The Last Livestream

December 2016, and Aleppo was ending on social media. People trapped in the eastern part of the city were posting goodbye messages on Twitter and Facebook as the siege closed in. Saying hello and goodbye to the world simultaneously, from their phones, while the bombing was still happening in the background.

Zouhir al-Shimale, a journalist there, wrote about his birthday that week. No cake, no celebration, no family. Just hunger and the siege and the knowledge that this was probably it. He was writing it all down like someone still believed the internet cared.

Monther Etaky, an artist, wanted to livestream the genocide—actually broadcast his own death, he said. Wanted people to see it. Bana Alabed, a kid, whose mother was posting updates and pictures that thousands of people followed, a child documenting the end of her city in tweets.

What stayed with me was just how wrong the medium felt for it. Twitter wasn’t built for goodbyes. Neither was Facebook. You’re reading someone’s last message in the same feed as jokes and celebrity gossip, formatted the same way, scrolling past it at the same speed as everything else.

When the livestream stopped coming, that was it. People moved on. The world didn’t end. Everyone just kept scrolling.