The three stages of social media grieving for Dean Potter

It’s not hard for me to say this but I’m pretty unmoved by the death of Dean Potter. Though you wouldn’t know it if you looked at my Facebook.

By Andrew Pridgen

Upon hearing the news of soloist/slackliner/BASE jumper Dean Potter’s final flight Sunday, I felt the lump in my stomach, but was bereft.

I wasn’t shocked by his death.

I wasn’t saddened.

He did it right. I get that. I don’t argue that.

But I’m a little tired of it.

I’m tired because in the immediate aftermath of a popular boundary pusher inevitably meeting his mortal conclusion there’s this kind of knee-jerk shout-out to him in the form of our own link-sharing, #livefortoday outpouring. And it kind of warps the whole thing.

Dean Potter was an actual person who hit the actual forest floor going close to 120 mph and writhed for a minute broken, bent and bleeding internally…