places on the Internet where there can be some 92 00:06:46,070 --> 00:06:50,630 mass society version of this, where you can you can watch a 93 00:06:50,630 --> 00:06:54,150 thing and it's personal enough that you can have your 94 00:06:54,310 --> 00:06:55,435 association to 95 00:06:55,435 --> 00:06:59,275 Mike Rugnetta: it and work right alongside it. It's 96 00:06:59,275 --> 00:07:01,595 Kurt White: Whether you ever write a comment or like or 97 00:07:01,595 --> 00:07:05,755 subscribe or anything like that, maybe still you've had an 98 00:07:05,755 --> 00:07:06,315 experience. 99 00:07:12,240 --> 00:07:14,800 Hans Buetow: When he said this, Kurt had been seeing a 100 00:07:14,800 --> 00:07:18,400 particular type of post. Videos where someone makes new meaning 101 00:07:18,400 --> 00:07:22,080 out of things that they have inherited from dead loved ones. 102 00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:25,875 Some of these are just one off posts. There's the Instagram 103 00:07:25,875 --> 00:07:30,515 channel cooking with congress where he cooks and eats the diet 104 00:07:30,515 --> 00:07:33,235 that he associates with his dead grandma on what would have been 105 00:07:33,235 --> 00:07:37,650 her 90 birthday, which is Pringles, Franzia, the wine, 106 00:07:37,650 --> 00:07:41,650 expired meat butter, and pancakes. There's also the 107 00:07:41,650 --> 00:07:45,810 sewing channel Good Natured Studio who they were sent a box 108 00:07:45,810 --> 00:07:50,915 of clothes by a fan who had inherited his dead mother's 109 00:07:50,915 --> 00:07:56,115 things and was asking, is it possible to sew these old 110 00:07:56,115 --> 00:08:00,035 clothes from my dead mom into something new that I could wear? 111 00:08:03,280 --> 00:08:06,480 And these are sweet and they're touching, but there are whole 112 00:08:06,480 --> 00:08:11,360 channels that make this content the center of what they do. One 113 00:08:11,360 --> 00:08:14,240 of the most famous of these is dead Greg's recipes. So my 114 00:08:14,240 --> 00:08:17,600 roommate's estranged alcohol loving uncle died, and this was 115 00:08:17,600 --> 00:08:20,375 his cook bag of recipes. Written down every chapter on this 116 00:08:20,375 --> 00:08:21,895 wheel. I'm gonna make one. 117 00:08:21,895 --> 00:08:25,335 I'm David Zarco. This is Dead Greg's recipes. And there are 118 00:08:25,335 --> 00:08:29,895 plenty of others. Photographers sharing photos that are of or by 119 00:08:29,895 --> 00:08:32,935 dead loved ones. There's music left behind, toys in a 120 00:08:32,935 --> 00:08:33,255 collection. 121 00:08:33,780 --> 00:08:39,540 And I haven't found anyone who's naming this particular practice, 122 00:08:39,540 --> 00:08:44,420 this using social channels to share their own exploration of 123 00:08:44,420 --> 00:08:47,765 the things that were left behind. So Kurt and I talked, 124 00:08:47,765 --> 00:08:51,045 and he's very excited that we are gonna coin it inheritance 125 00:08:51,045 --> 00:08:51,845 posting. 126 00:08:52,645 --> 00:08:56,165 Kurt White: When we get a new technology for all of the hand 127 00:08:56,165 --> 00:08:59,525 wringing about it and that it's breaking our brains, and maybe 128 00:08:59,525 --> 00:09:03,070 it is, fine. But we're also what are we trying to do with it? 129 00:09:03,070 --> 00:09:05,390 We're trying to do the same things we're trying to do with 130 00:09:05,390 --> 00:09:09,710 everything else. Solve unsolvable problems that we get 131 00:09:09,710 --> 00:09:13,495 stuck in like a grief and loss and mourning. And it seemed to 132 00:09:13,495 --> 00:09:17,015 me that an interesting thing was happening, that maybe there was 133 00:09:17,015 --> 00:09:20,055 something generative and productive for the person 134 00:09:20,055 --> 00:09:23,575 sharing it, and that there was also something generative and 135 00:09:23,575 --> 00:09:27,340 productive for the person consuming it, in a way that felt 136 00:09:27,340 --> 00:09:29,980 truly new, actually. 137 00:09:29,980 --> 00:09:34,860 Like, it's not totally passive like reading a book or reading a 138 00:09:34,860 --> 00:09:37,740 story or an article about something, and it's not totally 139 00:09:37,740 --> 00:09:41,605 active like a group therapy about loss. And I began to 140 00:09:41,605 --> 00:09:46,245 wonder, have we has the Internet invented a new form of 141 00:09:46,485 --> 00:09:48,645 processing grief? 142 00:09:50,165 --> 00:09:53,445 Hans Buetow: Yeah. My first response to Kurt was a big old 143 00:09:53,445 --> 00:09:58,990 shrug. I mean, yeah. I don't know, is what I said, to be nice 144 00:09:58,990 --> 00:10:02,590 to my thoughtful and very smart friend. Because that's a big 145 00:10:02,590 --> 00:10:06,750 statement, and we have done a lot of stories in the past 146 00:10:06,750 --> 00:10:12,325 couple of years about how badly platforms bungle grief and how 147 00:10:12,325 --> 00:10:16,245 complicated it is to try to handle them online and how the 148 00:10:16,245 --> 00:10:20,485 people who in charge of the platforms, they at first had no 149 00:10:20,485 --> 00:10:24,485 plan for how to deal with death and grief and now have no good 150 00:10:24,485 --> 00:10:25,440 plan for it. 151 00:10:25,440 --> 00:10:29,920 We've done those stories. And I think I was wary of that 152 00:10:29,920 --> 00:10:35,440 optimism of Kurtz in the face of how much my guard is up around 153 00:10:35,440 --> 00:10:40,855 that and just around posting in social platforms generally. But 154 00:10:41,655 --> 00:10:48,055 I'm an open guy, and Kurt is lovely. So Kurt started 155 00:10:48,055 --> 00:10:53,975 outlining his ideas. And I started applying to the ideas 156 00:10:54,290 --> 00:10:58,130 some of the reading that I've been doing in rituals and in 157 00:10:58,130 --> 00:11:02,770 meaning making, and it all served to open up my heart a 158 00:11:02,770 --> 00:11:07,090 little bit to the idea that maybe, possibly, what's 159 00:11:07,090 --> 00:11:12,115 happening isn't planned by any terms of service update or 160 00:11:12,115 --> 00:11:12,995 platform feature. 161 00:11:12,995 --> 00:11:19,315 What Kurt thinks is happening is us using an imperfect tool to do 162 00:11:19,315 --> 00:11:23,315 a particular kind of posting that does something accidentally 163 00:11:23,315 --> 00:11:28,330 maybe really well, which is replicating things that we as 164 00:11:28,330 --> 00:11:33,770 humans need to grieve. And it does this in a specific way, 165 00:11:34,410 --> 00:11:42,115 which is focusing on objects over time. So today, I wanna 166 00:11:42,115 --> 00:11:45,315 wander alongside Kurt, and I wanna break those elements down, 167 00:11:45,315 --> 00:11:50,915 objects and time, in that order, and see if perhaps Kurt is 168 00:11:50,915 --> 00:11:55,235 right, and inheritance posting is somehow making up for our 169 00:11:55,235 --> 00:12:25,650 deficits in human rituals and social structures. One of the 170 00:12:25,650 --> 00:12:27,890 things that helped sway me on this topic was an interview that 171 00:12:27,890 --> 00:12:31,890 Kurt did on his podcast Unraveling. It was a story that 172 00:12:31,890 --> 00:12:33,650 felt relevant to this conversation. 173 00:12:33,650 --> 00:12:36,450 So I asked him if we could use some of his conversations that 174 00:12:36,450 --> 00:12:39,570 he did with someone who runs an Inheritance Posting Instagram 175 00:12:39,570 --> 00:12:44,365 account, which is called dad's vinyl stash. So it's one album, 176 00:12:44,445 --> 00:12:47,645 one post at a time, hands turning on a desk lamp, pulling 177 00:12:47,645 --> 00:12:51,005 out a record, showing off the cover, putting it on the player, 178 00:12:51,005 --> 00:12:54,125 flipping it over, and then turning off the lamp. The name 179 00:12:54,125 --> 00:12:58,180 of the person who runs dad's vinyl stash is Nikki, and her 180 00:12:58,180 --> 00:12:59,620 dead person is her dad. 181 00:12:59,620 --> 00:13:01,060 Speaker 4: His name was Bobby? 182 00:13:01,380 --> 00:13:04,580 Hans Buetow: Bobby collected things, all sorts of things. Yo 183 00:13:04,580 --> 00:13:08,260 yos, Star Wars stuff, a lot of stuff. But the interest Nikki 184 00:13:08,260 --> 00:13:10,900 shared with him is in his collection of vinyl records. 185 00:13:11,645 --> 00:13:13,885 Before he died, Nikki had started her own little 186 00:13:13,885 --> 00:13:17,005 collection of records, and the two of them were bonding over 187 00:13:17,005 --> 00:13:17,725 music. 188 00:13:18,125 --> 00:13:20,845 Speaker 4: And these were his words exactly in a text message 189 00:13:20,845 --> 00:13:25,100 to me. Like, it brings me so much peace to know that my 190 00:13:25,100 --> 00:13:28,540 collection will be with somebody who can honor it and who can 191 00:13:28,540 --> 00:13:33,020 love it and who can listen to it and, like, give it life. 192 00:13:33,660 --> 00:13:36,700 Hans Buetow: Give it life. Extend it into the future, and 193 00:13:36,700 --> 00:13:42,275 in some ways, extend him into the future. When Bobby died in 194 00:13:42,275 --> 00:13:46,595 July 2025, Nikki inherited 35 boxes of his records. 195 00:13:47,875 --> 00:13:51,795 Speaker 4: Getting something that belongs to someone that is 196 00:13:51,795 --> 00:13:57,050 no longer here was one of the most emotional things to deal 197 00:13:57,050 --> 00:14:01,210 with because I didn't want dad's stuff. I didn't I don't want his 198 00:14:01,210 --> 00:14:05,850 things. I want him to be here and to share the story of those 199 00:14:05,850 --> 00:14:11,465 things with me. But, you know, it's I guess if you have to move 200 00:14:11,465 --> 00:14:16,585 forward without that person here with you, then having things 201 00:14:16,585 --> 00:14:20,345 that really remind you of them and, like, really can just, 202 00:14:20,345 --> 00:14:23,880 like, give you those core memories and just those feelings 203 00:14:23,880 --> 00:14:27,160 of peace and comfort that I really feel when I listen to 204 00:14:27,160 --> 00:14:30,440 dad's music. I guess that that's, like, the next best 205 00:14:30,440 --> 00:14:31,560 thing to ask for. 206 00:14:36,515 --> 00:14:40,115 Hans Buetow: Grief and objects go together like peanut butter 207 00:14:40,115 --> 00:14:44,835 and more peanut butter. Objects concretize something that's too 208 00:14:44,835 --> 00:14:46,355 big for us to consider. 209 00:14:46,355 --> 00:14:49,020 Kurt White: A common thing that people will say, and I'll 210 00:14:49,020 --> 00:14:52,540 experience myself, the loss of a person, the loss of a pet even, 211 00:14:52,540 --> 00:14:56,060 is sort of like the day after they're not here. You say, where 212 00:14:56,060 --> 00:14:59,580 did they go? Where did they go? There was this thing that meant 213 00:14:59,580 --> 00:15:04,165 so much to me, and now it's not in the world anymore. And I 214 00:15:04,165 --> 00:15:09,205 think a physical object can ground that problem, that 215 00:15:09,205 --> 00:15:12,405 unsolvable problem in a tangible format. 216 00:15:12,405 --> 00:15:16,645 Right? Well, I don't have the person, but I have the scarf 217 00:15:16,645 --> 00:15:20,400 that smells like them. I have the bag that they carried 218 00:15:20,400 --> 00:15:24,880 around. I have the watch that they wore. I have the thing that 219 00:15:24,880 --> 00:15:26,400 they valued most. 220 00:15:26,400 --> 00:15:29,520 I have it on my shelf. I'm gonna keep it. I can think of them. 221 00:15:30,035 --> 00:15:33,475 And it's not them, but it's enough like them that it can 222 00:15:33,475 --> 00:15:38,355 kind of stand for. Where did they go, and what am I supposed 223 00:15:38,355 --> 00:15:39,315 to do now? 224 00:15:45,860 --> 00:15:50,260 Hans Buetow: Why do we pour that emotion into objects? Of course, 225 00:15:50,260 --> 00:15:55,780 there are a lot of reasons, but I like two of them. One, it 226 00:15:55,780 --> 00:16:00,045 could be terror. One of the most animating stresses and therefore 227 00:16:00,045 --> 00:16:05,005 driving motivators in my life is my fear of being forgotten after 228 00:16:05,005 --> 00:16:09,245 I'm gone. The cultural anthropologist Ernst Becker, who 229 00:16:09,245 --> 00:16:12,205 in his youth helped liberate a Nazi concentration camp, would 230 00:16:12,205 --> 00:16:18,630 say that we are so shaken by the idea of death, by our all 231 00:16:18,630 --> 00:16:22,390 encompassing fear of death, that it drives us to attempt to 232 00:16:22,390 --> 00:16:25,750 transcend it by creating vessels for immortality. 233 00:16:26,545 --> 00:16:29,905 Kurt White: This is actually so disorganizing for us that 234 00:16:30,145 --> 00:16:33,985 everything is actually about that. Everything. Not just some 235 00:16:33,985 --> 00:16:37,985 things. Everything that we ever do. All of our transferences, 236 00:16:37,985 --> 00:16:42,240 the things we think of as loves, our friendships, the things that 237 00:16:42,240 --> 00:16:46,320 we accumulate, the ideas that we have about ourselves, all of it 238 00:16:46,320 --> 00:16:50,960 is about that void that comes at the end and the way that we 239 00:16:50,960 --> 00:16:52,560 can't look into it. 240 00:16:53,695 --> 00:16:59,135 Hans Buetow: It could also be growth. My therapy is helping me 241 00:16:59,135 --> 00:17:03,055 generate emotional scaffolding that can make my fear of being 242 00:17:03,055 --> 00:17:07,240 forgotten less paralyzing in my everyday. The English 243 00:17:07,240 --> 00:17:10,920 pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Woods Winnicott talks 244 00:17:10,920 --> 00:17:13,400 about a similar thing when he talks about transitional 245 00:17:13,400 --> 00:17:14,120 objects. 246 00:17:14,520 --> 00:17:17,720 Kurt White: We are born out of a state of union with a with a 247 00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:23,395 mother, and we have to learn how to be without that. And we do 248 00:17:23,395 --> 00:17:26,835 that gradually and we do it literally, but we also have to 249 00:17:26,835 --> 00:17:31,155 do it symbolically. We have to have a way of carrying the 250 00:17:31,155 --> 00:17:36,500 things inside of us that were in the ways that we were carried by 251 00:17:36,500 --> 00:17:40,020 others, I suppose. Right? And part of how we do that is that 252 00:17:40,020 --> 00:17:48,995 we begin to take the comforting parent with us in symbolic ways 253 00:17:48,995 --> 00:17:53,795 by imbuing objects with meaning that seems to have some 254 00:17:53,795 --> 00:17:56,835 representation, right, of that of that real thing. 255 00:17:57,235 --> 00:18:01,235 Hans Buetow: And maybe we hold on to this. This internalized 256 00:18:01,610 --> 00:18:05,690 way of developing using these representational transitional 257 00:18:05,690 --> 00:18:10,650 objects. They help us move from one state to another state, to 258 00:18:10,810 --> 00:18:15,770 kind of re imbue ourselves with this person that we're holding 259 00:18:15,770 --> 00:18:19,785 inside of us, to create this kind of liminal in between space 260 00:18:19,785 --> 00:18:24,825 where we can be several people at once, we can have several 261 00:18:24,825 --> 00:18:31,300 states at the same time, we can move between, we can grow. And I 262 00:18:31,300 --> 00:18:34,740 tend to think that both of these are true at once. Life giving 263 00:18:34,900 --> 00:18:36,500 and deeply threatening. 264 00:18:36,740 --> 00:18:41,940 We're terrified of death, and we are growing into it. So we cling 265 00:18:41,940 --> 00:18:45,455 to the things that we're gonna leave behind. Also, the things 266 00:18:45,455 --> 00:18:49,455 that have already been left behind by others. My 267 00:18:51,375 --> 00:18:55,775 Speaker 4: husband is kind of a very creative outlet. Like, he 268 00:18:55,775 --> 00:19:00,190 does videography and photography, and he just kinda 269 00:19:00,190 --> 00:19:05,550 saw that's really where the first video came from that we 270 00:19:05,550 --> 00:19:10,750 posted to dad's Vinyl Stash. He had this whole he envisioned the 271 00:19:10,750 --> 00:19:15,310 boxes coming out, the lifting up of the of the storage unit, you 272 00:19:15,310 --> 00:19:18,725 know, pulling everything out, kinda seeing it in its entirety, 273 00:19:19,045 --> 00:19:21,845 he was like, you know, this is something I feel like your dad 274 00:19:21,845 --> 00:19:27,045 would have been like like I mean, yeah. Like, hell yeah, 275 00:19:27,045 --> 00:19:28,805 Nikki. Like, do something with it. 276 00:19:28,805 --> 00:19:33,250 Like, it's yours now. Like, move forward with it. You know? And 277 00:19:34,210 --> 00:19:37,490 and so when he asked me when my husband asked me, I was like, 278 00:19:37,490 --> 00:19:38,850 yeah. I mean, sure. 279 00:19:38,850 --> 00:19:44,205 Let's just see kinda how it goes. So he put it on to 280 00:19:44,205 --> 00:19:50,925 Instagram, and, I don't know. It something happened. I have I 281 00:19:50,925 --> 00:19:56,765 have no idea I have no idea what really happened, but I knew from 282 00:19:56,765 --> 00:20:00,250 the moment that he showed me, like, just editing the video and 283 00:20:00,250 --> 00:20:02,570 putting it together, I was like, this is really cool. Like, this 284 00:20:02,570 --> 00:20:05,050 could really like, this just looks like it's about to tell a 285 00:20:05,050 --> 00:20:09,290 story of something, and it's drawing people in pretty 286 00:20:09,290 --> 00:20:09,690 quickly. 287 00:20:11,785 --> 00:20:14,425 Hans Buetow: Which is why Inheritance Posting needs 288 00:20:14,505 --> 00:20:18,985 objects. Objects provide a focal point. You can see the object. 289 00:20:18,985 --> 00:20:21,705 They can touch. They can display the object. 290 00:20:21,705 --> 00:20:25,145 It takes up space in the room. It takes up space in the frame. 291 00:20:25,225 --> 00:20:29,690 The object exists between the poster and the audience. It's a 292 00:20:29,690 --> 00:20:34,010 stand in while we talk and while we think about someone who's not 293 00:20:34,010 --> 00:20:38,170 actually there. The French sociologist Emile Durkheim might 294 00:20:38,170 --> 00:20:42,485 call these types of objects totems, physical representations 295 00:20:42,485 --> 00:20:43,765 of emotions. 296 00:20:44,325 --> 00:20:48,405 Items that are simultaneously transformed with meaning and 297 00:20:48,565 --> 00:20:53,365 given the power to lead us to experience the sacred. And for 298 00:20:53,365 --> 00:20:56,645 channels that make these inheritance posts their focus, 299 00:20:57,340 --> 00:21:01,580 the person isn't fully in any one object. The person is in the 300 00:21:01,580 --> 00:21:02,220 collection. 301 00:21:02,460 --> 00:21:07,020 Kurt White: The dilemma around loss is that the people that 302 00:21:07,020 --> 00:21:10,860 we've lost are complicated. Right? They're complicated whole 303 00:21:10,860 --> 00:21:14,835 human beings, and we have complicated feelings about them. 304 00:21:14,835 --> 00:21:18,435 But if you have a collection of things, if you have a variety of 305 00:21:18,435 --> 00:21:21,715 things, then it's sort of like at least you have kind of like 306 00:21:21,715 --> 00:21:25,715 different windows of looking into an experience of the 307 00:21:25,715 --> 00:21:30,070 person, different ways of starting a story, of of having a 308 00:21:30,070 --> 00:21:32,870 prompt that you might say, well, what about this? What about 309 00:21:32,870 --> 00:21:33,350 that? 310 00:21:33,750 --> 00:21:35,910 Hans Buetow: For Nikki and Bobby, this is a discovery 311 00:21:35,910 --> 00:21:40,150 process. She's surprised by this album, and she remembers that 312 00:21:40,150 --> 00:21:43,235 one. And she has associations with some of them and is 313 00:21:43,235 --> 00:21:46,515 delighted to learn that they shared an interest with another 314 00:21:46,515 --> 00:21:50,835 one. She gets to pull them out and she gets to wonder, what did 315 00:21:50,835 --> 00:21:55,235 he like about this one? Or why did he buy all of this artist's 316 00:21:55,235 --> 00:21:56,275 whole oeuvre? 317 00:21:56,275 --> 00:22:00,500 Or this seems out of character for him. What is he carrying 318 00:22:00,500 --> 00:22:05,620 inside of him that makes this appealing? She's truly sharing 319 00:22:05,620 --> 00:22:08,900 something with him, and he's sharing something back with her 320 00:22:08,980 --> 00:22:15,425 even when he's gone. And we, as observers, we get to discover 321 00:22:15,425 --> 00:22:16,625 alongside her. 322 00:22:16,785 --> 00:22:18,625 Speaker 4: Because dad would always tell me, like, you don't 323 00:22:18,625 --> 00:22:22,625 understand, Nikki. Like, you you don't understand. This is like a 324 00:22:22,625 --> 00:22:26,225 top personal collection that I have surrounding me. Like, this 325 00:22:26,225 --> 00:22:30,380 is a top personal record collection, and you will be 326 00:22:30,380 --> 00:22:33,740 surprised by what you find. And I'm like, well, you know what? 327 00:22:33,740 --> 00:22:37,980 I am very surprised by what I find, but there are also 56,000 328 00:22:37,980 --> 00:22:43,165 other people who are very surprised by by what we have 329 00:22:43,165 --> 00:22:45,965 found, and they and they are loving it, dad. So 330 00:22:46,285 --> 00:22:49,005 Hans Buetow: So these posts are doing what Bobby hoped. They're 331 00:22:49,005 --> 00:22:55,485 giving the collection life. But because we poured so much of him 332 00:22:55,565 --> 00:23:01,080 into the collection when the collection has life. In a way, 333 00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:04,920 Bobby has life. As Emile Durkheim says, quote, there are 334 00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:09,480 living ties between things and men, and the things are endowed 335 00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:12,360 with special powers from which human allies benefit. 336 00:23:14,025 --> 00:23:17,945 These ties also mean that the objects by themselves are not 337 00:23:17,945 --> 00:23:22,665 fully able to accomplish any of these benefits on their own. The 338 00:23:22,665 --> 00:23:28,590 objects are dormant unless we use them, and their power as 339 00:23:28,590 --> 00:23:32,670 totems is unlocked only when we use them in actually really 340 00:23:32,670 --> 00:23:38,865 specific ways. When we come back, time is the other half of 341 00:23:38,865 --> 00:23:50,625 the inheritance posting equation. This is a good time to 342 00:23:50,625 --> 00:23:54,440 make a distinction between grief and mourning. So they are 343 00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:57,080 connected, but they are not the same thing. 344 00:23:57,320 --> 00:24:01,240 Kurt White: There's something about, grief and that is so 345 00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:06,855 intensely personal. Right? It's the no one will ever understand 346 00:24:06,855 --> 00:24:11,415 this like I understand it. No one can ever feel this feeling. 347 00:24:12,135 --> 00:24:16,215 Hans Buetow: Grief is the internal individual feeling of 348 00:24:16,375 --> 00:24:20,930 loss. Mourning is how the grief is expressed, the way that those 349 00:24:20,930 --> 00:24:25,810 feelings come out. For grief, in its most potent form, it is 350 00:24:25,810 --> 00:24:29,890 overwhelming. It's a destabilizing, unmooring, 351 00:24:29,890 --> 00:24:35,035 blinding, crushing, maelstrom of emotions that completely derails 352 00:24:35,035 --> 00:24:39,195 us. But even mild grief can totally stop us in our tracks. 353 00:24:39,355 --> 00:24:43,035 The processing of those feelings of grief is the work of 354 00:24:43,035 --> 00:24:43,355 mourning. 355 00:24:44,150 --> 00:24:47,990 Kurt White: Sometimes grief has to be metabolized in fits and 356 00:24:47,990 --> 00:24:50,950 starts, in small bites, you might say. 357 00:24:51,430 --> 00:24:56,550 Hans Buetow: This is what humor does for us. But maybe also 358 00:24:56,550 --> 00:25:01,235 scrolling. You laugh or you blink. It's just too much to 359 00:25:01,235 --> 00:25:04,915 look into that void for any extended amount of time. Even 360 00:25:04,915 --> 00:25:08,115 just discussing the void is difficult. 361 00:25:08,115 --> 00:25:12,570 Like, I'm worried this segment is too much all at once. Kurt 362 00:25:12,570 --> 00:25:15,690 once told me about Earl Hopper, who's a group analyst who's also 363 00:25:15,690 --> 00:25:19,850 one of his mentors, saying that he had to break up his lectures 364 00:25:19,850 --> 00:25:20,970 about death. 365 00:25:21,130 --> 00:25:22,970 Kurt White: He really actually didn't think that we could 366 00:25:23,225 --> 00:25:26,905 really pay attention to things that were overwhelming at that 367 00:25:26,905 --> 00:25:31,065 level for more than maybe ten or fifteen minutes. It's after that 368 00:25:31,065 --> 00:25:34,585 you begin to kind of distract yourself, dissociate. You begin 369 00:25:34,585 --> 00:25:39,610 to use coping skills to move your attention elsewhere without 370 00:25:39,610 --> 00:25:44,010 even noticing that you're doing it right. Go to an hour long 371 00:25:44,010 --> 00:25:48,090 lecture about the distress you experience with grief and loss 372 00:25:48,090 --> 00:25:51,275 and mourning. And after maybe fifteen minutes, you might be 373 00:25:51,275 --> 00:25:53,675 thinking about what you're gonna have for lunch, and then you 374 00:25:53,675 --> 00:25:56,395 tune back in, and then you tune back out, and tune back in, tune 375 00:25:56,395 --> 00:25:56,955 back out. 376 00:25:56,955 --> 00:26:00,795 I do think there's a rhythm to that that our our we have to 377 00:26:00,795 --> 00:26:04,075 just kind of protect ourselves against some of the scariest 378 00:26:04,075 --> 00:26:04,715 parts of this. 379 00:26:07,650 --> 00:26:10,610 Hans Buetow: That is a similar rhythm to the social feed where 380 00:26:10,610 --> 00:26:14,930 Inheritance Posting lives. None of the posts are long. None of 381 00:26:14,930 --> 00:26:17,810 them are so intense that you would stop your normal scroll. 382 00:26:17,890 --> 00:26:22,745 You watch. You feel, you move on, you return. 383 00:26:22,985 --> 00:26:26,025 Kurt White: Maybe you can watch a couple videos. You can linger. 384 00:26:26,105 --> 00:26:29,625 You could look at the comments or maybe you don't want any of 385 00:26:29,625 --> 00:26:36,320 it today and you can skip. But maybe a minute is okay. Right? 386 00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:44,240 Hans Buetow: These work because they're small. I think that we 387 00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:47,760 sometimes conceive of our feet as geography, a space that we go 388 00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:51,855 to. But in this sense it's temporal, not physical space. 389 00:26:52,655 --> 00:26:56,095 The routine of it, especially folded into the endless tiny 390 00:26:56,095 --> 00:27:00,495 dopamine hits of scrolling, the routine allows us to let grief 391 00:27:00,495 --> 00:27:06,390 be what it inherently wants to be, a process that moves with us 392 00:27:06,390 --> 00:27:10,630 over time. Inheritance posting showing up on your feed turns 393 00:27:10,630 --> 00:27:14,550 this expression of grief into a process instead of a 394 00:27:14,550 --> 00:27:15,350 destination. 395 00:27:15,430 --> 00:27:26,185 The repetition matters. The ritual of it matters. Ritual is, 396 00:27:26,185 --> 00:27:29,705 in many ways, the bridge from grief to mourning. If grief is 397 00:27:29,705 --> 00:27:35,070 what you feel, mourning is how you act, and rituals give us the 398 00:27:35,070 --> 00:27:39,950 rules and the patterns to synchronize our fury of emotions 399 00:27:39,950 --> 00:27:45,150 and grief with others in mourning. You cover the mirrors. 400 00:27:45,470 --> 00:27:47,230 You wear black. You sit in silence. 401 00:27:47,795 --> 00:27:51,075 Kurt White: What is the poem? The W. H. Auden poem, funeral 402 00:27:51,075 --> 00:27:52,515 blues. Do you know this one? 403 00:27:52,515 --> 00:27:56,835 Stop all the clocks. Cut off the telephone. Prevent the dog 404 00:27:56,835 --> 00:28:01,340 barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos. And with 405 00:28:01,340 --> 00:28:05,020 muffled drum, bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. 406 00:28:07,100 --> 00:28:11,260 Hans Buetow: But rituals also give us etiquettes to take this 407 00:28:11,260 --> 00:28:14,540 swirl of emotions and bring it into sync with the community. 408 00:28:15,055 --> 00:28:19,535 Death means that a void has been allowed into the community, and 409 00:28:19,535 --> 00:28:24,335 the rights that we perform are a restoration of the social order 410 00:28:24,335 --> 00:28:27,535 that has been upended by that void. So they're not only about 411 00:28:27,535 --> 00:28:31,650 honoring the dead, but they're just as much about reaffirming 412 00:28:31,650 --> 00:28:36,370 the bonds of the people left behind, of the living, and puts 413 00:28:36,370 --> 00:28:41,490 a sort of moral pressure on all of us. We cannot remain 414 00:28:41,490 --> 00:28:47,255 indifferent when there's a void amongst us. And this means that 415 00:28:47,255 --> 00:28:51,895 rights can come out in extreme ways that would not seem proper 416 00:28:51,895 --> 00:28:53,735 under other circumstances. 417 00:28:53,895 --> 00:28:57,095 Bloodletting, hair pulling, shrieking in public, ritual 418 00:28:57,095 --> 00:29:01,800 scarification. In our case, making content out of the 419 00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:07,000 objects of the dead might feel exploitative, it might feel a 420 00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:11,640 little gross. But when we do it together, according to 421 00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:17,405 etiquette, there's a sacredness that is allowed in. And because 422 00:29:17,405 --> 00:29:19,805 we experience grief as individuals but we mourn 423 00:29:19,805 --> 00:29:24,925 together, the roles that we have in that process, those roles are 424 00:29:24,925 --> 00:29:29,410 different. Strangely, mourning does not require grief. 425 00:29:29,810 --> 00:29:33,810 You do not have to have the same feelings to participate in the 426 00:29:33,810 --> 00:29:37,330 rite of mourning. Or really, you don't have to have the same 427 00:29:37,330 --> 00:29:42,050 feelings about the same thing to still be a mourner. The griever 428 00:29:42,050 --> 00:29:45,565 can have feelings in any way that makes sense to them. Our 429 00:29:45,565 --> 00:29:50,925 job as a community is to mourn alongside them. And your 430 00:29:50,925 --> 00:29:55,485 individual pain is not necessarily what brings you to 431 00:29:55,485 --> 00:29:55,965 the Gathering. 432 00:29:57,100 --> 00:29:59,980 Rather, your obligation as a part of community is what brings 433 00:29:59,980 --> 00:30:00,700 you in. 434 00:30:00,940 --> 00:30:05,500 Kurt White: Something as painful as a loss really does require a 435 00:30:05,500 --> 00:30:10,315 group. I'm often trying to make the argument, and I won't get 436 00:30:10,315 --> 00:30:14,795 into it too deeply here, that like actually the base unit that 437 00:30:14,795 --> 00:30:19,275 we should be evaluating when we think about people is not the 438 00:30:19,275 --> 00:30:23,915 individual, but is perhaps a small group. That we live much 439 00:30:23,915 --> 00:30:27,650 more in groups than we do as individuals. We can pretend to 440 00:30:27,650 --> 00:30:30,770 live as individuals, but it's like a certain kind of clothing 441 00:30:30,770 --> 00:30:34,210 we put on. We're always dependent on others. 442 00:30:34,210 --> 00:30:39,970 We live off others in seen and unseen ways. And the time when 443 00:30:39,970 --> 00:30:43,575 we it when we really need to know that is when something 444 00:30:43,575 --> 00:30:47,975 happens that would, of course, overwhelm anyone's individual 445 00:30:47,975 --> 00:30:51,735 capacities. This sort of staring into the void. Where did they 446 00:30:51,735 --> 00:30:53,540 go? What has happened? 447 00:30:53,540 --> 00:30:56,820 Who am I now? What am I supposed to do? What does any of this 448 00:30:56,820 --> 00:31:02,660 mean? And so I think, you know, sociologists have invented ways 449 00:31:02,660 --> 00:31:06,935 of talking and thinking about rites and rituals that have 450 00:31:06,935 --> 00:31:08,855 given us some windows into this. 451 00:31:09,415 --> 00:31:12,775 Hans Buetow: Most religious traditions use mourning rites to 452 00:31:12,855 --> 00:31:18,180 organize groups and address the collective upending loss within 453 00:31:18,180 --> 00:31:22,260 a community. Wailing, rending of clothes, weeping, sitting in 454 00:31:22,260 --> 00:31:25,540 quiet solidarity with the bereaved. It's the Christian 455 00:31:25,540 --> 00:31:29,540 mass, it's the Hindu Shradha ceremonies, it's Jewish Shiva. 456 00:31:30,035 --> 00:31:33,155 By dictating things like how long everyone waits, who can 457 00:31:33,155 --> 00:31:36,995 speak, where someone goes, and in what order things happen, all 458 00:31:36,995 --> 00:31:40,515 of these rights give agency to the grieving and offer them 459 00:31:40,515 --> 00:31:41,955 support through community roles. 460 00:31:42,410 --> 00:31:46,170 Kurt White: People that can help us express things that we can't 461 00:31:46,170 --> 00:31:52,570 so that we can take it in in a different way. And I think it 462 00:31:52,570 --> 00:31:55,925 can look like a lot of different things. And that's why to me, it 463 00:31:55,925 --> 00:32:00,405 maybe it doesn't seem so unusual that the Internet might have 464 00:32:00,405 --> 00:32:05,365 some versions of this. I think it's probably versions, not 465 00:32:05,365 --> 00:32:09,540 version, that there are, like, multiple different ways where we 466 00:32:09,540 --> 00:32:14,660 can kind of find our way into certain roles. You know, the one 467 00:32:14,660 --> 00:32:18,180 the one that shares, the one that is taking in what is 468 00:32:18,180 --> 00:32:21,380 shared, the one that is commenting and reflecting back, 469 00:32:22,745 --> 00:32:25,945 the one that is responding in the next posting. 470 00:32:25,945 --> 00:32:31,705 Right? It has a certain kind of formality to it that does remind 471 00:32:31,705 --> 00:32:36,585 me of much more overtly formal rites and rituals. 472 00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:43,200 Hans Buetow: In social spaces, roles are designated by the 473 00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:45,840 tech, and they're heavily controlled by the platform. So 474 00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:49,200 posters, followers, commenters, they each have their own 475 00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:52,425 designated role and responsibility in the hierarchy. 476 00:32:52,425 --> 00:32:57,705 Right? We have talked on this show over and over about how 477 00:32:57,705 --> 00:33:00,505 licensing agreements and terms of service and the governance of 478 00:33:00,505 --> 00:33:05,380 platforms are poorly suited to grief and mourning. But the 479 00:33:05,380 --> 00:33:10,580 technology itself, like almost accidentally or maybe by the 480 00:33:10,580 --> 00:33:14,420 inherent will of humanity, the technology itself allows people 481 00:33:14,420 --> 00:33:17,380 online to activate the reciprocity that is one of the 482 00:33:17,380 --> 00:33:18,820 core elements of mourning. 483 00:33:20,375 --> 00:33:24,535 For Nikki, she knows that when she posts, someone else is 484 00:33:24,535 --> 00:33:27,895 hearing something that is important to her grief. 485 00:33:28,135 --> 00:33:32,870 Speaker 4: I will say sometimes it gets really, it feels really 486 00:33:32,870 --> 00:33:36,470 heavy, you know, because people are people are sharing about 487 00:33:36,470 --> 00:33:39,910 their grief, and you're you're reading about it. And then it 488 00:33:39,910 --> 00:33:43,430 makes me think about dad, and it makes me think about and it'll 489 00:33:43,430 --> 00:33:46,885 make me cry just thinking about it right now. But, you know, 490 00:33:46,885 --> 00:33:51,525 there are so many people who are on the page who are sharing 491 00:33:51,525 --> 00:33:55,925 about their the collections that they have gotten because of 492 00:33:55,925 --> 00:33:59,445 loved ones who have passed, and some of them have not even 493 00:33:59,445 --> 00:34:03,620 looked through their collection yet. But then they see our they 494 00:34:03,620 --> 00:34:08,340 see dad's Vinyl Stash page, and they're like, because you're 495 00:34:08,340 --> 00:34:12,740 doing this, now I want to go into my own record collection, 496 00:34:12,820 --> 00:34:17,775 and I wanna start pulling out stuff from my granddad or my dad 497 00:34:17,775 --> 00:34:22,575 or my husband or my wife or, you know, whoever it is. And I'm 498 00:34:22,575 --> 00:34:25,135 like, that's that's deep. 499 00:34:25,135 --> 00:34:28,255 I mean, that's really that's really purposeful. 500 00:34:30,240 --> 00:34:32,560 Hans Buetow: Nikki is trying to understand who she is now 501 00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:36,160 without Bobby. She's undergoing a transition. Not like when she 502 00:34:36,160 --> 00:34:40,480 was a kid, but also not unlike when she was a kid of going from 503 00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:45,575 a mass of competing feelings to a coordinated full person. 504 00:34:45,575 --> 00:34:48,695 Kurt White: But how do we get from one to the other? That's a 505 00:34:48,695 --> 00:34:54,215 very interesting tasty question. And part of the answer is that 506 00:34:54,215 --> 00:35:01,310 we have to be seen for being a unique human being by someone 507 00:35:01,310 --> 00:35:07,230 else, and we have to see them seeing us do that. And ideally 508 00:35:07,230 --> 00:35:10,935 admiring it a little bit. Saying like, you know, the gleam in the 509 00:35:10,935 --> 00:35:12,295 parent's eyes, right? 510 00:35:12,295 --> 00:35:16,695 I have a need. I see that you have a need. I have a need. I 511 00:35:16,695 --> 00:35:19,815 don't share your need, but I see that you have it and I'm going 512 00:35:19,815 --> 00:35:22,615 to attend to it. I see you seeing me. 513 00:35:23,230 --> 00:35:27,470 I see you seeing me. And and there's something fascinating to 514 00:35:27,470 --> 00:35:32,190 me about the way that social media platforms replicate some 515 00:35:32,190 --> 00:35:35,870 of the sort of form of an early attachment environment. Right? 516 00:35:36,155 --> 00:35:41,755 Here is a thing, and I say I it is important to me. See it. 517 00:35:41,835 --> 00:35:46,155 I see you seeing it. You know? And then I see that you've seen 518 00:35:46,155 --> 00:35:49,675 that I've seen it, and both people's individuality are 519 00:35:49,675 --> 00:35:54,740 reflected in it. And the dead person has emerged out of that 520 00:35:54,740 --> 00:35:59,140 in a new form for everybody in a kind of multiplicity. 521 00:36:01,060 --> 00:36:03,460 Hans Buetow: I have actually recently started Inheritance 522 00:36:03,460 --> 00:36:08,035 Posting about my grandfather, the one who I couldn't mourn all 523 00:36:08,035 --> 00:36:13,235 those years ago. Weirdly, concurrently with making this, I 524 00:36:13,235 --> 00:36:19,760 launched a whole podcast where I sit with my dad and we read the 525 00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:22,560 letters that my great grandmother wrote to my 526 00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:26,480 grandfather while he was in the army during World War Two. It's 527 00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:29,360 a collection that I get to ask my dad about, and he gets to 528 00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:33,040 communicate his memories of his dad, and we get to see my great 529 00:36:33,040 --> 00:36:38,125 grandmother's memories of his dad, my grandfather. And I get 530 00:36:38,125 --> 00:36:43,245 all of these changing morphing ideas of who he was, and who he 531 00:36:43,245 --> 00:36:48,285 is to me. And in a way, this is the morning. 532 00:36:48,285 --> 00:36:51,930 I I actually feel what it is that Kurt is talking about, and 533 00:36:51,930 --> 00:36:58,010 what it is that Nikki is saying, that this work is a way to 534 00:36:58,010 --> 00:37:02,330 engage. It's a way to have agency. It's a way to move into 535 00:37:04,425 --> 00:37:08,185 processing grief with the support of a community in a 536 00:37:08,185 --> 00:37:13,545 public space, and it feels so big. I have such big emotions 537 00:37:14,265 --> 00:37:23,080 about doing this. There's a passage from Emile Durkheim's 538 00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:26,680 book, the elementary forms of religious life, that I think 539 00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:27,960 about all the time. 540 00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:31,960 He's talking about the, quote, heated passions that spill over 541 00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:38,135 in grief, Spilling over until he says, from every side there are 542 00:37:38,135 --> 00:37:42,455 nothing but wild movements, shouts, downright howls, and 543 00:37:42,455 --> 00:37:45,975 deafening noises of all kinds that further intensify the state 544 00:37:45,975 --> 00:37:50,550 they are expressing. Probably because a collective emotion 545 00:37:50,550 --> 00:37:55,910 cannot be expressed collectively without some order that permits 546 00:37:55,910 --> 00:38:01,315 harmony and unison of movement. These gestures and cries tend to 547 00:38:01,315 --> 00:38:07,635 fall into rhythm and regularity, and from there into songs and 548 00:38:07,635 --> 00:38:13,955 dances. But in taking on a more regular form, they lose none of 549 00:38:13,955 --> 00:38:21,330 their natural fury. The songs and dances are sacred. 550 00:38:21,810 --> 00:38:26,210 They're ecstatic. They are what Durkheim calls a collective 551 00:38:26,210 --> 00:38:30,785 effervescence, when humans find themselves transformed by a 552 00:38:30,785 --> 00:38:35,985 force that transports us beyond the individual, tying our chaos 553 00:38:35,985 --> 00:38:41,345 together by synchronizing our movements. Grass in the wind. 554 00:38:42,380 --> 00:38:47,580 Dances in a group. We all look in the same direction at once. 555 00:38:47,580 --> 00:38:51,900 We all communicate in the same channels with the same 556 00:38:51,900 --> 00:38:52,540 expectations. 557 00:38:54,745 --> 00:38:58,345 Kurt White: If my hypothesis is right and that we're just trying 558 00:38:58,345 --> 00:39:02,665 to use new tools to do basically fundamentally human things, you 559 00:39:02,665 --> 00:39:05,465 might approach it from the point of view of, do you think this is 560 00:39:05,465 --> 00:39:09,460 what the Internet might be trying to do? And I think it 561 00:39:09,460 --> 00:39:13,300 might be trying to do that if there is a kind of like a best 562 00:39:13,300 --> 00:39:17,220 purpose underneath the sort of motivated action part of it. 563 00:39:17,460 --> 00:39:21,700 Because I think you can't I think you can't quell collective 564 00:39:21,700 --> 00:39:25,815 responses to things with anything. I think it's the most 565 00:39:25,815 --> 00:39:31,015 powerful force in the universe, you know, that when people start 566 00:39:31,015 --> 00:39:34,695 to move in the same direction, things start to happen. Right? 567 00:39:35,670 --> 00:39:40,070 And and why shouldn't that be true sometimes in places on the 568 00:39:40,070 --> 00:39:46,470 Internet? Right? If it's and why shouldn't it be true that you 569 00:39:46,470 --> 00:39:50,710 could find you know, I I didn't plan to have feelings about my 570 00:39:50,710 --> 00:39:54,505 dead mother's mother's music choices today. But now I'm 571 00:39:54,505 --> 00:39:59,145 having them. And I know also that I'm not alone in having 572 00:39:59,145 --> 00:40:04,740 them because I can see that this channel is popular and that 573 00:40:04,740 --> 00:40:06,660 there's a discourse about it. 574 00:40:06,660 --> 00:40:10,660 And it's popular enough that the person is gonna do it again 575 00:40:10,660 --> 00:40:14,180 tomorrow. And in the meantime, I'm gonna think about Pink 576 00:40:14,180 --> 00:40:18,065 Floyd's The Wall. And I'm gonna think about my mother, and I'm 577 00:40:18,065 --> 00:40:22,385 gonna know that other people are out there thinking about their 578 00:40:22,385 --> 00:40:28,145 own unique experiences of things. But together, we're also 579 00:40:28,145 --> 00:40:31,790 doing it even at this low level of intensity. 580 00:40:33,230 --> 00:40:34,590 Hans Buetow: And maybe that's what we need. 581 00:40:34,750 --> 00:40:38,110 Kurt White: Maybe that's what we need. In a world that's already 582 00:40:38,110 --> 00:40:42,110 overly intense, it's a kind of gentle offering, isn't it? Can 583 00:40:42,110 --> 00:40:44,030 we see it as a gentle offering? 584 00:40:44,030 --> 00:40:45,275 Hans Buetow: Yeah. You 585 00:40:45,275 --> 00:40:47,995 Kurt White: know? We're entitled to still some good things. 586 00:40:57,480 --> 00:41:01,240 Hans Buetow: Thank you to Kurt White. Thank you, Kurt. And 587 00:41:01,240 --> 00:41:05,160 thank you to Nikki from Dad's Vinyl Stash. You can hear a long 588 00:41:05,160 --> 00:41:08,520 conversation with her and Kurt about the channel, mental 589 00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:12,555 health, and her experience of making Inheritance Posts on a 590 00:41:12,555 --> 00:41:15,995 recent episode of the podcast Unraveling. We'll put a link in 591 00:41:15,995 --> 00:41:16,795 the show notes. 592 00:41:17,275 --> 00:41:20,475 And I would love to be in collective effervescence with 593 00:41:20,475 --> 00:41:24,235 you. I would love to hear if you have an object. Do you have a 594 00:41:24,235 --> 00:41:28,740 totem of a loved one that you would find meaning sharing with 595 00:41:28,740 --> 00:41:33,860 others. Send us a recording, short recording, of you telling 596 00:41:33,860 --> 00:41:36,900 us about your object and your person. And if we can get enough 597 00:41:36,900 --> 00:41:39,300 of these together, I don't know, maybe we'll make an episode of 598 00:41:39,300 --> 00:41:44,735 Inheritance Posts, and we'll elevate all of us into some form 599 00:41:44,895 --> 00:41:46,655 of collective effervescence. 600 00:41:47,295 --> 00:41:50,175 You can find all the ways to submit to us and ask us 601 00:41:50,175 --> 00:41:54,255 questions or share your thoughts on grief and the Internet. 602 00:41:54,815 --> 00:41:59,190 Everything is in the show notes or at neverpo.st. 603 00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:32,920 Mike Rugnetta: That is the show we have for you this week. We 604 00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:36,760 are gonna be back here in the main feed on or around Thursday, 605 00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:43,765 July 9. When you Google for $4, can you? The following 606 00:42:43,845 --> 00:42:47,765 autocomplete results are shown. In fallout four, can you 607 00:42:47,765 --> 00:42:49,365 recharge fusion cores? 608 00:42:49,445 --> 00:42:52,565 In fallout four, can you get married? In fallout four, can 609 00:42:52,565 --> 00:42:56,510 you join multiple factions? In fallout four, can you have 610 00:42:56,510 --> 00:43:00,670 multiple romances? In fallout four, can you become a ghoul? In 611 00:43:00,670 --> 00:43:03,310 sims four, can you marry the grim reaper? 612 00:43:03,310 --> 00:43:07,470 In fallout four, can you join the enclave? In sims four, can 613 00:43:07,470 --> 00:43:11,345 you have twins? So let me answer this for you definitively for 614 00:43:11,345 --> 00:43:18,225 $4. You can become a member at neverpo.st and help us continue 615 00:43:18,225 --> 00:43:21,425 to make this weird wonderful independent internet and 616 00:43:21,425 --> 00:43:25,210 technology theory and criticism podcast, which I'm not gonna 617 00:43:25,210 --> 00:43:32,090 lie, does not preclude multiple romances. Never Post's producers 618 00:43:32,090 --> 00:43:34,970 are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton, and the mysterious 619 00:43:34,970 --> 00:43:36,330 doctor first name last name. 620 00:43:36,330 --> 00:43:39,775 Our contributing producer this week is Kurt White. Our senior 621 00:43:39,775 --> 00:43:42,895 producer is Hans Buto. Our executive producer is Jason 622 00:43:42,895 --> 00:43:56,130 Oberholzer, and the show's host, that's me, is Mike Rignetta. The 623 00:43:56,130 --> 00:43:59,570 eye is the lamp of the body, so I tried to make a world where 624 00:43:59,570 --> 00:44:03,890 all I ate was light. A butterfly completes a similar labor in the 625 00:44:03,890 --> 00:44:08,235 summer garden, beating its wings slowly like a healthy person. 626 00:44:08,475 --> 00:44:12,875 The kind who runs for fun. Could run from an attacker, eats 627 00:44:12,875 --> 00:44:16,795 greens in the same quantity as the salty meats the storytelling 628 00:44:16,795 --> 00:44:20,820 part of us appears to favor. I couldn't decide whether I wanted 629 00:44:20,820 --> 00:44:25,220 to stay alive or go faster. They appeared to contradict each 630 00:44:25,220 --> 00:44:29,220 other. I tried in all I did to eat light. 631 00:44:30,020 --> 00:44:33,925 Excerpt of self help by Katie Peterson. Peterson. Never Post 632 00:44:33,925 --> 00:44:38,005 is a production of Charts and Leisure and is distributed by 633 00:44:38,005 --> 00:44:38,885 Radiotopia.