Individual Responses: A Problem of Connectivity & Accessibility
At the time of the September 11th attacks and the period following, social media was in its infancy; therefore, the public had other ways to deal with its shock, grief, despair, and loss and commemorate the event. Individuals, including many firefighters, got tattoos so that their bodies became permanent, living memorials honoring their fallen friends (Examples in Images 1-3). Individuals, like Liberty George Dukov and Thomas McBrien, created artistic handmade objects that focused on preserving a more collective memory than personal tattoos did. The former (Image 4) “made memorial paper mache masks in the shape of the Statue of Liberty that honored individual victims and groups of fire fighters and police officers who died in the 9/11 attacks” (Hyman, 29), while the latter (Image 5) made a large flag with 2,993 American flags representing the lives lost and “flags from the eighty-six nations that lost citizens” (Hyman, 31). Other Americans patriotically decorated their homes (Image 6); constructed small, personal shrines (Image 7); or created artwork like murals and graffiti on city walls that often expressed messages of remembrance for the victims (Image 8) or messages of frustration for the government (Image 9). Across the nation, people responded in their own unique ways, but did these mourning citizens know they were not alone in their sorrow? After exploring 9/11 artwork in Queens one day, Hyman notes that, "It was at this point that I came to understand the unspoken and often unrecognized interconnectivity between many people and the 9/11 artwork they made or to which they were connected. I began to uncover how people were linked and what their relationships were to each other” (Hyman, 38). It was not until Hyman took a journey to photograph 9/11 responses that he understood the connectivity various memorials had. If this revelation came to him because of his travels, how did Americans truly know they were not solely dealing with these struggles especially in a time when communication was limited compared to the instant messaging, calling, and news society can access today with a few touches on an Iphone screen.
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National Response: A Problem of Representation
In response to these questions, architects constructed “Reflecting Absence” at the site of World Trade Center, and it was opened to the public on the tenth anniversary of the attacks. The names of all of the victims, as with the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial, are inscribed on bronze plates that surround waterfalls flowing into a large pool. Wilfred McClay, the chair of excellence in Humanities at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, argues in an online article that while the site is a respectful and quiet place for reflection, an experience necessary for the affected, the memorial still does not answer questions such as “What is being commemorated here?” and “What is the connection between the people being remembered and the larger task that their deaths set before the nation?” These issues that have surrounded 9/11 commemoration both on a national and personal level are ones that social media’s hashtag function addresses, thus making it a new type of site of memory.