This thread saddens me on quite a personal level.
I just started reading, as this is nearing 16 pages. On the first several pages, when I saw people making inappropriate jokes including making humorous posts at the expense of the victims, I figured: well this story is only just developing, they could not possibly know the severity of this. The only reason I kept on reading was to find some common attitude of empathy or at least universal condemnation of such actions. At page 15, more than 10 hours after the first post, with at least 12 confirmed causalities and more than a dozen people injured; presumably most of them children, I am genuinely surprised.
As reports trickled in slowly of a dozen casualties, after that confirmed fatalities, then at least a dozen confirmed deaths, the attitude was largely unchanged. Even though there were people expressing condolences and being understanding, the general attitude varied from disrespectful and inappropriate humor to people taking the opportunity to take jabs at other people.
To a great extent, I grew up on this forum and in Blockland and even though this community is often inappropriate, immature and at times toxic, so far, at times of tragedy the forum can at least partly bind together in empathy.
There always have been and always will be immature people who can not muster a sliver of empathy, but so far these people have been widely criticized. This is one of the first times, if not the first time, that I have witnessed the opposite to be true. Calls for empathy and compassion are either ignored or even have snarky comments pointed at them.
Just something I had to get off my chest.
