A couple of months ago, I came across a well-known comedian on TikTok. The video was of him doing a stand-up bit. He said the following:
There are some people who think there are things you shouldn’t make jokes about. Like Auschwitz.
….
I have a friend, a comedian, who made a joke about Auschwitz last year and he got in a lot of trouble. It was a big deal. It was in the newspapers. He lost jobs.
And at one point, Auschwitz tweeted [in response to the joke]—Auschwitz, with a blue check. So it was like, “Oh cool! It’s really them!” you know?
They tweeted, like, “That’s not funny.”
And, I dunno. I mean who’s running the social accounts?
Why is the death camp tweeting?
I don’t cite this because I like the comedian or because I think jokes about Auschwitz are funny.
But I do think the comedian makes a good point when he asks, “Why is the death camp tweeting?”
A couple of years ago I quoted the following selection from Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death changing the object of his critique from television to social media, and I think it’s appropriate here:
Though it may be un-American to say it, not everything is tweetable. Or to put it more precisely, what is communicated on social media is transformed from what it was to something else, which may or may not preserve its former essence. For the most part, Christians on social media have not seriously addressed this matter. They have assumed that what had formerly been done in a church or a tent, and face-to-face, can be done on social media without loss of meaning, without changing the quality of the religious experience….
Moreover, social media itself has a strong bias toward a psychology of secularism. Social media is so saturated with our memories of profane events, so deeply associated with the commercial and entertainment worlds that it is difficult for it to be recreated as a frame for sacred events. Among other things, the social media user is at all times aware that a swipe will produce a different and secular event on the screen—a sports highlight, a commercial, a meme….
I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether….
Without ensnaring myself in a theological argument for which I am unprepared, I think it both fair and obvious to say that on social media, God is a vague and subordinate character. Though His name is invoked repeatedly, the concreteness and persistence of the image of the preacher carries the message that it is he, not He, who must be worshiped….
It is well understood…that the danger is not that religion has become the content of social media, but that social media may become the content of religion.
I wrote, following that quote, that “Social media is a great trivialization machine.” Because it is.
A lot of life is simply too important for social media. We shouldn’t be livestreaming to Instagram from delivery rooms. We shouldn’t be creating YouTube content from our mother’s funeral. And maybe Auschwitz and other tragic symbols shouldn’t have social media accounts. Social media robs life of reverence.
So, yeah: why is the death camp tweeting?
I think this summarizes nicely why, in recent years, I've been loathe to post much about Christianity on my social media accounts. I've posted a lot less in general, but have felt a little guilty at times when I post a nice nature photo but not an article or post about Christianity. And I think it's because I don't think it's really the right space for those kinds of posts.