kj's post generated scores of immediate responses, and a second topic was opened. Nearly 400 additional posters offered their poems, sympathy, and tear-stained well-wishes. Almost 300 more appeared immediately after her death. The event drew media attention:In his ONLINE column in the San Francisco Chronicle (1 Sept, '94: THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, 9/1/94 "Death Leaves Well Bewildered") observed:
That's kj's death is famous now was just luck. Two years ago, or two years hence, she could have died just like anyone else, without making the papers.Time Magazine (5 Sept, '94: p. 18) was more straight-forward:But right now what happens online is new and different. That an ordinary citizen named Kathleen Johnston should die of cancer is not fodder for Time and the Washington Post. But that kj on the WELL should die -- and that her death provoke the online response that it did -- that makes news. We're just beginning to get a handle on the idea of living online, after a decade or so of making it up as we go along. This inevitably includes deciding, in the chaotic way that collective decisions get made online, how we are going to respond to death.
The thing is, we just don't know what to do. Americans have always tended to improvise. This works for things like technology, marketing, or statecraft. But it serves us poorly where death is concerned.
CHRONICLES: WELL-WISHERS ON THE INTERNE Is cyberspace as cold and anonymous as it is reputed to be? Members of the WELL, a San Francisco-based computer bulletin board, recently found out. On June 29, Adele Framer, who calls herself tigereye, posted a message: "Kathleen Johns((t))on -- kj -- on the WELL, who's housebound in the final stages of cancer, could use a little help with light meals once or twice a week." The following are excerpts from the exchange that followed. KJ herself is noticeably absent. She was in no shape to take part in a message board. The Time piece added 17 posts believed to typify the spirit of the discussion.
But, the media, I think, missed the real story. kj's was much more than a death around which a community commiserated electronically. This should not be a story about posts. It's a story of people coming together, sharing experiences, grieving, squabbling, learning, and growing. The real story is that the electronic medium, while certainly of value in helping a stunned community cope with the grief of losing one of their own through an E-death watch, provided the means to reach out more tangibly to kj. And, more importantly, to reach out to each other.
The real story is how one woman devoted her energy to organizing meals and assuring that kj would be cared for. How a male, often in mortal online combat with kj, visited her and together in her final days experienced a mutual growth and understanding. How others, who fought with kj in public, were uneasy about participating in the online or physical events prior to the death. It's about the rallying, about the phone calls, about the supportive e-mail sent to kj, about the visits at home. It's about friends, acquaintances and strangers visiting in the hospice in the final days, comforting her, reading to her, holding her hand.
Most of all, the story is about how the electronic medium brings people together, face-to-face, heart-to-heart, even in death. The media saw and reported only ASCII, and made invisible the mandala that gave it soul.