The OceanGate Submarine Disaster Dredges up Humanity's Worst
On June 19, a submarine operated by OceanGate and en route to explore the ruins of the Titanic was reported lost. On June 20, news about the submarine and its passengers became headline-worthy coverage for publications across the globe, as a swarm of international reporters headed for Canada to feast upon the the fresh story.
On June 22, it was confirmed that the five people aboard the OceanGate submarine died when the submarine suffered a "catastrophic implosion," in the words of a member of the U.S. Coast Guard.
What we're left with is overwhelming coverage about a story that's really quite sad.
Every aspect of the OceanGate saga, from the submarine's third-party video game controller to the truly bizarre tweets posted by a stepson of one of the submarine passengers, has been hashed and rehashed online ad nauseum.
And, certainly, some of it is so outlandish that it actually is sort of funny — the stepson situation is particularly deranged — but there's just so much news about this affair that the constant updates all prove overwhelming and the generally jaded attitude depressing.
The sad truth is that current-day disasters are guaranteed to be perpetually stripped bare of context as armchair critics and overly-engaged onlookers flood social media with sympathy, support, mockery, and memes.
For example, consider that as major media outlets clamored for updates and clogged Google feeds with the live-updating drip of any available news, updates, statements, rumors, or gossip, Twitter users were getting their news from feeds that typically report on celebrity dating news and pop song rankings.
That the submarine tragedy has become a source of mockery was inevitable; that the submarine tragedy would inspire such fervent international coverage is surprising.
So many global onlookers are gleefully digging into the submarine story, exploring the passengers' private lives, OceanGate's own history, and even baseless conspiracy theories.
Hint: The Simpsons didn't predict anything, it's a long-running TV show prone to coincidence and insane to suggest otherwise.
This isn't new, obviously: the tawdry, tragic case of the Murdaugh murders spawned a cottage industry of reports, podcasts, and even a Netflix documentary that was published before the trial even ended.
Gabby Petito's murder was such a hot topic in the summer of 2022 that the Lifetime network slapped together a typically tasteless TV movie by October.
The Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard trial was so crushingly unavoidable by the tail end of 2022 that it may as well have been a primetime reality show, complete with a shockingly toxic fanbase all too excited to support Depp.
This is the way the world works today, with humans publicly betting on the survival rates of other humans.
Sure, there's something to be said about the shocking amount of coverage that the OceanGate Titanic submarine story has received and how that relates to the passenger's financial status — tickets for the trip cost $250,000 and several passengers were ultra-rich, if not billionaires — in comparison to the light visibility given to other tragedy victims.
But it'd be better to say nothing at all. If only that was even remotely possible.
