Current Events > 9-11 vs. Covid-19: Which feels more surreal?

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For those who lived through both, especially if you were at least teenaged for 9-11... which felt more surreal to you?

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9/11, by far.

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Covid honestly isnt shit.

Covid.

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I am going with Covid.

I sorta saw some kind of 9/11 thing happening at some point.
I was surprised when it happened, but not shocked.
The writing was on the walls that some shit was going to happen.
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9/11 felt more surreal. Covid affected my life a lot more but 9/11 set a somber tone for a long time.

I was 11 when 9/11 happened but I feel that was more of a event to watch unfold.

Covid 19 feels like a long slow burn in events but it is reaking far more damage and Impacting the world more than any other major event besides the WW's

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COVID-19, IMO.

maybe it's because I live on the west coast, but 9/11 felt surreal for about a week (but all the war on the Middle East, the Patriot Act, etc. that resulted have been terrible).

but I'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole COVID-19 outbreak, and how it continues to affect everyone.

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obsolete posted...

9/11 felt more surreal. Covid affected my life a lot more but 9/11 set a somber tone for a long time.

I feel the opposite, 9/11 felt much more immediate.

As where this is becoming much more surreal by the day.
The streets are dead, everything feels like a ghost town.
Everyone is wearing masks. Food is arguably scarce.
Things are shut down.
Some of the people that are working are making less than those that are not.
There is no end in site....all of which makes things feel very surreal.
I should add, I have always lived in NYS and at present do know someone who passed due to the virus.
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Malcrasternus posted...

9/11, by far.

Agreed.

Covid by default

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911 was surreal for a month or so but got less surreal as time went on. Covid has been getting more surreal

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9/11 easily. The whole fucking zeitgeist of America changed within minutes.

Helps that I was right across the Hudson when it happened.

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9/11 saw America hit for the first time in years. Also saw us really fucking unified pre-Iraq. And pushed the 24 hour news cycle to heights it hadn't seen before. The culture changed after that morning.

Covid doesn't feel surreal because all of this makes total sense. This has been building up for years in terms of stupidity.

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9-11.

Just 13 year old me sitting there dicking around with friends and gf before class starts and suddenly all hell broke loose. When I got home and saw the live feed coming in and everything I saw during them, it didn't feel real, but there it was.

COVID is going exactly as I expected it to.

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Evening_Dragon posted...

9/11 easily. The whole fucking zeitgeist of America changed within minutes.

Helps that I was right across the Hudson when it happened.

I agree with that, totally, but the slow boil of this one makes it feel more surreal to me.
9/11 was more shocking, but by and large, things got back to normal for most people, let's be honest.

This has really changed the way people operate in their daily life.
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Covid for sure

it just completely changed the way our normal lives ran

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i was around for 911 and it's coronavirus. 911 affected me for about 3 days. this corona crap has gone on way too long.

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Malcrasternus posted...

9/11, by far.

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Anyone outside of the US will say Corona virus I think

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9/11's got nothing on this

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This is because Im not an American, but Covid. 9/11 was just like any other large terrorist attack in a foreign country.

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Covid. I remeber 911 well but it really had zero impact on my life. Didnt know anyone that died didnt know who ended going to war. I dont know anyone thats died from covid either but its caused a lot of small changea to my daily life.

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Covid. 9/11 happened a week and a half before my 13th birthday and while it was probably the first surreal moment I've experienced, that feeling didn't really last more than a week (probably because I lived in Georgia) and only slightly came back the first 30 or so times someone said "Never forget"

For covid, the first 48 hours after I was told by my boss to grab anything in my office that I would need for the next month and go home immediately was oddly scary as fuck. I saw people in our parking lot flat out sprinting to cars which was weird because I'm 31 and still significantly younger than most of my coworkers so it's not everyday you see 50+ year olds hauling ass, people were driving like absolute psychopaths on the roads, and while I remember the general sense of fear in the air from 9/11 this time it felt like an angry panic with everyone on edge because they were looking out for their families and screw anybody else.

It feels less like that now that the over the top hoarding at stores has stopped for the most part, but it's 6 weeks later and not that much different. With 9/11 you could at least socialize with your friends face to face and talk about how fucked up the situation is, but with covid people are being forced to isolate and stew in their uncertainty. Also protestors shrieking at nurses and boomers sharing weird memes claiming hoax while people (mostly in their age group) are still dropping like flies is pretty fucked up, especially with the orange one encouraging the behavior. You had the "jet fuel can't melt steel beams" lunatics after 9/11, but otherwise it was a nation united for a few years before your average citizen started wondering why America was spending so much time in the Middle East

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anyone who is saying covid over 9/11 is either too young to remember it or did not live in the northeast

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I feel they're too different to compare to each other. It's two different types of surreal.

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I live in NYC and I'd still say covid. There's way more death and everyone knows a bunch of people that have it or that have died from it

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Romulox28 posted...

anyone who is saying covid over 9/11 is either too young to remember it or did not live in the northeast. i know its cheesy but 9/11 really did change everything, it permanently rewired how every american's brain worked

Yeah not a lot of people lived in the north east. Biggest change it had in my area was a giant surge of patriotism being displayed.

Also as an american i just want to say saying 911 was bigger almost seems like a world revolves around america mindset. Covid is a worldwide disaster. If you are speaking about how it affected you personally thats one thing but posts acting like its speaking for everyone...

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Romulox28 posted...

anyone who is saying covid over 9/11 is either too young to remember it or did not live in the northeast

So like 75% of the country/95% of the world? Lol

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Tired-Insomniac posted...

So like 75% of the country/95% of the world? Lol

Thanks. Said what I was trying to say in far leas words.

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Covid.

I was just a kid when 9/11 happened, and not even American so I honestly don't really recall much changing for me other than hearing it on the news. Coulda had a bigger impact to people who weren't just oblivious children like I was then though.

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Covid is more so. I mean just looking at what's happening in NYC... it's like a warzone :(

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9/11 is a distant memory. Covid-19 is happening now.

Easily 9/11. Especially since I live in the DC area and the Pentagon hit close to home. I actually saw the hole in the Pentagon.

COVID seems....overhyped? Like yes, the virus is real. But all of our rights being taken away over this just seems odd.

9/11, tbh.

I can't imagine ever again seeing Americans united and taking pride in ourselves like you saw in the couple years following.

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COVID-19 by far. 9/11 didn't have the same domestic impact as this is, especially on the economy.

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Tired-Insomniac posted...

So like 75% of the country/95% of the world? Lol

my point being that they didnt witness the true impact firsthand. kind of the same with covid except that we all have broadband internet now so we can see morgue trucks and shit in manhattan

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Covid-19 for me because it's just... strange. Life is normal for the most part even with stay at home orders and all that where 9/11 you could instantly see the impact it had.

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something that's probably playing a role in picking one over the other is how important it is to people the intent behind a tragedy. to me only the sheer amount of damage something does matters, but for some people they might care more that people were killed by other people more than they do when people are killed by a virus, even if the virus is killing orders of magnitude more people

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COVID is just people spreading the disease because they're idiots, I feel no sympathy.

9/11 was a surprise attack(for anyone not US intelligence) and impacted millions IMMEDIATELY


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Akagami_Shanks posted...

COVID is just people spreading the disease because they're idiots, I feel no sympathy.

9/11 was a surprise attack(for anyone not US intelligence) and impacted millions IMMEDIATELY

In the US over 20 million people have lost their jobs and it has the potential to radically change how companies do business. I don't know how you don't think that impacts people "immediately". Not to mention it's hit retirement funds pretty hard.

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Hexenherz posted...

In the US over 20 million people have lost their jobs and it has the potential to radically change how companies do business. I don't know how you don't think that impacts people "immediately". Not to mention it's hit retirement funds pretty hard.

And those same people have the potential to make MORE than they were while working, with the governments $600 a week, on top of your regular state unemployment benefits, and the $1200 stimulus payment.

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Akagami_Shanks posted...

And those same people have the potential to make MORE than they were while working, with the governments $600 a week, on top of your regular state unemployment benefits, and the $1200 stimulus payment.

That's all well and good, but it's not a bottomless pit of money, unemployment benefits are not permanent and there's no guarantee they'll be able to return to work once the economy starts going back to normal.

And even that situation you described is very surreal compared to what happened to the economy after 9/11. It's not a standard scenario.

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Romulox28 posted...

my point being that they didnt witness the true impact firsthand. kind of the same with covid except that we all have broadband internet now so we can see morgue trucks and shit in manhattan

so because it happened in New York, only people in New York at the time felt the "true impact"?

the answer to that question is No. it's just that the "true impact" you felt was very different depending on where you were at the time; whereas covid-19 is having pretty similar effects regardless of where anyone is.

and for the vast majority of the world, that impact is much bigger than 9/11

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SiO4 posted...

I agree with that, totally, but the slow boil of this one makes it feel more surreal to me.
9/11 was more shocking, but by and large, things got back to normal for most people, let's be honest.

This has really changed the way people operate in their daily life.

Considering how I've been staying home 90% of the time anyway, it hasn't affected me much personally, maybe that's the difference. After 9/11, everyone would not shut up about politics, and there were flags everywhere, everywhere, all the time. It was over a decade before I stopped looking at the clock exactly at 9:11pm every day.

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COVID-19. America back in 2001 was a lot more civil. Today everything is worse especially when it comes to moral and the economy, the COVID-19 outbreak is just icing on the cake.