“COVID-19, I Hate You!”: Framing Death and Dying in COVID-19 Online Memorials

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the way Americans deal with death and dying. Social distancing restrictions prevented or delayed end of life services for families who lost loved ones to COVID-19. Alternatively, some took to the internet to express their grief through online memorialization. Using content analysis, this study analyzes 200 randomly selected online memorials from the COVID Memorial website, a website created to share the stories of those lost to COVID-19 on social media. Our findings offer insight into memorial author demographics, how memorial authors framed and understood death due to COVID-19, and the COVID-19 pandemic through online memorialization. Two major themes emerged during data analysis, “references to COVID-19 death” and “COVID-specific directives to readers.” The  former, details how memorial authors framed and understood the death of a loved one to COVID-19. The latter details “advice” or “directives” authors gave to readers about social distancing guidelines and other guidelines meant to prevent the spread of COVID-19.