In light of the devastating death of NBA star Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gigi and other passengers in a helicopter accident on Jan. 26, many people took to social media to give their condolences. 

Famous film director Spike Lee even posted a picture of himself on Instagram wearing an extravagant Lakers-inspired yellow and purple suit with the number 24 emblazoned on the collar as he made his way to the Oscars on Feb. 9.   

Tragedy on social media has always netted mixed responses, with companies and influencers seemingly taking advantage of the situation by only mentioning the famous involved with the purpose of garnering attention. Although the posting of emotions online after a tragedy is only natural, there is a fine line between grieving and publicly using tragedy for some other agenda, especially to get attention and fame. 

Many consider real grief to be a private matter, rather than something to be broadcast publicly. This is primarily because of the widespread belief that if a person needs to post while grieving, there is a lack of authenticity, since posting on social media can be perceived as a way of shifting the attention away from the situation and toward themselves. 

The bandwagon of people commenting about a tragic event right after it occurs is not uncommon. According to Onezero.com, social media and tragedy go through a cycle after a tragic event: A torrent of people go through the motions of displaying grief by posting messages of thoughts, prayers, solidarity and other platitudes to no one in particular, but within a week the posts taper off and everyone forgets the event because it isn’t as popular to post about anymore. 

This trend shows how people, regardless of whether or not they may be posting with good intentions, are doing so to seek attention. This should not be the reason that people choose to post about such events. 

Besides the fact that people should choose to be more private about their emotions after a tragedy, many marketing companies, like Red Bull, which advertised their namesake drink being transported off of the Titanic, also fall into this problem — walking the fine line between expressing their sadness and coming off as disingenuous.

For example, during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, American Apparel posted the infamous “Hurricane Sandy Sale — in case you’re bored during the storm,” advertised while thousands of New Yorkers without power faced freezing temperatures. This kind of insensitivity was an outcome of many people posting about the disaster on social media, and organizations seeking to make a profit off people’s emotions. 

The fact that both companies and influencers are profiting from tragedy through posting, not grieving privately, and manipulating people’s emotions is not right. This constant trend of tragedy lumped into social media has created the disingenuous image of the world grieving, instead of a world that truthfully supports such tragedies.