Virginia Tech Facebook Group: No Place to Judge

In April, I was in the same emotional state as many other college students. I felt shocked and saddened by the shootings at Virginia Tech. I was worried the same thing could happen on my campus; so much that I even became paranoid during class. What if a shooter burst in at any moment and started shooting up the class? I had always thought of my campus as a safe one, but after this, it seemed like no college was safe.

So what did I do about it? I joined a Facebook group.

I joined two VT tribute groups actually: one was for students at my school who wanted to express sympathy to the school, and another for students all around the world. This group was the fastest growing group on Facebook and went by the name of "A tribute to those who passed at the Virginia Tech shootings."

At first, I was in disbelief that such a group was growing so fast. Who knew that we could all come together to mourn the students lost? Everyone was expressing their thoughts by writing poems, making videos, or posting meaningful song lyrics. Reading about the concerns people had for the Hokies was an amazing experience and I kept checking the group for more discussion topics and wall posts.

Now, two months later, I feel as though this group has gone downhill. There are many arguments over whether or not the shooter deserves to be counted in the victims' list, comparisons to other tragedies in the world, and even spammers pushing their non related groups. What bothers me the most though, is the members still left criticizing the 5,000 or more people that removed themselves from the group.

This anger started last month when some people decided to complain about those who were left in the group and who had resigned. Topics such as: "Fewer members! What is this?" littered the discussion board and wall posts expressed disbelief that anyone could ever leave this group. To me, that strayed away from the original purpose of the group and furthermore, I found it offensive that anyone would consider judging someone based on what groups they were and weren't in on Facebook.

As I read the wall, I couldn't believe what some were saying. Here is just a small sample: