# How to memorialize people **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [March 15, 2013, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970 "2013-03-15T02:10:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/21 "2013-03-15T08:08:36Z")
**Jill** , even though I’ve been here for many years, I don’t believe we have ever interacted before, but your recent postings since Katherine (Opal) passed have caused me concern. From my readings, it’s like you’re _champing at the bit_ to kick the boots into Opal. Now you might claim that’s not your intention, but it certainly comes across that way. I have no idea of the history between you and Opal, it might be bitter and sordid and that’s fine, but surely there’s a time and a place? As we all know, things like memorials and funerals etc are for the living, not the dead. What Opal would or wouldn’t have wanted is totally irrelevant. What’s important is that we acknowledge her life (however crazy it was), her contributions to the amazing SDMB community (however crazy they were) and the fact that many here loved her IRL. Family members are reading these threads now, and I for one would like them to feel that Opal (Katherine) left her mark. Which she did. You’ve got another agenda happening by the sounds of it. How about making a cup of tea (or pour a glass of quaff) and come back in a week after you’ve cooled down a bit. 'Cos at the moment you seem to be making a bit of a dick of yourself to be perfectly honest. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/22 "2013-03-15T08:26:36Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > The purpose of a memorial/RIP thread for a member who’s died is to provide comfort to the survivors. Posting negative stuff is at best threadshitting, and at worst trolling… Right. We’re not exactly introducing some groundbreaking shit here with this, and yet… Pretty sad coming from the Queen of Assholes. But it is way past my bedtime. Over and out, y’all. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/23 "2013-03-15T08:35:31Z")
> [@JillGat](#): > > And the decorum and convention and hagiographicality. Thanks for those, too. I suppose the best way to memorialize somebody like OpalCat would be to quote a few Hallmark cards. Maybe we can get Elton John to sing a Candle in the Wind. For God’s sake, don’t mention anything about her specific presence and spirit. Eh, I don’t have much use for overly saccharine public mourning either, and tend to find threads like the current one rather eye-rolling. But obviously lots of other people find that kind of thing helpful, not just in memorium threads but IRL funeral services. It would be pretty dickish of me to barge in and tell them they’re all mourning wrong, and I’ll show them how it’s done even if they’ve asked me to take it somewhere else. If it helps people get over a loss, more power to them. If you find a more “warts-and-all” story telling more helpful, its easy to start your own thread. Indeed, **Nzinga** already started one. Its hardly “censorship” to ask you to put your comments in a different thread on the same message board. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/24 "2013-03-15T08:36:53Z")
> [@JillGat](#): > > OpalCat was not her real name. She was an internet persona that Katherine expressed; a part of herself. Let me point out that, while Katherine is dead, OpalCat will live on in her mightly internet homestead kingdom. She was the one most of us knew and interacted with. She wasn’t a fictional character, but she was someone we mostly knew by what she wrote and posted online as OpalCat and not as Katherine. And when the SDMB started censoring stuff too much, she created a website of her own where people could speak more freely and openly, without fear of touchy moderators. And post she did, about every damn thing. > > Once again, I did not post anything snarky in that thread. I did OpalCat no dishonor. I spoke to the essence of what she was - or at least the part we were exposed to online. I have no reason to start a pit thread about Opal. Leave that to the people who were offended by my thread, said I should be more sensitive and respectful and then went on to point out that she was hated by some people, or that she was a tragic nutjob. > > Or the ones who simply posted “shit, shit, shit” and that seemed to acceptable as appropriate to the mods. I sure hope nobody “sensitively” memorializes _me_ that way. :: shock horror :: …really? OpalCat isn’t her real name? Wow, thanks! I’m glad you are around to keep the board appraised of these important things. And here I was thinking that Opalcat was her real name! Silly me! OpalCat is dead. OpalCat was Katherine. You may see a distinction but there isn’t one. The posters posting “shit shit shit” are expressing genuine emotion. Your posts are expressing the smugness of an internet bully who doesn’t care. Leave it alone, walk away and grow up. The thread isn’t about you. ---
**Author:** ![Beastly\_Rotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/25 "2013-03-15T08:38:04Z")
> [@JillGat](#): > > And the decorum and convention and hagiographicality. Thanks for those, too. I suppose the best way to memorialize somebody like OpalCat would be to quote a few Hallmark cards. Maybe we can get Elton John to sing a Candle in the Wind. For God’s sake, don’t mention anything about her specific presence and spirit. Now you’re being silly. I think there’s a pretty large excluded middle between Hallmark Card banality and wanting to enumerate all of **Opal** ’s faults and failings yet again, don’t you? And for most people that consists of remembering and reminiscing about the things they liked about her. Yeah, there were many things people didn’t like about **Opal** , but now isn’t the time to bring them up again. If you want to dig up her bones to throw stones at them under the guise of “keeping it real”, go start a Pit thread. Seriously, would you behave like this at a real life service, interrupting to demand a few more weeds to go alongside with the wreaths? Show a little more class and be quiet. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/26 "2013-03-15T12:51:35Z")
I think snark is out of place in such threads. I didn’t see anything particularly snarky with what Jill said. Have none of you been to a wake? It’s not all rending of garments. There is a lot of “She hated wakes she would have hated to be here” or “She would be the first one to be telling jokes next to the coffin.” I find that a lot more genuine than all the me too comments. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/27 "2013-03-15T16:06:48Z")
Memorials, real life or virtual, aren’t the time and place to twist the knife. It’s just basic human decency. No matter what you might think of someone, when you dump on them in a memorial thread, you’re not hurting the subject of your snark. You’re hurting the others that choose to remember the positive things. There’s a good analogy; when you add a cup of water to a barrel of wine, the result is a barrel of wine. When you add a cup of sewage to a barrel of wine, the result is sewage. There’s already many painfully long threads on the SDMB centered around the previous gaffes of Katherine. Those threads will probably be part of the SDMB for as long as it remains online, just like the memorial thread. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/28 "2013-03-15T16:13:12Z")
Personally, I’d prefer an old fashioned New Orleans Jazz Parade. ---
**Author:** ![JillGat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc29f/32.png) [@JillGat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JillGat)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/29 "2013-03-15T16:33:00Z")
[[You’ve got another agenda happening by the sounds of it.]] I don’t do other agendas. I can’t believe, from these responses, that any of you read my original post. Somehow - with your own agendas - you read “snarkiness” and a lot of other negativity into it. By the missreading, overreacting and/or responding based on other reactions, you’ve only turned it into something snarky and sordid. Leaving now. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/30 "2013-03-15T16:54:45Z")
Memorializing people is complex, and memorializing someone who was very complex is even more so. **OpalCat** had some serious problems and even when she was doing well, some posters found her frustrating to deal with. All of that contributes to the collective memory of her years her. Like **JillGat** says, **OpalCat** shared a great deal of herself online in a bunch of venues. But whether **JillGat** was being deliberately snarky or not, there’s an appropriate time and place and way to discuss the things she was bringing up. The memorial thread isn’t it. ---
**Author:** ![JillGat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc29f/32.png) [@JillGat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JillGat)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/31 "2013-03-15T16:58:01Z")
Oh shoot, my earlier post was sent and it wouldn’t let me edit it to add more adjectives. So please accept this final masterpiece and I will be on my way! [[You’ve got another agenda happening by the sounds of it.]] I don’t do other agendas. I can’t believe, from these responses, that any of you read my original post in context. Somehow - with your own agendas - you’ve really blown this out of proportion. By the missreading, or just reacting to other posters’ comments, you actually have turned this into something snarky and sordid. I have no ill feelings about OpalCat, but now I do about many of you. I think most of these posts are moronic and histrionic. I wanted to be sure to get that in before any of you pass away and then it will be considered too snarky, out of place, disrespectful, lacking decorum, dickish, jerkish, smug, trolling, inhuman, ill becoming, deficient, offensive, sarcastic, bullying, shit talking (x7), agenda-ridden or bad behavior to say about you. (these are just the things said about me in _this_ thread. Go to the others for more!). You drama queens need to put down your thesauruses and back slowly away. I’m leaving now, but please continue. Nothing worth doing isn’t worth overdoing. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/32 "2013-03-15T17:03:30Z")
> [@JillGat](#): > > By the missreading, overreacting and/or responding based on other reactions, you’ve only turned it into something snarky and sordid. Sure, you can blame everyone else. Or you can think, “Wow, I must be coming across very differently from how I mean to come across,” and reflect on that. > [@](#): > > Leaving now. Or, y’know, you can do that. Edit: on preview: > [@](#): > > You drama queens need to put down your thesauruses and back slowly away. Is it too early to award the “Ironic post of the year” award? ---
**Author:** ![moi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@moi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moi)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/33 "2013-03-15T17:11:35Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > As we all know, things like memorials and funerals etc are for the living, not the dead. Thanks for everything you said, **kambuckta** , but especially this reminder. I’ve been trying to keep up with and parse my responses to the now 3 threads OpalCat’s death has inspired…and this has made me realize I don’t have to hang out here to defend her or try to engage with **JillGat** or others who seem to be intent to make this all about themselves. Opal was judged very publicly and harassed when she was alive; of course her memorial thread wouldn’t be any different. The SDMB might be how I met her, but it certainly shouldn’t encapsulate how I remember her or be where I come to grieve her. ---
**Author:** ![JillGat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc29f/32.png) [@JillGat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JillGat)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/34 "2013-03-15T17:27:26Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Memorializing people is complex, and memorializing someone who was very complex is even more so. **OpalCat** had some serious problems and even when she was doing well, some posters found her frustrating to deal with. All of that contributes to the collective memory of her years her. Like **JillGat** says, **OpalCat** shared a great deal of herself online in a bunch of venues. But whether **JillGat** was being deliberately snarky or not, there’s an appropriate time and place and way to discuss the things she was bringing up. The memorial thread isn’t it. Serious problems? Frustrating? Flawed? The funny thing is that several of the posters, as above, managed to add negatives digs at Opal (which I never did and didn’t intend to) before going on to describe me: Snarky (x 7), out of place, disrespectful, lacking decorum, dickish, jerkish, smug, trolling, insensitive, inhuman, ill becoming, deficient, offensive, sarcastic, bullying, condemnatory, shit talking (x3), threadshitting, agenda-ridden, bad behavior, indecent, twisting the knife, deliberately hurtful, bitter, sordid, sewage, champing at the bit to kick the boots into Opal, dig up her bones to throw stones at them under the guise of “keeping it real”, dumping on her, painful, wry, pirana pools of snark, not a member of the human race, chumming the waters. This is all just from this thread. I have to admit now the “collector” side of me wants to fill in all the adjectives and analogies from the other threads, too. This is too much of a piece of work to let go. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/35 "2013-03-15T17:29:31Z")
> [@JillGat](#): > > I have to admit now the “collector” side of me wants to fill in all the adjectives and analogies from the other threads, too. This is too much of a piece of work to let go. Didn’t you flounce out of this thread twice already? ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/36 "2013-03-15T17:41:47Z")
> [@JillGat](#): > > Serious problems? Frustrating? Flawed? The funny thing is that several of the posters, as above, managed to add negatives digs at Opal (which I never did and didn’t intend to) before going on to describe me: > > Snarky (x 7), out of place, disrespectful, lacking decorum, dickish, jerkish, smug, trolling, insensitive, inhuman, ill becoming, deficient, offensive, sarcastic, bullying, condemnatory, shit talking (x3), threadshitting, agenda-ridden, bad behavior, indecent, twisting the knife, deliberately hurtful, bitter, sordid, sewage, champing at the bit to kick the boots into Opal, dig up her bones to throw stones at them under the guise of “keeping it real”, dumping on her, painful, wry, pirana pools of snark, not a member of the human race, chumming the waters. > > This is all just from this thread. I have to admit now the “collector” side of me wants to fill in all the adjectives and analogies from the other threads, too. This is too much of a piece of work to let go. Wat? You behaved shittily and people then accused you of shittery? Does not compute! ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/37 "2013-03-15T17:46:01Z")
> [@Bob Ducca](#): > > Didn’t you flounce out of this thread twice already? Stop being such a drama queen about her flouncing, or you’ll force her to list, again, all the things people have said about her. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/38 "2013-03-15T17:46:55Z")
> [@JillGat](#): > > Serious problems? Frustrating? Flawed? The funny thing is that several of the posters, as above, managed to add negatives digs at Opal (which I never did and didn’t intend to) before going on to describe me: It’s true that she had problems and that people were sometimes frustrated by her, and I did not intend either comment as a dig. I’m not sure where “flawed” came from, but we’re all flawed. On the other hand your comment about suicide sounded a lot like a potshot even if that is not what you intended. That’s the main issue here. If you didn’t intend to say something bad about **OpalCat** , you should know that it sounded negative and opened the door for criticisms that felt unseemly in a thread announcing the death of a longtime Doper. The mods were right to try to shut that down, as they did with a couple of other notes earlier in the thread. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, there are some other threads where people are sharing different types of memories and you could probably participate in those. ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/39 "2013-03-15T18:00:30Z")
Wow. I do believe the OP protesteth too much. I’ve never seen anyone so up in arms about not being able to “grieve” (because, it’s not about being snarky \< insert 50 word essay with lots of synonyms and other assorted verbiage \>, dontcha know?) the way they want to when someone else has FREAKING DIED. Just another Doper chiming in to say (amidst the very real probability that my favorable [or none at all] reputation has been harmed) that when everything looks like a nail… ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970/40 "2013-03-15T18:25:33Z")
I remember you as normally pretty level-headed **Jill** , so I hope you won’t be pissed if I say I think you should maybe step back and take another look at this without the frustration. When you posted I _honestly couldn’t tell_ if you were snarking or not and I’ve been here a long, long time. It could have been a wry, wistful comment on **Opal** ’s openness and love of spectacle or it could have been a mean little dig. Obviously many/most folks took it as a mean little dig and I don’t think you should be getting your back up quite so much about that. Because IMHO little digs _are_ in bad taste in a memorial thread and probably should be moderated. A simple “I never intended anything negative by my comment, sorry about the confusion” would have sufficed. All this drama, ironic or not, is kinda unnecessary from my POV. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-memorialize-people/652970.md?page=3)