Crashing conspiracies & a mom’s moment

Five minutes reading tweets about Naya Rivera.

That’s all it took today to arrive at a single determination:

God may her body be found.

Put this Twitter madness to rest.

My are the cockroaches swarming now since Naya Rivera disappeared. The “Glee” actress went missing while boating on Lake Piru and is presumed drowned.

Upon announcement on Wednesday Day 1, tweets centered around initial emotions: shock, surprise, disbelief, prayers.

There was no dearth of tweeters telling professional rescue teams how to do their job.

Some were well-meaning, many aggressively and hatefully bashed searchers and their methodologies.

Because Every Body Is a Detective on Twitter.

Now Day 4. Intensive search continues. Tweets have taken on a decidedly different tone from Day 1.

CONSPIRACY.

With a force that could move a mountain. Or two.

People are reading improbable, ridiculous and outright impossible scenarios into anything and everything.

A jet-skier is now a suspect. Or the murderer.

A cottage on the shore needs to be investigated.

A blue truck is suspect. Ditto very vehicle in the lot. 

A divination lady proclaims the actress is alive but her head’s “messed” up and she’s in a wheelchair and can be found by clearing eastwide woods.

Wayfair furniture store is involved in human trafficking of kids and adults and the actress is being held at a location whose coordinate points are revealed by various documents and convoluted machinations that even Einstein couldn’t unravel.

That’s my best translation from madness.

Shall I continue? You get the drift.

The cascading conspiracy theories are unreal.

Meanwhile, there is one moment of real. A heavy moment made refreshing because it is real.

Her mother and brother today at the lake, at the boating dock, the mother dropping to her knees, stretching her arms toward the water.

Ultimately, these are their moments and their story.

Their moments and their story shine a light beam into this dark cavern of twisted tweets and expose it for what it is: utter pure bullshit.

Crazed know-it-alls and bumbling idiots in a bubble of social media spouting their constructs, conjectures, convictions and certainties.

It’s what people do, have always done. Rivera’s disappearance isn’t evoking anything new or unusual.

Only seems so due to amplification of crickets and crazies thanks to social media.

In today’s swelling tsunami of chaos, I’m reminded of a truth simple and humbling:

A family is without a daughter and sibling and a son, 4 years old, is without his mother.

That is what is real.

Not some blue truck pegged as dodgy for some tweeter’s imaginary reason.

Not a jet-skier already judged, convicted and imprisoned for homicide before he’s identified.

I’d never heard of Naya Rivera until she disappeared. She drowned; that is my conclusion today as it was four days ago.

My hope for the family is that they’re staying off social media.

Keep it real.

My greatest hope is that her body is recovered. For you.

If that occurs, that too is real

Loss is real.

Grief is real.

I pray for your strength and communion in your season of need.

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Awash in “Glee” gal & Twitter think tank

I waded through media mud so you don’t have to.

Naya Rivera.

An unknown to me — until Wednesday. Actress on TV’s “Glee,”33, singer.

She and her son were in a rental pontoon on Lake Piru in California. Lazy afternoon, fine weather, no crowds, boat floating.

From the craft mid-lake, they jump into water. Child is wearing a life vest provided on the boat. Naya is not wearing hers. They swim. She returns him to the boat. Then re-enters the water to swim. She disappears beneath the surface.

Presumed drowned — accurately.

Boat is soon easily found and in it her son, sleeping. He’s safe and reunited with family.

Search and rescue shifts to a challenging recovery. It’s a search and recovery of epic celebrity proportion. 

Trending story piqued my interest.

I jumped into Twitter with both feet.

Not because of who Naya Rivera is — a name only to me — but a passion for investigations, detective work, solving puzzles. And, frankly, I needed a break from the gluttony of covid – BS – scamdemic.

One more reason to take this rare celebrity-news plunge:

I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to observe my fellow humans on Twitter in the wake of a Top Trending bombshell celebrity event.

My kamikaze dives into social media satisfy my reporter nature. They maintain my finger on the pulse of America, her culture, milieu and state of being. 

So for 12 hours I was submerged in Twitter.

You know the COURAGE that takes?! Absorbing and sopping up streaming thousands of snapshots from brains of people re: Naya Rivera’s disappearance. I surfaced for air only for coffee then beers — increasingly the longer I read — and a meal.

From voluminous Tweets Into Infinity, I culled a cross-section of opinion, verbatim, numbered, loosely grouped and noted FYI when necessary for your educational ease.

Remember: I waded through media mud so you don’t have to. So hike up them waders and slosh onward.

Mantra Mojo

1. “naya rivera will be found alive and healthy

naya rivera will be found alive and healthy

naya rivera will be found alive and healthy

naya rivera will be found alive and healthy

naya rivera will be found alive and healthy

“I am manifesting this”

2. “Calling all of Gods divine angels to locate Naya. May she be found and united with her son and family. And so it is.”

Screw Searchers!

FYI: Multitudes of search parties from air to deep waters toil from daybreak to nightfall in and around the lake and surrounding hills. Then they pause work due to lack of visibility, risks and dangers and for safety, particularly for dive teams negotiating dark waters with 1-to-2 feet of visibility and a lakebed of twisted fallen trees, trunks, branches, roots and entanglements.

Many are majorily PISSED OFF by this. Pissed off and vicious, shouting “Searching should continue 24-7!!” 

3. “People are outraged because they stopped the search at what is the most crucial time. I’m from Colorado where hikers get lost ALL the time. Search parties have gone on through the night, in the snow, in the mountains using maybe not people on foot, but resources.”

4. “Tonight there’s a little child who wasn’t tucked into bed with a goodnight kiss and doesn’t know when mama is coming back out of the water. Get your ass back on that beach and bring Naya Rivera home!!”

5. “Your hearts and prayers did a real great job helping during the nine hours you wasted last night. Thanks. (ed. note: sarcasm)

There! There!

FYI: Video clips of airborne searches along the shorelines arouse tweets exclaiming “I see her! There on the shore! It’s her!” It’s not. It’s a shadow. A boulder. A land configuration. But you can’t challenge their certainty. Everybody on Twitter is a detective.

6. “YALL IF YOU LOOK AT THE PHOTO UPSIDE DOWN THERES A SMALL PART WHERE I CAN SEE EYES AND A MOUTH THAT COULD BE HER!! ITS WORTH CHECKING THIS IS NOT A JOKE

7. “There! By the water’s edge! A human shape!”

(No. It’s a log.)

Geographical Geniuses

FYI: Every Tom, Dick and Harry is qualified to tell highly-trained, skilled, experienced professional rescuers how to do their job.

8. “i looked and there are roads within walking distance from all points outside the lake. if she made it to one, she could of possibly flagged down a car and could be suffering from memory loss.”

9. “Many people who experience this become distorted. She may have passes out due to stress and wandered into the forest.”

10. “I’m sure she got lost and swam to the sand. the police need to pay attention to this.”

11. “SEARCH THE DAMN MOUNTAINS AND LAND SURROUND THE LAKE.. SHE CAN BE ANYWHERE Y’ALL NEED TO UNDERSTAND!! Searching the lake only isn’t helping.”

12. “it might also be a good idea to get dogs around the edges to see if they can smell a trace of her scent. since she was in water, it might be hard, but at this point it’s worth a try.”

13. “Please search around the lake in the mountains or something like that and also the specific place where the boat was please please bring her save home”

Science Fiction — No Double Feature

FYI: Voluminous tweets are bad science fiction dramas.

14. “Was there other boats around that day? Just wondering if maybe she was hit by a boat while swimming. This doesn’t make sense at all. It’s definitely suspect.”

15. “Maybe she’s not in the water. Look for tags on all cars going in out of the area after she was last seen. It’s possible the son took a nap and while she was swimming someone kidnapped her.”

16. “scan the surrounding area, I look on google maps and it’s possible for humans to walk around the area! she could be lost and confused.”

She Was My BFF! — Though We Never Met

17. “I can’t stop crying. In my heart she is like family. Please find her soon. For her family, friends and especially for her son.”

18. “bro this naya shit is fucking me up. i’m refreshing the feed every two seconds because i need to know that’s she’s okay. i am manifesting it. she better be okay.”

19. “if anyone thinks naya rivera is a bad mother or has ANYTHING to say about her other than that it’s absolutely tragic what happened then please block me and seek some help.”

20. “I’m going to bed and in not waking up till naya rivera is found alive and well.” (editor’s update: this tweeter did wake up, making her a liar)

The Jog from Unreal to Absurd is Short

21. “Until now, I never knew whom Naya Rivera was. Honestly, I would hate to hear that anything awful happens to anyone, but I kinda believe she committed suicide. As for her leaving her kid, though…that doesn’t sit right with me.”

22. “Was there other boats around that day? Just wondering if maybe she was hit by a boat while swimming. This doesn’t make sense at all. It’s definitely suspect.”

23. “Maybe she’s not in the water. Look for tags on all cars going in out of the area after she was last seen. It’s possible the son took a nap and while she was swimming someone kidnapped her.”

24. “Can motorized boats be on that lake? I’ve seen instances of people getting carbon monoxide poisoning while swimming and passing out.”

Race Card. Because Each Moment These Days Demands One

25. “I bet if she was white they wouldn’t have stopped searching.”

Now … {drumroll} … the grand finale:

We go to the special winners in the final category: What THE Fuck?!

In 3rd place:

“Just drain the lake.”

In 2nd place:

“i have a theory that her ex baby daddy killed her to be with his son full time. naya and ryan didn’t get along and the song lyrics are abt the baby daddy killing the baby momma to be closer to his son. they match perfectly.”

And the winner of tonight’s WTF Award:

“Does anyone else think she might’ve been trafficked?”

+ + +

Incidentally, I didn’t touch the treasure chest bursting with conspiracy theories. Haven’t the time or patience for that and neither do you.

You’ve heard their input, now here’s mine:

Naya Rivera was not wearing the required life vest (supplied on the boat) while boating and swimming.

People make bad decisions every day. Some are fatal. Sadly, hers brought loss of her life and loss of a mother to her son.

All things considered, I predict the body of Naya Rivera will surface, possibly later than sooner. If not — also a possibility — the body is resting in a watery grave of thick entanglements.

On a closing lighter note — if by a miracle I’m proven wrong and the authorities establish that she was abducted by human traffickers (sprung from thin air) during a lake excursion, I hereby shall personally deliver to that top tweeter a juicy reward and handwritten apology for disbelieving her.