Reactions and comments about the OceanGate Titan incident have been observed on social media. Most of the banter was centered around the passengers of the doomed vessel and their apparent wealth, with the reactions to it ranging from statements saying the passengers deserved it to memes that were spread out across platforms.
Prior to the news of the submersible's "catastrophic implosion" and the aftermath of the search operation, Los Angeles Times arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt wrote a piece titled "As those aboard the Titan submersible suffered, social media laughed." In the commentary, she noticed the "exploitative [news] coverage of the death and terror unfolding in real time" was exacerbated by the public's desensitized reaction across social media platforms like TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram.
'Eat the Rich' Sentiments, Jokes, Memes
During that time, as news coverage of the search mission was underway, a number of factors contributed to the topic becoming the subject of acidic social media commentary, dark humor, mockery, and memes, most of it referring to the 1997 film 'Titanic,' directed by James Cameron. Most of them echo the tagline "Eat the rich."
"Gleeful best describes the tenor of many posts," Gelt noticed, "which include making fun of the video game controller used to pilot the Titan, laughing at the billionaires inside the submersible, jokes about the effects of lack of oxygen on the human psyche, or substituting fart sounds for the knocking sounds that rescuers apparently heard underwater."
She also noticed the untoward attitude of Hamish Harding's stepson, Brian Szasz, who allegedly attended a Blink-182 concert during the search, reasoning that music was helping him through hard times like the Titan incident. Szasz was called out by American rapper Cardi B for what she said was an inappropriate move during that time, and a heated exchange ensued.
Gelt saw the exchange and many other social media banter as an "online Mall of America" that was vast, vacuous, relentlessly commercial, and soul-sucking.
"Like a digital Tower of Babel, social media is evolving into an increasingly ugly and chaotic space," she wrote. "And in a time of immense crisis...it has become a garbage dump of vile commentary publicly aired because that's just what we do now."
Read Also: Debris Discovered Near Titanic Confirmed to Be OceanGate Submersible Titan
History Repeating Itself?
Gelt's essay also touched on some events in world history which could be similar to the fate of the Titan.
First, she noticed news media doing round-the-clock coverage of the search for the Titan, but at the same time, had no similar coverage of migrant boats from Africa tragically sinking off the coast of Greece last week, and as of this writing, the one off the coast of the Spanish Canary Islands.
Secondly, she thought the name of the company operating the Titan, OceanGate, was an "unfortunate name" which "intrinsically smacks of scandal." The essay also mentioned its CEO Stockton Rush and his alleged disregard for safety concerns and potentially hazardous conditions on board in order to make a profit.
"Finally," Gelt continued, "there's the allure, mystery, and legend of the Titanic itself." Like many journalistic commentaries, she compared the fate of the Titan to the fate of the Titanic, the vessel it was supposedly targeting during that ill-fated expedition. Of particular note in the comparison was the apparent economic inequality in both 1912 and 2023, citing the most recent World Inequality Report.
"There is real anger at the wealthy and at the ways they squander their money on vanity projects...while the planet literally burns," Gelt said, making SpaceX's Starship an example.
A Call to Calm, Sobriety
No matter how the historical background and social implications contextualized the incident, Gelt continued, she believed it was possible to "hold space for both the drowned migrants and the missing billionaires" and to "honor all levels of human suffering and death" in order to maintain whatever was left of human decency.
She also provided some examples of how social media could be harnessed for good if people only tried, citing examples like some users tracking marine traffic in the area via satellite and posting their findings or others actively fighting misinformation about the ill-fated sub.
Gelt hopes that, no matter the outcome of the search mission, people will not make any kind of tragedy a laughing matter regardless of net value.
"But I wonder," she concluded, "as the gap between our brains and our online avatars becomes perilously porous, we seem to have lost contact with the flesh-and-blood-filled vessels that contain our hearts."
Calling Out the Vitriol, Schadenfreude
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania State University media psychology professor Jessica Myrick suggested the reaction of many social media users to the loss of Titan and its crew could be driven by schadenfreude, a German term that meant the pleasure derived from a disliked person's or group's pain.
"We feel it even more strongly when we think the people involved deserved what they got," she added.
Other individuals have also expressed their concern about the vitriol the five deceased passengers received because of the Titan disaster.
Kentucky-based journalist Bobby Ellison said nothing was funny about the five people who perished in the incident.
Meanwhile, a Twitter user with the handle @ChrisLXXXVI said the online discussion surrounding the Titan during the time before the confirmation of its destruction was "an indictment on the vile nature of social media.
"I am all for a morbid joke and laughing at tragic events; however, this seems to be particularly nasty because people are directly mocking those currently affected," the user added.
C4 Trends technology industry analyst Susan Schreiner told Forbes the jokes were meant to be a representation of the current social atmosphere, of which she was disappointed but not surprised.
"People have forgotten how to talk with each other if they are on 'the other side'," she said.
The US Coast Guard has confirmed Thursday (June 22) that fragments of the Titan were found near the bow of the Titanic. Rush and Harding, as well as Paul-Henri Nargeolet and Shahzada and Suleman Dawood were presumed dead.
Investigations on how the Titan disintegrated are still continuing.
Related Article: 'Titanic' Director James Cameron Exchanges Words With OceanGate Co-Founder About Safety, Cutting Corners
