Complex Numbers

Hide-And-Seek Champions

I vaguely remember when they posted grainy pictures of missing sprogs on milk cartons. I liked to call them the Hide-And-Seek World Champions, because I'm an asshole.

PROMPT November 4^th

We've all heard of people who mysteriously 'go missing'. Tonight, write about a person who 'goes missing'. Someone that you read about in the newspaper or online, but nobody seems to know them, or remember them.

But of course, anyone (not just kids) "going missing" is a serious matter. Sometimes it turns out to be a misunderstanding. Often, especially with older kids or adults, they seem to disappear (I mean, they know where they are) because they want to. Most of the time, with kids, it's another family member; on occasion, it's an actual case of "stranger danger."

And I think most of us have noted a certain bias in local and international reporting when it comes to missing people. Specifically, attractive young white women get all the attention (as with everything else in life), while everyone else is, at best, mentioned somewhere between the obituaries and detergent ads or, at worst, never.

This is not just observation bias on our part, either; someone did an actual study.   I'll call Missing White Woman Syndrome MWWS here. Honestly, the only thing about the study that surprised me was that the disparity they found seemed less than I expected. But that's why we do science - to try to systematically eliminate subjective biases.

The latest example of this was Gabby Petito, who the news just. Would. Not. Stop. Talking. About. And I don't even watch cable news, or have cable; I just caught the edges of the stories here on the internet, and that was enough to make me wonder what real news they were distracting us from. I mean, sure, the case had sensational elements, but I just couldn't help thinking it was an obvious instance of MWWS.

On Maui, a few years ago, this chick   went missing, it made national news, everyone was freaking out about it, and fortunately it ended relatively well. But earlier the same year, these dudes   disappeared. You've never heard of them. Hell, the link I just posted is Maui local news.

Or right here in my town, a hot blonde chick, Morgan Harrington, disappeared from a Metallica concert like 12 years ago now. I don't know; maybe you remember this one, too. Hell, Cosmopolitan magazine did a bit about it, with the headline, and I'm including the link here so you know I'm not joking in any way, A Beautiful Girl Gone Missing  . I mean, you expect "beauty" language from Cosmo, I suppose, but what in the acid fuck does it have to do with anything?

Especially since a couple of years later, Sage Smith disappeared from another part of Charlottesville. Never heard of her? Not surprised. Marginalized trans woman. To their credit, the cops continued to work the case, and from what I can tell it ends just as tragically (though it certainly took a lot longer), but as far as I know, it didn't receive national attention at the time.

Now, I'm not saying that missing human cases must always be treated equally. There are always going to be some more salacious, or mysterious, or disturbing than others -- which was part of the reason for the constant focus on Gabby Petito. Several thousand people "go missing" every year (the exact number depends on definition), and that's a lot to follow. If someone is missing, and there's a chance the public can help, sure - but why make a hiker's disappearance on Maui national news, for instance? It's not like you might accidentally run into her unless you happen to be walking around Hale'akala.

I'm also not saying any missing person case is trivial. All I am saying is that all human life has value; sure, it's worse when kids go missing because they're not as self-sufficient, but everyone who goes missing is going to be missed by someone -- by definition.