Honoring Victims of Social Media Harms: A Holiday Remembrance
They had favorite holiday traditions and wish lists and dreams about what they wanted to be. They made ornaments in second grade and danced in the nutcracker, just like my kids and maybe yours too.
My kitchen smells like cinnamon rolls and pine. Stockings are hung, the tree is trimmed, and my kids’ presents are hiding in office drawers waiting to be wrapped.
And I’m thinking so much of the families I’ve met and stories I’ve come to know in the last year. Thinking of how brutal it must be to endure the grief of a child through the holidays. Picturing these faces, forever-teens and pre-teens lost to social media harms, but as eager little kids. Faces lit up while opening presents on Christmas morning or glowing as they light the menorah from right to left.
They should be here if not for decisions made in conference rooms and sprint meetings and quarterly reviews. Decisions about what gets recommended and what gets buried, what’s worth fixing and what’s worth the risk. They should be here if not for the language of “trade-offs” and “edge cases” that lets corporate greed sleep at night. If not for an industry that’s optimized for growth and engagement and profits, that treats harm to kids as a liability to be managed rather than a reason to stop.
After working at Meta for nearly 15 years, I saw this with my own eyes. I was expected to put what was best for the company ahead of what was best for kids while fellow leaders who wouldn’t let their own kids use the products we marketed to yours spoke in theoretical terms about inevitable consequences of innovation.
But these kids weren’t acceptable losses or statistics. They were whole people, and someone’s whole world. They had favorite holiday traditions and wish lists and dreams about what they wanted to be. They made ornaments in second grade and danced in the nutcracker, just like my kids and maybe yours too.
I’m asking you to read these thirteen stories and hold two things at once this season: the joy of your own family and the grief of these families.
We can honor these kids, remember these kids, say their names out loud, and look at their beautiful faces. Grace. Coco. McKenna. Selena. Matthew. Carson. David. Riley. Griffin. Erik. Alexander. Mason. Alex.
We can remember that they represent a tiny sliver of the thousands of families impacted by preventable social media harms.
Let their stories make you a little less credulous. A little more willing to question big tech’s child safety theater, to call your representatives and ask what they’re doing about the Kids Online Safety Act and Section 230 and AI preemption.
Because these families are spending the holidays without their children. And they’re still showing up, still telling their stories, still advocating for our kids out of their love and loss.
I asked them what they wanted people to remember about their kids this time of year.
Here’s what they told me.
Matthew Minor
Described by his parents as “an adorable kid with fantastic curls, dimples, and an infectious smile,” Matthew loved to be dancing, spending time outdoors, or helping others, from kids at school to homeless community members. “He always asked how we could help them.” Matthew wanted to grow up to serve our country in the Army and then work in the federal government, like his father and grandfather.
With a birthday 5 days before Christmas, the holidays were extra special for Matthew and his family. He loved to decorate the tree with Christmas movies and music playing in the background. He loved baking cookies for Santa and eating his Gi Gi’s and Aunt Pauline’s homemade cakes and cobblers.
“A year before Matthew passed, we threw him a ‘Spiderman into the Spider-Verse’ movie-themed party at the local movie theater. The movie had just come out in theaters, and he loved it and knew all the words to the movie track song ‘Sunflower’ by Post Malone.”
The Minors’ collection of Matthew’s favorite ornaments, some with his name and pictures, keep him feeling close. And still, “those around us don’t know, and hopefully never will, the strength it takes to decorate or even find happiness in the moment during the holidays while still in the pain of grief.”
“Life is the most precious gift from the creator, more valuable than gold and diamonds. Please don’t take it for granted. Spend it with family and those who matter.”
“Matthew would brighten the room, making everyone laugh and smile. He had a way of making you forget a tough day at work, cares, or worries. The joy he brought to everyone, his happiness, and his love for us were lasting. We miss how he would hug his family and let them know how much he loved us. It was a genuinely unique skill.”
“He would hug us with all his strength,” Todd and Mia shared, “as if it were his last hug in the world.”
Grace McComas
The McComas family had a Christmas Eve tradition of taking photos together on the church altar after mass. “They in their finest attire, eyes sparkling and so excited for the arrival of Santa and the celebrations with family ahead,” Grace’s mom, Christine, shared.
Grace had a bubbling personality and “big blue eyes that sparkled with mirth,” Christine shared, “my blueberry-eyed girl.” While some parents remind their kids to use their indoor voice, Christine would find herself saying, “Grace, use your indoor laugh!"
Known for her kindness and compassion, for standing up to bullies on behalf of her friends, Grace lost her life after relentless cyber bullying. “I want change,” Christine says, “Certainly the urgently needed protections that KOSA will bring, but also, from the beginning I have advocated fighting cyber-abuse and incivility. My mother’s heart aches to witness the hardness of heart and ugliness that is so evident in our country right now, which is fed in large part by social media and others who have something to gain by keeping the meanness and outright lies swirling.”
“Remember G.R.A.C.E.: Giving Respect And Compassion to Everyone”
Christine described how everything from ornaments specially chosen and inscribed with Grace’s name, to deeply treasured memories, remind her over the holidays of the huge injustice of Grace’s absence.
“There will never be any form of justice, other than making sure it doesn’t keep happening to other families.”
Selena Rodriguez
“Selena’s light was brighter than any Christmas lights you’ll ever see,” her sister Destiny says. Born with her eyes wide open and her head up, ready to take on the world from day one, Selena’s family describes her as eccentric, adventurous, fiercely honest—the kind of kid who’d tell you the truth whether you could handle it or not.
Her mom, Tammy, jokes that she was born in the wrong decade. “We could definitely see her being a hippie with no shoes on.” Even in New England winters, Selena often went barefoot. She loved dancing, being silly, and looking out for the underdog.
One freezing winter night, Selena spotted a homeless man asking for money at a stoplight. She started yelling that they had to go back, had to do something. “So like always, I went with Beena’s gut feeling,” Tammy says. They circled back, and Selena shouted, “Give him your coat, Mom!” Before Tammy knew it, she was handing her own coat out the window.
With a December 13th birthday, Selena’s celebration rolled into Christmas. Birthday parties meant Christmas light rides, one year at a trolley museum all done up for the season. Her favorite dessert was pumpkin pie, once eating an entire pie in the back of the van before anyone realized what was happening.
When Tammy needed back surgery on Christmas Eve, Selena was determined they’d still have their tree. She dragged it up to their second-floor apartment by herself and put it up. This year, the family put up a small tree; their first since losing her.
“I want people to remember her for how caring, loving, silly, helpful she was. The way she cared so deeply about others. The best type of friend—one who cared enough about even her bullies that she would check on them.”
“Memories are all that we have left,” Tammy says, “so please don’t be afraid to talk about our kiddos. It makes us happy knowing someone else remembers those moments. That they remember our kids were here.”
Erik Robinson
“Erik loved life and wanted to know everything about everything," his mom Judy says. He talked early, walked early, and never slowed down. He had strong opinions and a loud voice and a mind that was always working.
At 11, he was already corresponding with West Point’s admissions department to make sure he’d be in shape to meet their entry requirements. He was preparing for his bar mitzvah when he died. He played on a traveling baseball team and loved the strategy of it, equally happy counting pitches in the dugout as playing on the field.
He loved trains. Judy kept enough Thomas the Tank tracks to stretch across their apartment, the only toy she refused to give away when they’d clean things out. “I said they were going to go to his kids.”
He celebrated both Christmas and Hanukkah, and spent years trying to prove Santa wasn’t real. One year he slept in front of the tree; Judy and a friend snuck presents out after he fell asleep. Another year, she had her apartment manager leave a gift on the coffee table while they were away in New York, a head-scratcher he never solved.
The holidays meant his great-grandmother’s Passover cake that he and Judy baked together, his great-aunt’s special stuffing at Thanksgiving, and cookies and milk left out for Santa.
Erik loved giving as much as receiving. He enjoyed picking out presents for others, and every November 1st he’d do “reverse Halloween” at school, giving candy back to send to kids in the hospital.
“People don’t understand that your kid is always part of your life, especially at the holidays,” Judy says. “Just because they’re not physically here doesn’t mean they’re forgotten. Just the opposite.”
“I continue to talk about him and refuse to let others squelch that for me. When we go around the table at Thanksgiving and talk about what we’re grateful for, I always bring him up.”
Alexander Neville
Alexander was brilliant, intense, sensitive; an active, inquisitive boy whose interests drove what his family did together. His love of history took them to Civil War reenactments. His obsession with Lego made them regulars at Legoland and World War Brick. For Alexander, video games were a full-body sport. He ran and jumped and broke a sweat portraying his characters.
He envisioned himself becoming a director at the Smithsonian, where he could pursue his love of history. A born entrepreneur, he started an eBay business at 13, selling his childhood toys and biking them to UPS himself.
Alexander was always the first one up on Christmas morning, and his mom Amy would hang out with him in his room, keeping him occupied so his dad and sister could sleep a little longer. There was never a shortage of ideas on his wish list. The family set up elf “traps” trying to catch the elves that put candy in the advent calendar.
His last Christmas, Alexander took the initiative to put up and decorate the tree himself. It’s the reason his family has continued to put it up each year since. On New Year’s Eve, Amy lights a candle in his honor and keeps it burning into the new year. “It’s my way of bringing him with me into the New Year.”
“I desperately want to talk about my kid,” Amy says. “Especially at family gatherings where he would be showing up if he was here. Someone bringing him up, sharing a memory, is a true gift to me. Unfortunately most people are worried they will upset a bereaved parent. Being upset is how we start each day.”
“I really just hope that people remember him and think about him from time to time, any time of year.”
Carson Bride
Carson was active and creative; as a child he spent hours at his train table playing with wooden Thomas the Train characters. He was also a great writer and artist who talked about using his skills in marketing or advertising someday.
He loved climbing up on his dad’s shoulders to put the star on the Christmas tree. Every Christmas Eve, his dad Tom would read Carson and his brother Jack The Night Before Christmas on the couch before bed—a tradition started by Tom’s father. Carson’s mom Kristin would take photos, sometimes video, telling both boys they’d need to continue the tradition with their own kids.
The Bride family did fondue on New Year’s Eve, which Carson loved. He also loved a dessert Jack made called “The Bomb,” layers of Ho Ho’s, ice cream, chocolate sauce, and crumbled Oreos.
Since Carson died, Kristin hasn’t been able to get out the Christmas decorations or the ornaments she made each year for her sons, ornaments representing whatever they were into that year; a specific toy, a soccer ball, Legos. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to look through those boxes again.
“Losing a child is painful every day, but during the holidays it is so much worse. We long to have Carson back so that our family is complete. And yet we know that we can never have that again.”
But the family has kept up their annual photo Christmas card. They always represent Carson with one of them holding an apple, symbolizing his last request: to have his ashes spread under an apple tree so the fruit would be his forever gift to them.
“I hope people will remember that Carson just wanted to be accepted and experience kindness,” Kristin says. “Reach out to people during the holidays and remember that in the end, only kindness matters.”
Griffin “Bubba” McGrath
Bubba was a sweet, mild mannered child. He loved doing puzzles, and reading books and Scooby Doo magazines when he was little, “so much so that we went to the libraries multiple times a week to look for more,” said his mom, Annie. He also loved swimming, Spider-man, and playing catch and later baseball with his dad. “He truly touched everyone he met with his sweet disposition, and genuine kindness.”
Despite being in 8th grade, Bubba already had his sights set on Oxford to study quantum physics. He dreamed of becoming an engineer and living in Seoul, South Korea someday.
His last Christmas, Bubba was deep in preparation for an upcoming National Science Bowl competition. He and his team would place third in January. His science teacher had been tutoring and coaching the kids on his own time, nights and even Sundays. Bubba was so grateful that he wanted to give him something extra special.
Annie had bought boxes of chocolates for his teachers, but Bubba asked if he could also wrap up a shark’s tooth, one he and Annie had picked out together on a special mom-and-son day at the geology museum during spring break. She knew how much it meant to him.
“It warmed my heart that he wanted to give it to his teacher,” Annie says. “Still does.”
Alex Peiser
Full of fun and energy, Alex loved his Thomas the Tank Engine trains and would play with them for hours, creating different configurations of tracks. His mom, Sharon, would take Alex to Barnes & Noble every Friday night where Alex would play with the trains and they would buy a book, or sometimes another train.
Alex started acting in first grade and never stopped. He continued performing until his death. “I suspect that if he had lived, he would have taken dramatic arts in college, which no doubt would have been a point of contention between us,” Sharon says. “However, I would give anything to have Alex living with us as an unemployed actor right now.”
One summer at camp, Alex took only culinary classes and really enjoyed them. From then on, he would help Sharon with the holiday cooking. “It was so fun to be in the kitchen with him. My husband doesn’t enjoy cooking, so it was our special time together.”
One of Alex’s friends wrote to Sharon after he died and said Alex was the sweetest person he had ever known. He was incredibly generous, buying extra gum and ice drinks to share with everyone at school.
“Alex has been gone eight years now, and every Christmas season has been different,” Sharon says. “You learn that grief ebbs and flows. A strategy that helped last year may not help this year. You learn to be gentle with yourself.”
“Don’t be afraid to talk to someone who is grieving. If think you might have said something that caused some pain—ask them—grief bursts come up for all sorts of reasons and can be triggered by even innocent conversations.”
Riley Basford
Riley still feels like a little kid to his mom Mary. “Dimples for days!” she said. He loved to cuddle and read, always had a big smile with the cutest mischievous streak. Teachers loved him not because he was a great student but because he was a charming, funny kid.
He hugged and kissed his mom constantly. Even as a teenager, he would still hold her hand and want her to cuddle with him.
Mary describes Riley as brave, socially intelligent, and funny. In their family, he created hype, became the entertainment, was the life of the party. He made things silly, “I never knew what crazy thing he would say or do next.”
Riley loved snow days, which meant school closed and the sleds came out. He could play for hours in the snow without getting cold. He loved decorating sugar cookies at Nana and Papa’s, and waffles anytime. He was happiest with family and cousins, outdoors on the farm, hunting and fishing.
“We were in the heart of maple season when he died. Only 24 hours earlier he was making syrup with his older brother and so damn happy. He couldn’t wait for the next trip to Florida and the upcoming bird hunting season.”
The family moved into a new home on Christmas Eve 2005. Riley was six months old. “We had the most delightful teeny tiny family Christmas, just the five of us. I’ll always remember with the most bittersweet heart the time that I held him and nursed him and he was all mine.”
Mary wants people to accept that not everyone grieves the same way. “There’s not something wrong with people who don’t want to celebrate like you.” Her advice: don’t offer to help, just show up. “Pick them up for coffee, stop by for a walk, go with them to the cemetery, take their kid to practice. Show up, and show up, and show up.”
“Always, always, I want people to know that Riley did not want to die. He loved life. He wanted to be a dad. He loved his pets, his parents, and his friends.”
David Molak
David was the youngest of three boys and always wanted to be like his big brothers who he idolized. He was funny and happy, loved watching sports on TV, especially football. David knew every single stat of every football player and dreamed of becoming a football general manager someday.
David’s favorite holiday tradition was finding the wildest, ugliest Christmas sweatshirt every year. He would spend hours searching for the perfect one.
When David was little, he and his mom Maurine would decorate sugar cookies together. He loved sprinkling glitter sugar on top and making a mess, using his fingers to clean up the spills until his hands turned red and green. As he got older he didn’t care much about decorating, but had no problem eating most of them and laughing about his lips turning green.
Every Christmas Eve the family would open one present: new matching pajamas. They’d wear them and play board games together. David loved Monopoly and would dominate them all.
The family has a nativity scene with a box that opens and closes with a baby inside. David would open it on Christmas Eve to welcome Baby Jesus into the world. His faith gave him joy at Christmas, and it gives his family hope now.
Maurine’s older sons, now men, still wear David’s ugly Christmas sweatshirts. This year there’s a new grandbaby, six months old, whose middle name is David. She couldn’t find an ugly sweatshirt in his size yet, but plans to introduce the tradition when he’s older and learns about his Uncle David.
“Missing a child on Christmas is like missing an organ from your body,” Maurine says. “But we try to hold on to happiness and gratitude, and pass that down.”
McKenna Brown
McKenna was loving, funny, and fearless. Her spirit was magnetic. She had a smile that lit up a room and the best hugs. Her mom Cheryl would get home from work and wherever McKenna was in the house, she would stop what she was doing and sprint to the front door screeching in her high-pitched voice, “Mommy!” and jump into her arms. “I can close my eyes and hear her sweet, enthusiastic voice and feel her arms around me at any moment.”
McKenna wanted to be a psychologist and help people talk through their troubles. She was an empath who cared about others more than herself. She was the biggest champion for her special-needs sister McKinley, who was just a year older. They were always in the same grade, and McKenna was fiercely proud of her, always looking out for her. She was the friend people confided in, the one who helped pick a girl up off the bathroom floor when she was struggling with anxiety, the one who walked another girl to her car after school for two weeks just so she would feel safe.
McKenna’s favorite holiday tradition was her role as “first elf.” It started with her insisting on helping wrap presents Christmas Eve. Her older brother MacCallum played Santa every Christmas morning, passing out gifts. When McKenna was finally old enough, he crowned her with the magical elf ears hat. “I can still see that smile. She still looked up to her big brother, and for him to bestow that honor on her was huge.” From then on she sat next to him every Christmas morning as chief elf.
She loved Christmas Eve service at their church, singing holiday favorites and lighting candles. “Some of the best memories in my life were sitting next to her singing worship songs. She would boldly sing with outstretched hands, proud, not embarrassed of her faith.”
She loved her grandmother’s Christmas sugar cookies and lemon meringue pie. She loved the tradition of special Christmas pajamas every year. One year Cheryl accidentally bought adult medium instead of kids medium. McKenna pulled the pants up almost to her neck, hysterical, but she was going to wear them one way or another. She later tied them to her brother’s bunk bed and used them as a hammock. The knot was so tight they had to cut them off. “Those Christmas PJ pants got a lot of mileage and a lot of laughs.”
The family keeps McKenna’s presence alive. They set a place for her at the dinner table with a ceramic plate bearing her picture. They keep a memory candle lit through the holidays. They visit her suicide awareness memorial bench at the local ice rink and share McKenna stories.
“Say our kids’ names and share stories and memories of them,” Cheryl says. “So often people are afraid to mention their names because they think it will make us sad. What makes us even sadder is the thought of others forgetting our kids. We have a finite, limited number of memories. Anything you can add to that memory vault is cherished.”
Mason Edens
Mason’s mom Jennie remembers him as a silly baby with the cutest giggle. He loved chasing around the family’s little chihuahuas and picking them up to snuggle them. He loved working in the garden with Jennie, even at two years old. They would get up every morning and the first thing he wanted to do was run out and check the tomatoes. Then he would load them up in his wagon and take them to the neighbors.
Mason was dyslexic and worked hard to overcome it. He worried that his spelling would hold him back, but he talked about becoming a lawyer and only taking on clients who were “good people” so he could help them. He also thought about the military or the police academy. The one consistent thing he said was that he wanted to help people and give back to the country he loved. He was buried with the American flag that had hung in his room.
Thanksgiving was by far his favorite holiday. He and his brothers would get into heated debates about Thanksgiving versus Christmas, and Mason always said Thanksgiving was better because the whole family was together, all the family friends came over, and the food was better. That boy loved good food, especially turkey and stuffing and deviled eggs. He was adamant about not putting up a single Christmas decoration until after Thanksgiving. “It took away from Thanksgiving and the attention it deserved.” Even driving down the road, if he saw neighbors’ Christmas lights up too early, he would just shake his head.
The family had a tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve. It took the boys a few years to realize it was always matching pajamas. At first they hated it, then they loved it. One year the pajamas from Amazon were way too small, but they still wore them just so they were all matching. “I remember Mason shaking his booty in his super small pjs and laughing about it.”
The family still hangs Mason’s stocking over the fireplace. They have an angel tree just for him with no presents underneath, a reminder that they have one less person to exchange gifts with. His best friends, now 19, still come over regularly. The other night two of them broke down crying in his memorial garden. “It broke me to see two 19-year-old young men, one about to ship off to the Army, crying about Mason.”
“There’s an emptiness that is so loud and everyone feels it,” Jennie says. “Be kind to those who are grieving such a deep loss. We won’t always be the best versions of ourselves. Forgive us for not wanting to be super social or going to all the Christmas parties. Our home is what brings us the most comfort during this season.”
Coco Konar
Coco was born with a mind of her own. From the very beginning, she questioned everything: rules, routines, expectations that didn’t make sense to her. Her mom, Julianna, describes her as exceptionally perceptive, sensitive, and observant, absorbing the world around her in a way most children didn’t.
Coco was drawn to meaning, truth, and authenticity. At different moments she imagined herself as a global investigative journalist, a comedian, a storyteller, someone uncovering injustice and giving voice to the overlooked. More than anything, she was working toward belonging in a world she found hypocritical and often cruel, trying to reconcile her depth and sensitivity with a society that didn’t always make space for it.
“Coco was a whole, extraordinary person, not just a cautionary tale,” her mom Julianna says. “She was brilliant, creative, deeply empathetic, funny, rebellious, and magnetic. She had immense light, and she struggled not because she lacked depth or love, but because the world didn’t always know how to meet her where she was.”
“The holidays don’t soften the grief. The world becomes louder, faster, more celebratory, while grief remains steady and ever-present underneath. You’re expected to move forward in joy while carrying something that never leaves.”
“It’s possible and necessary to hold gratitude and grief at the same time. Love doesn’t disappear because a child is gone. Silence, presence, and patience are often far more meaningful than trying to make things feel better.”
“What stays with me most is how much Coco taught me about patience, presence, non judgment, and unconditional love. She showed me that there is perfection in imperfection, that we are all on our own paths, and that loving someone fully means accepting who they are, not who we wish them to be.”
Remember the empty chairs
Thomas trains. Matching pajamas. Christmas cookies with glitter sugar. Elf traps and ugly sweater contests and The Night Before Christmas read aloud on the couch.
These kids could be your kids.
Social media harms aren’t a phenomenon that happens only to someone else. This is an epidemic of disregard for regular families around the world, because taking child safety seriously is too expensive for the same companies working so hard to get your trust without earning it.
Show up for the grieving parents in your life. Leave the job that suggests harms like these are inevitable. Call your representatives about KOSA.
As the chairs fill around your table this year, please remember the empty ones at theirs.
Thank you so much to the families who trusted me with these stories and memories. I will keep saying their names and telling the truth of the extractive and exploitative systems that harmed them until these companies are forced to change.
Thank you, Kelly, for using Overturned to share our children's stories.