Was this snarky of me?

I don’t know if it was snarky but I think it was unnecessary. During times like that, it’s best to just say kind things.

You can always delete the comment off Facebook. Some groups allow that – if you hover over the three dots on the right of the comment, it will say “edit” or “delete.” Or you can leave it up, it’s up to you.

I know how to delete

I’m not thinking it was snarky, I think it was informative. I would want to know that, and what community groups were helping them, so I could do something pro-active to help, whether to donate money or household stuff or whatever.

what did the lady (who posted) think that prayer would do? I think that’s the key.

They belive God will.help in someway.
Well why didn’t he stop the house from burning down in the first place??

I usually ignore what other people write in terms of kind words, especially the prayers stuff, because those people are just trying to be helpful with good intentions. I also rarely mention gofundme’s, but if I mentioned the gofundme I would word it differently. More like, “the family has a gofundme if you want to help to contribute.”

I do sometimes get annoyed with the prayers line if that makes you feel any better. I have a friend who has a terrible cancer diagnosis, and friends keep sending prayers. I know they love her and sending prayers is just their lingo for communicating that they care about her and hope she will be ok, and they feel like they are actually doing something to help, but at one point I said something snarky to a friend out loud. I said, “I know the prayer makes people feel like they are doing something so they don’t feel so helpless.” I didn’t write it on a facebook or throw it back at someone directly, but she also has been praying for our friend, so I felt a little bad when I said it. I immediately followed it by saying, ‘I know FirstName appreciates all of the prayers.”

People believe that God will help, or at least will help the person feel better. If the recipient of the prayers and kind intentions feels the love from everyone, and if they believe it, who am I to question it? I don’t pray, but if someone says send prayers, I will write something about sending prayers or I’ll put the praying hands emoji on the post. If it makes them feel better, that’s what counts, to me.

Did you post it as a reply directly to the prayer, @Dutchess_III ? If so, then I think it was a littlle snarky.

Yes I did

When I’m writing things in local FB group posts, I always try to be cognizant of “these are my friends, these are my neighbors, these people are parents of my daughter’s friends” and last but not least, if I am ever in need of help for any reason at all, I don’t want them thinking “she’s a bitch, I remember when _____ needed help and she wrote something nasty.”

I still can’t see how what @Dutchess_III said, without any tone or facial expression or derisive gestures (all of which are unavailable in a text-only format) would necessarily be construed as snarky.
Even if it was meant to be.

https://gofund.me/62373e34

I said I didn’t know if it was snarky but I do think that it wasn’t that kind. I think a kinder comment (that would not be misunderstood if @Dutchess_III‘s actual post was mistakenly taken as snarky), would have been “I’m so sorry about the loss of their beloved pets” or “So sad about the pets. Let me know if you need anything,” or “I’m so sorry about the pets. In case anybody wants to donate, there is a GoFundMe set up. Here’s the link.” or something like that.

How tragic for the family to have lost everything including their car, and how sad for all of them to have lost their pets.

The way I see what @Dutchess_III commented was “well, they don’t need prayers because there’s a GoFundMe.” Funds are nice but they don’t take the place of the pets or anything sentimental that was lost.

So, @jca2, you would not seek out a way to help the family because you thought she might have been snarky? I know the question, as asked, was exactly that, but I would prefer to think of the people who might be on that thread as a little more generous of spirit toward the family, even if, as I mentioned, she might have meant it to be snarky.
That is not saying, @Dutchess_III, that it was, I don’t know, but I don’t think if it was, it was out of line. Posting good wishes and prayers at a time like that is Facebook slacktivism, and does nothing to help the family, whereas letting people know how they can help, does help.

I don’t think I said or indicated that I wouldn’t be willing to help the family, @canidmajor. I think one of my suggested comments was “let me know if you need anything.”

I lived in a building that burned in a fire, and one of my cats jumped out the third floor window, never to be seen again. Losing most of my belongings and the trauma of being shut ouf of my apartment ten days before Christmas was hard enough, but losing the cat and not knowing what became of her made the whole experience extra sucky. I imagine having children who are upset about the loss of their two pets makes it extra-extra sucky, so I am totally sympathetic.

At a time like this, on FB, my wording would be totally kind and nothing that would possibly be misunderstood or mistaken for anything but kindness.

That’s just my opinion, and others may not feel the same way, which is fine.

I also mentioned the GoFundMe in another of my suggested comments @Dutchess_III could have made, @canidmajor. I think her wording could have been a little gentler, as the wording I suggested was.

I don’t think there is anything wrong in posting the GoFundMe but @Dutchess_III posted asking if it was. I think it is the fact that she posted it as a response to the praying person and with the “Well,....” that makes it sound a little snarky to me. There would have been nothing wrong in posting it as a separate comment in the thread.

I don’t think it’s egregiously snarky but since @Dutchess_III asked the question, my feeling is the way it was put, it is.

I think this is one of those questions where, if you have to ask, you already know the answer.

DO something meaningful. Not prayers. Give them 5 bucks, whatever

If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. You are the master of your unspoken words.

Yes.

The internet was designed specifically for the purpose of broadcasting snarky comments, so in my opinion it is fine.

Yes it was snarky.
Who are you to tell them what is meaningful to them.

@Dutchess_III They think their prayers are DOing something. That is their belief.

To be honest, this sort of performative religious “virtue signalling” does piss me off.

Want to be thankful for something? Thank the people/person who did it, not your magic man in the sky.

Want to help someone? Give up your actual time or resources, and don’t just appeal to your magic man in the sky to magically help them.

Want to sympathise with someone? Express it privately to that person, and don’t make some fucking public gesture that you’ll be praying to your magic man in the sky for them.

Yeah. The snark is justified.

Even if it was, so what? You are inappropriately snarky all the time.

I posted much the same this morning as a wonderful old man died. If you said anything like that on my page, you know what would happen. It’s not just snark, it’s kicking someone while they’re down. And you don’t know them and still felt comfortable hurting them. It’s sad is what it is.

NOT! @tinyfaery

When I lived in the building that burned in the fire, I had just left one job a few months prior and went to a new one (same employer – government but different department, different city in the same county). The old job took a collection for me and the new job took a collection for me and I got money from family members as a gift. It was a few thousand in total which in the late 1990’s, was a pretty decent amount, pre-social media so there were no Go Fund Me’s or social media posts. Still, if I had the choice between that nice amount of money or having my cat return to me, I would have chosen having the cat back, 100%. Go Fund Me’s are lovely but they don’t take the place of the hurt and the misery that the family is experiencing, especially losing their pets, especially thinking that maybe their pets suffered in the fire.

I find if I am asking myself if something was snarky, it’s probably safe to assume it was.
You could’ve just posted in general that they have a go fund me, without tagging anyone’s comment. Then it would’ve been informative and not snarky.

You don’t know if the person you addressed has any funds to spare others. I’ve known people who look like they are set financially and who were living large on borrowed cash.

When in doubt, reroute

Edited by.me

Not snarky at all. The two-faced nature of religious people has been well documented.
It’s an unfortunate fact of life that oppressors need to be called out.

I’ll get shot down on here, and I don’t care, but I do believe in the power of prayer. And I’m not going to get sucked into an argument about why one person dies and another doesn’t. You can private message me if you want to have that conversation with me.

I will tell you that my brother-in-law years ago had something really wrong where he was too tired to get out of bed. My sister called the ambulance and it turned out that he had gone into kidney failure. The situation was so bad that they actually had to put him in and induced coma and intubate him. And no, he did not have covid. But his system was so poisoned by the toxins that build up when your kidneys aren’t working that he was in really bad shape. Plus he had another MRSA infection.

He was in an induced coma for 30 days. At one point my sister called me up, and she’s 8 years younger than me mind you, and she told me that she was so afraid she was going to become a widow. Well, all of us were praying and all the people in our respective churches were praying and he made a total recovery. Of course he has kidney disease so he has to go for dialysis and he’s on the list for a kidney transplant, but it really looks like he wasn’t going to pull through for the longest time. I could tell you another story that happened with my dad where they thought he was going to go on hospice, but you get my point. Whether you choose to believe it or not is up to you.