We live in a really scary world. Some of us deal with it. Some of us develop terrible conditions of agoraphobia. Two nights ago, Omar Mateen entered Orlando gay nightclub Pulse with the intention of killing as many people as he could in what has now become eponymously known as the #PulseShooting. What hits especially close to home for both sides is that 50 members of the LBGTQ community were slain during the month of the year they are most proud and one man has again tarnished the name for all Muslims in the scope of mass media during Ramadan of all months.
What is perhaps most disturbing about our world is not that everything happens, it’s that everything that happens gets documented. We’re so obsessed with proof that we’re living our best lives. With Snapchat showing the best parties, Instagram showing our best faces, Twitter showing our most burning thoughts and Facebook existing as the curation of all our most socially conscious linkage, it only makes sense that the beginning of this tragic event would be caught on candid camera.
Amanda Alvear, 25, who has since been confirmed to be one of the 50 dead, was busy recording her night at Pulse when the last Snapchat on her story caught the pop of gun shots. To someone who has never explicitly heard a gunshot, it can sound like an M80 set off indoors by some dumb drunk. To someone who has never explicitly heard a gunshot, it can sound like the beginning of a celebration. To Alvear, you can read the confusion on her face right before the video guts. The Daily Mail reports:
Clutching her face and looking fearful, she whispers ‘shooting’ then turns and the video cuts.
Brother Brian Alvear had yet to know his sister’s fate when he posted the video to his Facebook profile. While I’m sure he knew the grave possibility of his sister’s death at the time of the video, he still hadn’t been given closure.
A lot of hostages were in the bathroom, last I heard that’s where she was.
:-/