I really want to write about something else. I would love nothing more than to do a stupid post replying to some craigslist job ad or rip into Michele Bachmann but that’s just not happening. It’s all over the news, it’s on everybody’s minds and it’s been on my mind since I heard about it right as it happened on the radio yesterday.



Yesterday a couple of bombs went off towards the finish line of the Boston Marathon in an act of terror, killing three and wounding over a hundred. The President has stayed away from using the word “terrorist” for the attack and I can understand why. This country equates terror with Middle Eastern muslims who want to destroy our freedom or something but terrorism doesn’t solely belong to anti western jihadists. Terrorism is nothing more than an act used to instill fear in people. To make them feel like they’re not safe when they should be.



If this was a terror attack, it didn’t work.



One of the things that struck me yesterday was the instant online reaction to the attack. The last time something like this happened on American soil was September 11th, 2001. That was 12 years ago. 12 years ago there was no facebook or twitter. This was pre-MySpace. Most homes only had 56k internet connections and we’d just use them to go into aol chatrooms or check out hamsterdance.com.



I didn’t even own a cellphone in 2001. After the attack, I just holed up in my brother’s apartment all day as we watched the news. We could only judge how the country felt based on the media reaction. Yesterday, everybody was online and posting their reactions and feelings to the tragedy. You could just check out your smartphone to see how everybody you know was feeling.

The first thing I saw was people trying to see if everybody was okay. People from everywhere who had friends or family in Boston were either asking them to “check in” or reporting on their status for others. After that I mostly saw people sharing this –







and this.







That’s what people are talking about. Not how this changes everything or how we’ll have to beef up security. People are talking about how awesome it was to see so many people rush to help out without even thinking about it.



Of course, that hasn’t been the only online reaction to this tragedy. I’ve seen plenty of posts promising retaliation against those responsible and that’s perfectly natural. There’s been the shitty shock value jokes that are offensive but ultimately harmless. I’ve even seen more than one person hop on the Alex Jones bandwagon and blame the government for the attack but all of these combined are still a fraction of those I’ve seen of people “looking for the helpers” and bolstering their faith in humanity.



Might be some hope for us after all.