In times where death no longer puts an end to the public story of a person, the case of Laura Leguizamón, the woman who a few days ago murdered her husband and her two children before taking her life in Villa Crespo, she faces us A new dilemma: What happens to the social networks of those who have died, especially when their departure is dyed for violence?
During the days after the tragedy, Leguizamón’s photos and publications remained visible in their profiles. Some media even shared captures of their Latest family imagesuploaded shortly before the crime, and tried to draw conclusions from the case from alleged clues in those photographs.
The availability of his fingerprint not only allowed a public reconstruction of his figure, but also left us before a paradox: The possibility of “visiting” someone who is no longerwhose death did not bring silence but exposure.
As the Italian philosopher Davide Sisto explains in his book Digital posteritiessocial profiles do not die with their owners. Its active permanence, which in most cases are given by recommendation algorithms but sometimes it is for relatives who use it to Continue to upload tribute contentmakes networks a new type of cemeteries, where memory and intimacy are intertwined in unpredictable forms.
The implications of these practices are multiple. First, the random encounter with these digital traces (By a search, by a notification or a mention) it can have difficult emotional consequences to process.
Networks become new cemeteries where memory and intimacy are intertwined in unpredictable ways.
Unlike physical objects that we usually keep from the deadthe digital is not contained: it persists, circulates, reproduces.
And even more: it can be intervened. What happens if someone comments today an ancient photo of Leguizamón, as if nothing had happened? Or yes Your images are used to feed hypothesesjustify or condemn your actions?
Second, the question of the story appears. Social networks create a kind of “presence in absence”, where the deceased person becomes the set of messages he left.
But those messages (photos, videos, posts) are not neutral: they are loaded with emotions, interpretations and, in cases like that of the neighbor of Villa Crespo, of Potential morbid reinterpretations. Is it legitimate, for example, scrutinize your Instagram looking for premonitory crime signs?
Finally, there is the problem of public memory. In some digital forums, figures such as Leguizamón run the risk of becoming Dark fascination objects.
The logic of the successful podcasts and channels of YouTube that comment on crimes as if they were television series shows that for many users, murder and suicide do not represent The end of a human lifebut the beginning of a narrative to consume.
There are no simple answers. For some, keeping a profile open can be a form of grief, One way to hold a bond. For others, it is daily torture, an impossible reminder to avoid.
In cases such as this recent tragedy, in addition, the profile can become battlefield: Between empathy and condemnationbetween respect for the dead and the need to understand the incomprehensible.