BETWEEN SPECTACULARIZATION, EMOTIONAL SUFFERING, AND ARCHETYPES OF PUBLIC SUFFERING – Francesca Zaza

Grief Between Intimacy and Digital Visibility

Grief is both a universal and profoundly cultural experience. It is lived within the most intimate dimension of human existence, yet it takes shape through rituals, narratives, and social norms that guide its expression and collective recognition. In contemporary Western societies, death is often removed from public discourse; nevertheless, with the rise of digital platforms, the pain of loss has progressively shifted into a space of permanent visibility.

Within this new context, grief is not merely shared: it is observed, interpreted, and evaluated. The expression of pain thus appears subjected to implicit criteria of legitimacy that define what is considered “authentic,” “appropriate,” or “acceptable.” Starting from this tension between interiority and exposure, the present contribution explores the transformations of grief in the digital age, questioning the ethical, psychological, and cultural mechanisms that today regulate public suffering.

News, Adolescence, and Violence: The Pain of Broken Lives

A few months ago, two tragic criminal cases involved adolescent girls whose lives were brutally and profoundly unjustly cut short: one at the hands of a young man who claimed to love her, the other crushed by the weight of adolescence, cyberbullying, and social pressure.

Martina Carbonaro was a fourteen-year-old girl from Afragola, near Naples, murdered with extreme violence by her nineteen-year-old ex-boyfriend. According to reports, her refusal of an embrace allegedly triggered a ruthless reaction: the girl was struck on the head with a stone while turned away. Her body was later hidden inside an abandoned wardrobe in a suburban area. Disturbingly, the perpetrator even participated in the search efforts, pretending to be concerned.

Larimar Annaloro was fifteen years old and lived in Piazza Armerina, in the province of Enna. She was found hanged in her family garden. Investigations pointed to psychological pressures linked to school and relational dynamics, accusations of having “stolen” another girl’s boyfriend, and the possible non-consensual dissemination of intimate images. Although the case was officially ruled a suicide, troubling questions remain, and the circumstances of her death continue to raise doubts.

The Martina Carbonaro Case and the Spectacularization of Pain

Martina’s case triggered widespread public outrage, not only because of the brutality of the murder, but also due to the legal and symbolic complexity of the relationship between the two young people. According to reports, the relationship had begun when Martina was only twelve years old, suggesting a dynamic of premature adultification and potentially illegitimate relational imbalance.

What made the public debate even more controversial was the behavior of the victim’s mother, whose media exposure generated deeply polarized reactions. From her very first television appearances, the woman was accused of not displaying “appropriate” grief, of appearing too composed, almost detached. Some defended her, emphasizing that shock can numb emotional reactions. Yet the absence of a visibly recognizable despair fueled suspicion and judgment.

The breaking point came when a local influencer posted a TikTok video presenting a sandwich dedicated to Martina. In the video, Martina’s mother also appeared, smiling while stating that the sandwich was her favorite. Many perceived the episode as a form of grief spectacularization, provoking outrage and condemnation. The video was removed, but the reputational damage had already been done: the woman was accused of cynicism, of seeking visibility, of “not suffering enough.”

Similar accusations, though in different contexts, had also been directed at the family members of Giulia Cecchettin, another young victim of femicide. In both cases, private grief became subjected to a form of public surveillance, transformed into an object of collective evaluation.

Larimar’s Mother and Social Media Judgment

Larimar Annaloro’s mother also became, unwillingly, a controversial public figure. Through TikTok and other social platforms, she chose to make her grief visible, publicly expressing her belief that her daughter had not taken her own life but had been killed. In her videos — sometimes filmed in the cemetery beside her daughter’s grave — she expresses anger, faith, and despair while wearing colorful or revealing clothing. Once again, social judgment was immediate: on one side, those who support her as a courageous and combative mother; on the other, those accusing her of violating the “etiquette of grief.”

Social Media as Emotional Tribunals

These cases clearly reveal how contemporary society tends to measure the authenticity of grief according to appearances. It is as though a universal script of suffering existed, and anyone who fails to follow it automatically becomes suspicious. Social media, once tools of expression, are thus transformed into emotional tribunals, where every gesture, word, or article of clothing becomes subject to scrutiny.

All of this raises profound questions: how can grief be experienced in the age of permanent visibility? Where is the boundary between intimacy and exposure? And what does it mean today to be a grieving mother under the constant gaze of social media? Is there truly a “right” way to suffer, or only normative expectations that risk crushing those who have already lost everything?

Grief as a Psychological, Philosophical, and Anthropological Process

In contemporary Western culture, death is far from being embraced as “Sister Death,” as evoked by Francis of Assisi in the Canticle of the Creatures, nor does it resemble the Eastern conception that interprets death as part of a natural cycle — a transformation of vital energy rather than a definitive cessation.

Traditionally, grief was experienced as an intimate event, confined to the family nucleus or limited communal contexts. Funeral rituals represented discreet and reserved ways of honoring loss and maintaining contact with the memory of the deceased. With the advent of social networks, however, pain has found new forms of expression: it has become public, shared, and often exposed in real time.

Increasingly, people entrust digital platforms with thoughts, photographs, memories, and messages addressed to those who are no longer alive. This digitalization of grief may provide comfort and a sense of closeness, yet it also opens the door to complex dynamics related to visibility, emotional pressure, and the social normativity of suffering.

One of the most influential models in grief psychology was developed by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who identified five fundamental stages in the processing of loss: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Another significant contribution comes from psychologist William Worden, who proposed a model based on four essential tasks: accepting the reality of the loss; processing the pain of grief; adapting to a world in which the loved one is no longer present; and finally finding a way to emotionally relocate the deceased while often maintaining a symbolic bond with them.

Along the same lines stands the Dual Process Model developed by Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut, which describes grief as a continuous oscillation between directly confronting pain and attempting to reorganize one’s daily existence.

Psychoanalytic theories, particularly those of Sigmund Freud, describe grief as a process through which emotional energy invested in the deceased is gradually withdrawn and redirected toward new relational objects. In Mourning and Melancholia, Freud distinguishes grief as a natural response to loss from melancholia as a pathological condition characterized by self-devaluation and destructive identification with the lost object.

John Bowlby, founder of attachment theory, emphasized how the loss of a significant figure can profoundly destabilize an individual’s emotional and identity balance. Within this perspective, sociologist Colin Murray Parkes interprets grief as a process of reconstructing the self.

For psychologist Robert Neimeyer, grief represents a true narrative task: loss interrupts the continuity of personal history and compels the subject to reconstruct new meanings.

Particularly relevant is also the theory of continuing bonds, according to which maintaining a symbolic connection with the deceased is not pathological but may constitute a crucial resource in the mourning process.

Within this context fits the clinical approach proposed by Claudio Lalla in Loss and Reunion, inspired by Allan Botkin’s work on IADC (Induced After-Death Communication), a therapeutic technique aimed at facilitating subjective experiences perceived as encounters with the dead.

The connection with the digital world becomes immediate through so-called griefbots, computational models capable of simulating conversations with deceased individuals using the digital traces they left behind. In this scenario, death becomes a porous threshold: technology enables the evocation of voices, words, and communicative styles of those who are gone, radically redefining the boundary between presence and absence.

Reflection on grief also belongs to philosophy. Martin Heidegger interprets loss as an experience that forces human beings to confront their own finitude. The death of the other reminds us of our mortality and compels us to redefine the meaning of existence.

At the same time, cultural anthropology reminds us that pain is not merely individual but also collective. Funeral rituals, public commemorations, and moments of social sharing serve to repair the communal fabric after the trauma of loss.

It is within this framework that Michel Foucault’s reflections appear particularly relevant. Societies exercise control over emotions through implicit norms that dictate how one should suffer, when it is acceptable to cry, and what form pain should take.

The cases of Martina’s and Larimar’s mothers raise crucial questions about emotional freedom: is it truly possible to experience grief authentically, without having to perform it in order to satisfy the gaze of others?

Finally, grief may also become a transformation of the self. According to Hannah Arendt, suffering can represent an opportunity to redefine the meaning of existence. The strength displayed by certain public figures of mourning may therefore be interpreted not as an absence of pain, but as an attempt to bring order to chaos and transform loss into something narratable and shareable.

Toward an Archetypal Interpretation of Grief: The “Mater Dolorosa” from Sacred Weeping to Viral Reels

When speaking of archetypes, one refers to universal models of human experience — profound images that emerge during moments of crisis, transformation, and rebirth. Grief represents one of the privileged territories in which such archetypes manifest themselves.

The Archetype of the Shadow encompasses pain, vulnerability, and fear. The death of a loved one forces the individual to confront this dark dimension of the self. Such an experience may take the form of a genuine “descent into the underworld,” but it may also evolve into a process of psychological integration.

Those who undergo grief may unconsciously assume the face of the Wanderer, the one who traverses unknown territories in search of a renewed sense of self. If pain is processed, the journey may ultimately lead to the encounter with the archetype of the Sage, symbolizing the transformation of suffering into knowledge.

Within the context of public representations of pain, however, the central archetype is that of the Mater Dolorosa: the suffering mother who embodies the pain of loss, sacrifice, and compassion.

In the contemporary digital context, especially on TikTok, the Mater Dolorosa is reinterpreted through the languages of virality and media performance. Videos of mothers crying, recounting loss, or sharing commemorative rituals become algorithmic content, subjected to the logics of engagement.

The transition from “sacred weeping” to the “viral reel” marks a profound cultural mutation: the grieving mother is no longer a secluded and silent figure, but the protagonist of a continuous, fragmented, and public narrative.

The digital environment thus contributes to the construction of new forms of performative identity. Public figures of mourning are often interpreted through the archetype of the Mask — that is, the social image expected by the collective.

When maternal behavior does not coincide with socially accepted codes — visible despair, sober clothing, ritual silence — a gap emerges between expectation and reality, generating discomfort, suspicion, and moral judgment.

Some mothers, faced with tragedy, instead assume the archetype of the Warrior, transforming pain into action, denunciation, and the pursuit of justice. Such an attitude may represent an adaptive strategy: grief is not denied, but converted into symbolic struggle.

As Erving Goffman observed, human behavior can be interpreted as a form of social performance. In this sense, grief itself becomes a public stage upon which those who suffer appear compelled to visibly demonstrate their pain in order to obtain social legitimacy.

Yet precisely this exposure also creates a space for collective rituality, where grief may be shared and recognized. The risk, however, is that the archetype of the Mater Dolorosa becomes emptied of its symbolic dimension and transformed into replicable, consumable, and rapidly forgettable content.

For Martina, Larimar, and for all the loved ones who have crossed the threshold of death, perhaps there is nothing more tragic than becoming merely images to scroll through within an endless feed.

ESSENTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sigmund Freud, Mourning and Melancholia, Bollati Boringhieri.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying, Scribner.
John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss, Basic Books.
William Worden, Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy, Springer Publishing.
Margaret Stroebe, Henk Schut, The Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement.
Robert Neimeyer, Meaning Reconstruction and the Experience of Loss, American Psychological Association.
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, Longanesi.
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, Einaudi.
Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind, Il Mulino.
Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Il Mulino.
Claudio Lalla, Loss and Reunion.
Klass, D., Silverman, P., Nickman, S., Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief, Taylor & Francis.