Build For Tomorrow
Subscribe
Cover photo

In Defense of the Model Who Posed by Her Dad's Casket

The internet's latest outrage is old and misunderstood. Here's why funeral selfies are a sign of something healthy.

Jason Feifer

Oct 28, 2021
20

A woman posed for photos in front of her father’s casket. The internet is on fire.

Just to be clear on what we're talking about, I'll show you a glimpse of it. But I am not here to indulge this. Rather, I am here as perhaps the world’s greatest authority on this very specific subject.

Why am I such an authority? Because in 2013, I created a Tumblr called “Selfies At Funerals” that also set the internet on fire, and led to reporters calling me about the subject for years. In fact, just a few weeks ago, a GQ reporter called to ask my opinion on the 20th anniversary of Zoolander, because Zoolander took shameless selfies. Kinda like at a funeral.

I shall now marshal my many years of experience towards one end: I will defend Jayne Rivera, the woman posing in front of her father’s casket, because I think everyone's getting the story wrong.

This isn’t a tale of one person’s photos, and whether they are “vile” or “sad and mentally distorted”.

It’s a tale of our collective (and probably willful) misunderstanding of each other. And our inability to manage change.

Here’s the short history — of my own story, and then Rivera’s.

Eight years ago, my wife and I visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. I noticed people taking selfies of themselves in front of the building — an odd way, I thought, to memorialize such a somber place. It got me wondering about where else people take selfies, and a quick search on Instagram and Twitter revealed many: People took selfies at Chernobyl, the Holocaust memorial in Berlin, the 9/11 memorial in Manhattan, and more.

But above all, they took selfies at funerals. So, so many selfies at funerals.

I collected many of these images and published them (with names blocked out) on 2013 on a Tumblr called Selfies At Funerals. (It still exists, but the photos have since disappeared — the result of my original photo hosting service going out of business.) Before I’d even had time to share it with anyone, Business Insider (as it was then known) found and shared it. From there, the world was on alert. CNBC, Good Morning America, Slate, and more covered it. Weird Al included funeral selfies in a song. When Barack Obama took a selfie at Nelson Mandela’s memorial, the Guardian had me write about it.

When people asked if I made the site to highlight Kids Today and the Terrible Things They Do, I said no. That wasn’t my intention. Sure, I thought there was something kind of funny about the whole thing. But I was also intrigued by how normal it seemed for young people to post these photos, and how normal it was for their friends to see them. The photos only became abnormal when older people looked in and judged them.

I wrote this in the Guardian:

Now, eight years later, I am sad (though unsurprised) to report that my cold take on funeral selfies did not forever calm all the hot takes.

This week, a 20-year-old woman named Jayne Rivera posed in front of her father’s open casket. The photos had a modeling quality to them. She posted them online with a caption expressing grief for the loss of her father.

Media outlets describe Rivera as alternately a model or an influencer, which may or may not be accurate. I do not know her or her occupation, but am reminded that media outlets very recently called murder victim Gabby Petito an “influencer” even though, as Ryan Broderick rightly pointed out in his Garbage Day newsletter, she had about 1,000 followers at the time of her death. A young woman, by virtue of having an Instagram account, was reduced to “influencer.” Maybe that’s happening again?

Either way, Rivera is now the subject of widespread ridicule — and being held up, as so many young people are when they’re caught in the moral panic sawmill, as evidence of Something Wrong. What’s wrong, exactly? Something about the internet and kids and morals. You get the idea. Something's wrong.

Here’s how she explained her photos to NBC:

She says her father would have approved of the images. She did it, she said, “with the best intentions.”

First of all: Who cares about all this? The world should have better things to do than worry about how one woman grieves the loss of her father. Again: She lost her father. Isn’t that enough?

But here we are anyway, talking about all this. So I’ll try to make it meaningful.

I have had many years to think about funeral selfies, and why people (especially young people) take them. And I have concluded this: Grief is difficult. Expression of that grief is in some ways even more difficult. And sometimes — maybe oftentimes — people simply do not have the words to express how they feel about grief or anything else.

But they do have a familiar and comfortable means of reaching their community and expressing their feelings, and a quick way to not feel alone. So maybe they turn the camera on themselves, to bring others along with them. They share what feels right, in a way that feels right, which is really all you can ask of anybody.

The problem with the internet is not that it facilitates sharing. The problem, such as it is, is that it enables context-free consumption. I can find some high schooler’s Instagram right now and judge them on what they’re doing, even though I do not understand them or their lives.

The problem, in other words, isn’t generally with the people posting things. It’s with everyone else — the people reacting to things.

Do funeral selfies look weird to outsiders? Sure! But also, when the waltz became a popular dance in Europe in the early 1800s, older generations thought it was a disgusting scandal. Today, we think of the waltz as exceedingly proper. There is no universal taste; there are no forever-set standards. Today’s selfie is tomorrow’s formality.

So here’s my proposal: First of all, don’t tell someone how to grieve the loss of a parent.

But moreso: Remember that, no matter what you encounter in this world, you are not the standard bearer for how things should be done. You are simply the product of how things once were done — and you, and everything you know, will be replaced by new things that are unfamiliar but also perfectly fine.

This is simply how it has to be. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have the world we have now. We would have stayed locked in place at a time before the waltz. The cost of progress is selfies at funerals. And really, when we’re being serious about it, that is no cost at all.

____________________________________________________

You know that scary story people tell about how dopamine turns us all into social media addicts? I called one of the world's leading dopamine experts. That story is nonsense. It's all in the new episode of my podcast.

____________________________________________________

*You can always find past Build For Tomorrow stories and subscribe to new ones on Bulletin, and get even more optimism on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and my podcast*

Subscribe for free to Build For TomorrowA newsletter that helps you future-proof yourself. Learn how to adapt fast, think more creatively, identify new solutions, and spot new opportunities before anyone else.
By subscribing, you agree to share your email address with Jason Feifer to receive their original content, including promotions. Unsubscribe at any time. Meta will also use your information subject to the Bulletin Terms and Policies
20

More from Build For Tomorrow
See all

This One Question Can Predict A Happy Relationship, According to Data Science

It's just as powerful in work and romance.
Today
1

Stuck Between Two Bad Options? You Need to “Knock the Flagpole Down”

A great decision-making strategy from the cofounder of Netflix.
May 17
1

Confirmed: Your 30-Minute Meetings Can Be Done In 15 Minutes

An experiment at Asana proves it.
May 13
2
2
Comments
Log in with Facebook to comment

20 Comments

  • Stefanie OConnell Rodriguez
    Writes Too Ambitious
    I remember being at the Recoleta cemetery in Buenos Aires pre iphone days and trying to snap a selfie with my digital camera - I felt so weird that my instinct was to take a picture, though yeah, I'm sure there are selfies in places like this all the time these days.
    • 28w
    • Author
      Jason Feifer
      Great point — and I'm sure there were plenty of selfies in the pre-digital days! It's just that they were harder to distribute, and therefore harder for others to see and judge.
      • 28w
  • Pat Connor
    “She lost her father. Isn’t that enough?” it is indeed enough. Well put. It is not our place to tel people how to grieve.
    • 28w
    • Author
      Jason Feifer
      Thank you, agreed
      • 28w
  • Cassie Atherton
    As an aside, many years ago, families would take family portraits with dead loved ones. The difference there was, picture taking was so expensive, the only time they felt the need to spend the money to memorialize their loved one was when they would n…
    See more
    • 29w
    View 1 more reply
    • Author
      Jason Feifer
      I would leave the daughter of the father to determine what's appropriate at his funeral, rather than people who did not know either of them.
      • 28w
  • Cheryl LeMay Hurst
    I guess people forgot about death masks and taking pictures of the dead in their caskets?
    • 28w
    • Author
      Jason Feifer
      Right!
      • 28w
  • Randy Southerland
    When I read about her taking a selfie with her father’s casket I thought ..absolutely nothing about it. Growing up in the South it was fairly common to take photos at funerals including having the family pose with the dearly departed.
    So there’s a l…
    See more
    • 28w
    • Author
      Jason Feifer
      Thanks for the perspective, Randy. Indeed, you can go back to Victorian death photos and see this as a very common way of preserving memories.
      • 28w
    View 1 more reply
  • Carrie Van Canneyt Perialas
    In earlier times phots of deceased people were taken then because it cost too much to have photos taken. It was sometimes the only photo that existEd. Maybe it was a tradition in her family to do this. I know of it happening in the norm as late as the mid 1960’s.
    • 28w
    • Author
      Jason Feifer
      Yes, it goes back to Victorian death photos — sometimes the only photo they'd have of the person who died.
      • 28w
    View 1 more reply
  • Jann Cooper
    the world is a different sad place, strange disrespectful lost souls and yet instead of helping, the yet stranger come crawling out to support..people use to say "have mercy on their souls" do they have souls?
    • 28w
  • Maria N Juan Hernandez
    Apparently you were nit taught about respect. Girl, you are not nothing to look at. No boobs and no ass. Your father deserves respect. Go to college and educate yourself so you don't have to depend on your looks. You're not going to make it.
    • 28w
  • Daniela Pennini
    Who am I to judge? People take selfies at grave sites all of the time...To each their own!
    • 26w
  • Junior Augustus
    I can only imagine, people jealous of her beauty who’s angry and outrage this is a regular thing everybody pose With the casket of their fallen stepper or family member
    • 28w
    • Author
      Jason Feifer
      A fair point
      • 28w
Share quoteSelect how you’d like to share below
Share on Facebook
Share to Twitter
Send in Whatsapp
Share on Linkedin
Privacy  ·  Terms  ·  Cookies  ·  © Meta 2022
Discover fresh voices. Tune into new conversations. Browse all publications