THE Filipino internet has a peculiar way of turning grief into entertainment. A young life is lost, the country mourns, and before long, the tragedy becomes a meme, a merchandise opportunity, a running joke, and an endless supply of content.
The case of Rene Clert Baterbonia is a troubling example.
Four months after the young basketball standout’s death, his face continues to circulate online in AI-generated images, saint-like portrayals, romantic fantasies, sculptures, and products bearing his likeness. Some may come from genuine affection. Others seem designed for little more than clicks, shares, and fleeting internet fame.
The problem is not remembrance. People grieve differently, and public figures can leave profound impressions on strangers. The problem begins when remembrance becomes spectacle, when admiration turns into obsession, and when a dead person's identity becomes raw material for the content economy.
We have seen this before.
After the death of Christine Angelica Dacera in January 2021, social media erupted with speculation, jokes, memes, and commentary about her private life. Her death became a national talking point, with strangers dissecting her circumstances and turning a deeply personal tragedy into public entertainment. In the rush to participate in the conversation, compassion often took a back seat to virality.
The circumstances of the two cases are different, but the internet's appetite for tragedy is strikingly familiar. Someone dies, the public claims ownership of the story, and the person behind the headlines gradually disappears beneath layers of speculation, humor, and online performance.
With Rene, even a grieving mother's words have reportedly become material for mockery. Memorials and tributes have inspired arguments over whether the public is honoring a young athlete or exploiting his memory. His family, already carrying a loss that strangers cannot fully comprehend, must contend with scrutiny over how they mourn.
There is room to question the commercialization of grief and the excesses of public memorialization. No family should be immune from reasonable criticism simply because it has suffered a tragedy. But criticism is not the same as ridicule, and asking difficult questions is not a license to turn bereavement into a punchline.
This is where our online culture needs to draw a line.
Memes can be harmless. Humor can help people cope with difficult realities. But not every tragedy needs a punchline, and not every dead person needs to become a character in someone else's online fantasy. The fact that a joke attracts thousands of reactions does not make it humane.
There is also something unsettling about parasocial attachment, the emotional bond people develop with someone they have never personally known. It can inspire genuine solidarity, but it can also encourage a sense of ownership over a stranger's life, image, and legacy. The deceased cannot object when their face is altered, their story embellished, or their memory repackaged for profit.
Rene was more than the viral phenomenon surrounding his death. He was a son, a student, a teammate, and a promising athlete with a future that was cut short. Christine Dacera was more than a name attached to a controversial news story. Both were human beings whose lives deserved more than the internet's relentless appetite for spectacle.
And their families deserve the space to grieve without becoming unwilling participants in a national meme.
The attention surrounding Rene should lead to more consequential questions about the circumstances of his death, the death of Divine, and the accountability their families seek. Those questions deserve careful reporting, credible evidence, and a proper investigation, not viral speculation masquerading as justice.
We cannot claim to honor the dead while repeatedly stripping them of their dignity.
Perhaps the simplest test is to imagine the people we love becoming the next trending topic, their photographs manipulated, their private grief turned into jokes, their names attached to products we never consented to sell.
Would we still call it harmless fun?
The internet moves quickly, but basic decency should not be so easily discarded. We can remember without worshipping, criticize without humiliating, and demand justice without exploiting tragedy.
Some stories deserve to be told. Some questions must remain open until the truth is established. But the dead should not have to keep dying for our entertainment.
Let the families grieve. Let the truth emerge. And let remembrance be an act of respect, not another opportunity to go viral.
- Buddy Taborra