My family before me experienced sibling death in a similar prime. I only know about it as a child of one of the surviving siblings but it haunted that entire generation. Knowing all I do about how it affected my parent in their younger years I will say that you're very strong to claim your own identity. Do not use your brother as a yardstick to measure the worth of your own life because they cannot measured to each other and don't let anyone else do it to you. Your post made me very happy Noah Swartz and hope it leads you down a better path than the one I've learned of.
People Call Me Aaron
31–40 of 114 posts
Re: People Call Me Aaron
#32The best read about Aaron that I've read in the past few days. I had a weird feeling while reading this, I don't really know why, after having read quite a few articles already. Thanks, Noah!
This post seems to exemplify the attitude he's had such difficulties with.
Sad post about how he's had to deal with his brothers death while people he barely knows seemingly use him as a way to pretend they are connected to his brother and the response is "oh cool, more about Aaron".
Re: People Call Me Aaron
#33This is so sad. I wonder if Noah has considered moving abroad for a bit - in my experience, very few people in the London tech scene know who Aaron Swartz was, or if they've heard the name they will struggle to remember the story behind it. Maybe people will disagree, but I don't think the story had quite the same cultural resonance outside the USA.
(I am European and moved to Australia 4 years ago) - while I agree with you that the story did not have the same cultural resonance outside of the US, I would say that most tech people would know who Aaron Swartz was (although among the generally public hardly anyone would have a clue).
Intuitively I'd agree, but I was surprised at how many people/friends/colleagues didn't know what I was talking about when The Internet's Own Boy was released. If they weren't readers of Hacker News they almost certainly didn't pick up on the story. Again - anecdotal.
Re: People Call Me Aaron
#34How is it possible for anyone who knows who Aaron is to not know that he's dead? How could they possibly mistake his brother for him to the extent of thoughtlessly calling him the wrong name?
This is what I was wondering too. I'm terrible with names, but I literally can't imagine that kind of mixup. Not that I doubt anything Noah wrote; I just don't get it.
I think people, maybe even Noah included, are reading a bit too much into what seems to be a simple case of crossed wires, or neurons, in this case.
Just this weekend I called my cousin, whom I've been close friends with for over a decade, by his brother's name. It was the first time I've seen him in about a year but we've been very close for very long. I was thinking about his brother in the moment I meant to use his name and it just came out. There was no thought.
I like the article. It's important to talk about this sort of thing. But the comments here... Please consider they are essentially casting judgement on people for not actively thinking to themselves, "Call them X, call them X..." in the moment X should come out of their mouths. What human actually does that in the normal course of verbal communication? Why are we expecting people to do such a thing?
Re: People Call Me Aaron
#35SF tech party culture sounds awful. It sounds no less superficial and dehumanizing than the worst of celebrity adulation in Hollywood.
This is very accurate. I recently moved here and am so fed up with how superficial these meetups are. So I have boycotted from all of it now.
Better stay home and code something than waste time networking.
Re: People Call Me Aaron
#36How is it possible for anyone who knows who Aaron is to not know that he's dead? How could they possibly mistake his brother for him to the extent of thoughtlessly calling him the wrong name?
It is very common (especially as you get older) to mix up names for people that are in the same mental category while you are speaking. It isn't necessarily thoughtlessness. Sometimes our brains just don't work quite right.
... as ANY parent with more that 1 child can attest to ;)
Re: People Call Me Aaron
#37How is it possible for anyone who knows who Aaron is to not know that he's dead? How could they possibly mistake his brother for him to the extent of thoughtlessly calling him the wrong name?
It is very common (especially as you get older) to mix up names for people that are in the same mental category while you are speaking. It isn't necessarily thoughtlessness. Sometimes our brains just don't work quite right.
My parents and several schoolteachers often called me by my older brother's name, or called my sisters by one anothers' names. It's not as though my parents couldn't tell their own children apart, it's just that sometimes saying a name is an autopilot thing.
I recently took a friend to the grocery store, and called her son by my son's name when I wanted him to move out of the way of someone else's cart.
Re: People Call Me Aaron
#38The best read about Aaron that I've read in the past few days. I had a weird feeling while reading this, I don't really know why, after having read quite a few articles already. Thanks, Noah!
This post seems to exemplify the attitude he's had such difficulties with. Sad post about how he's had to deal with his brothers death while people he barely knows seemingly use him as a way to pretend they are connected to his brother and the response is "oh cool, more about Aaron".
C'mon, no need to jump down his throat. None of us would be reading this right now if the deceased were a random guy in Minnesota.
And I agree with what I believe the commenter's intention was, which is to say this piece both humanized Aaron in a way other posts don't, and it gives a window into the personal tragedy of suicide.
Re: People Call Me Aaron
#39How is it possible for anyone who knows who Aaron is to not know that he's dead? How could they possibly mistake his brother for him to the extent of thoughtlessly calling him the wrong name?
This is what I was wondering too. I'm terrible with names, but I literally can't imagine that kind of mixup. Not that I doubt anything Noah wrote; I just don't get it.
There are two guys at work that look nothing like each other but get their names mixed up all the time. I have worked with them for a few years. But because they are Asian, someone accidentally called them by the opposite name, and it became a running joke ever since then. But ever since then, the accidental switching of their names has increased. Even I have to stop and think about it for a second, and I never had that problem until they started joking about it. Psychology is a really weird thing.
Re: People Call Me Aaron
#40Whoa. I met Noah at a very small game dev conference last May. I had no idea who he was until this moment, nor was I aware that anyone else did, but I could be wrong. It's interesting to think how that interaction would have changed, probably for the worse, if I had known more about him beforehand.
>> I had no idea who he was until this moment
The wording of this comment seems to be, in a very small way, symptomatic of the larger problem that Noah sometimes has with people he meets or knows well. To illustrate my point, here's another way to write the same thing:
>> I had no idea that he was Aaron's brother until this moment
The original wording seems to conflate the identity of Noah's brother with his own.