
People Call Me Aaron - marsvoltaire
https://medium.com/@swartzcr/people-call-me-aaron-3761481871e5
======
froo
My brother committed suicide after facing a prison sentence. It is a really
difficult thing that when you meet people (even for years afterwards, it still
happens to this day 13 years on) and they just want to talk about the
circumstances behind his suicide and the things that get him to that point.
Having people consistently drag it up for you really hurts at times.

I also have experienced the name-calling thing. My mother, at times, ends up
calling me by my brother's name. I think that is the hardest thing at times,
because clearly she's not over it (he shot himself with her in the next room).

I really do feel for Noah. It's not something you ever truly get over (here I
am posting about it 13 years on), just something you just got to learn to deal
with. I found that for me, I had to find a healthy coping mechanism/hobby to
get through those first few years. Life still goes on man.

~~~
tim333
Good luck. It surprises me that the US supports such a vicious law enforcement
system compared to the rest of the developed world - I'm a Brit and ours leans
the other way towards being a bit easy going.

~~~
megablast
It is not all so easy going in the UK:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menez...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes)

~~~
snowy
These cases are unrelated in anyway.

How can you compare the death of a man shot by police on the underground
because of been confused with a terrorist, with a person driven to suicide
because they are facing a jail sentence?

------
cooper12
Wow, what a touching, yet sobering story. It sounds almost as if people used
him as a stand-in for Aaron. The tragic part of it is that the only way he
could really get away from it is to either disassociate himself from Aaron and
the people who know about him (kinda hard considering Noah seems to be
involved in the tech field also) or to become even bigger than Aaron (a
daunting task which shouldn't be necessary). I wish Noah the best of luck
establishing his own identity.

------
zephod
This is so sad. I wonder if Noah has considered moving abroad for a bit - in
my experience, very few people in the London tech scene know who Aaron Swartz
was, or if they've heard the name they will struggle to remember the story
behind it. Maybe people will disagree, but I don't think the story had quite
the same cultural resonance outside the USA.

~~~
petke
I cant help but think it quite easy to stay anonymous as a programmer. That
its the default. I never really understood what people mean by the "tech
scene". Its like you guys meet up or something.

I have rarely meet other programmers apart from the few ones at work, and
usually we don't socialise outside of work. I think this is the norm. I
haven't noticed any kind of scene. The average programmer is quite anonymous.
You code, and then you go home. Maybe you go drinking with your flatmates, one
of who might be a plumber and the other a teacher. They don't talk to you
about about plumbing, and you don't talk to them about programming. You talk
about football or whatever.

I think it might help Noah to just live the life of the average programmer,
and not go to all these political or tech conventions where your brother image
has a life of its own. Not to socialise exclusively with people who are in the
same line of work as you are.

~~~
cortesoft
Do you live in the Bay Area or Silicon Valley? I think it is a lot different
there.

Also, some people participate in the "scene" while others don't. I used to go
to more meet-ups and hacks-a-thons, but not so much anymore. I am not sure
which is the norm.

~~~
petke
Yeah, it seems like a "Silicon Valley" thing. The whole thing seems quite
mysterious to me. I worked in (4) random cities in the UK. But even in London,
I didn't notice a scene.

Maybe its also a thing more with web development and start ups. Where the
whole company can be mostly tech people, and where most people are young (so
socialize outside of work more).

~~~
shibby
In Leeds there are plenty of meet ups and events going on, there is very much
a 'scene' \- you just have to involve yourself in it if you wish to.

London is bound to have plenty going on.

~~~
hunt
Could you provide more details about the Leeds scene please? I've been working
here for a few months as a programmer and am interested in getting involved.

~~~
shibby
The best places to look are on Meetup and Eventbrite, there are groups that
meet fairly regularly for most languages/technologies. Such as Leeds Ruby
Thing -
[https://twitter.com/leedsrubything](https://twitter.com/leedsrubything) ,
Leeds DevOps -[http://www.leedsdevops.org.uk](http://www.leedsdevops.org.uk),
Leeds JS - [http://www.meetup.com/LeedsJS](http://www.meetup.com/LeedsJS), and
there are many others, even one dedicated to AWS I think.

Sky have recently started big investment in the area, as you're probably
aware, and do a Tech Event most months with various guest speakers, the next
one of those is focusing on JS if that's your thing -
[https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/leedstechhub-javascript-
ticke...](https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/leedstechhub-javascript-
tickets-20100088907)

There's a Code Dojo - [http://www.meetup.com/Leeds-Code-
Dojo](http://www.meetup.com/Leeds-Code-Dojo)

There is also a Hack Space if that interests you -
[https://leedshackspace.org.uk](https://leedshackspace.org.uk)

An annual Hack Day takes place, but that's usually later on in the year -
[http://leedshack.org](http://leedshack.org) \- but other hack days have
appeared at other times during the year (they tend to be corporate sponsored
ones but if you get past the recruitment element of them, they can be fun.)

------
jere
Whoa. I met Noah at a very small game dev conference last May. I had no idea
who he was until this moment, nor was I aware that anyone else did, but I
could be wrong. It's interesting to think how that interaction would have
changed, probably for the worse, if I had known more about him beforehand.

~~~
lovemenot
>> I had no idea who he was until this moment

The wording of this comment seems to be, in a very small way, symptomatic of
the larger problem that Noah sometimes has with people he meets or knows well.
To illustrate my point, here's another way to write the same thing:

>> I had no idea that he was Aaron's brother until this moment

The original wording seems to conflate the identity of Noah's brother with his
own.

~~~
irishcoffee
Hmm, to me it reads as: Having never seen and committed to memory the face of
Aaron, I did not consider his brother as anything other than an individual
whom I had interacted with for the first time.

Your comment (to me at least) seems to suggest Noah wanted everyone to
associate Noah with Aaron, and in the same moment wanted to be unhappy by said
association, which doesn't seem like a fair thing to say about Noah.

~~~
lovemenot
>> ... I did not consider his brother as anything other than an individual
whom I had interacted with for the first time...

Agreed. And to continue his/her presumed train of thought, in my own words:

" Whoah! ... but now I realise that the guy I met was really _somebody_. He
was Aaron's brother."

>> Your comment (to me at least) seems to suggest Noah wanted everyone to
associate Noah with Aaron ...

I have no idea how you arrived at this interpretation of my comment. Though I
can agree that if I had been making such a suggestion it would have been
unfair to Noah.

Anyway, I don't believe it is worth pursuing this further. We have at least
demonstrated that, in all good faith, it is easy to interpret the same thing
in different ways.

------
grownseed
Obviously not of the same gravity, but a good part of my childhood was spent
being called by my big brother's name. Family, friends, teachers, you name it.
It's a hard one, because I think my brother is an amazing guy, and evidently
so do other people, but it's ultimately belittling.

A math teacher, who had my brother for a single year, called me by his name
for the whole three years I knew/had her. By that point, it's not just
offending, you just start thinking your identity is just a proxy for the other
person's, it's downright depressing.

My brother and I look very much alike, to the point that to the untrained eye
we would look like twins at certain points of our lives. Although around my
teens, this had some unfortunate consequences, such as girls my age I fancied
who would meet my older brother and see a better physical version of me in
him, and forget about me. I can't really blame them, but again, not exactly
uplifting.

It isn't an issue at all these days, we have very different lives and
personalities, we live thousands of miles away, but mostly, my brother is
alive and well, and I guess, not famous ; but it's definitely had an effect on
me when I was younger.

I guess I came here to relate, but the truth is I can't even begin to imagine
the added constant reminder of a deceased relative, no matter how amazing they
used to be, or maybe even particularly so. The fact that those reminders are
people who, by and large, had nothing remotely resembling a relationship with
the person in question, especially not of the kind siblings would, must be
incredibly hurtful.

I feel deeply for Noah and I genuinely wish he can affirm his own identity,
and that people will make an effort to do so after reading his touching story.

~~~
frogpelt
This has happened to me a lot in my life--in fact one of my high school
teachers called me my brother's name the entire school year. But I didn't feel
belittled. Some people are just bad with names.

I've figured out how to break people of the habit: call them the name of their
sibling. This fixes it real quick like.

~~~
lotharbot
One of my high school teachers had a rule that any time he called a student by
a sibling's name, they got a point of extra credit.

It happened most class periods to somebody, and that was with him being very
deliberate about asking people to point it out and trying very hard not to do
it.

------
6stringmerc
Very interesting reflection on identity in the modern world as it relates to
family, fame, and trajedy. I have to say that the situation does feel very
familiar to me based on some other readings and historical examples. I'll
explain. The most prominent correlative is with respect to Hunter S. Thompson.
He created Raoul Duke as a character, and Gonzo Journalism as the method by
which to report and embellish/comment on the world.

I view it very much as a 'persona' and, in my opinion, most all highly
intelligent individuals - especially those in the public eye - _must_ have one
(or quickly develop one) in order to cope with the needs of being self-
confident to carry forward with beliefs and goals and values, yet also be able
to "put down the microphone" and live a wholesome, personal life. This is the
elements of celebrity and notariety that are weaved into the essay, and it's
very touching to see the care expressed toward himself, his brother, and
trying to understand and work through the behavior of outsiders. Aaron, from
what I saw and recall, had a very prominent persona. It's pretty much
'immortality' in the Achilles sense.

To me, and this is just from one musician and writer who has embraced using
pen names and personas for years, this article is very useful to give some
thought and consideration to how, generally speaking, US society and culture
has decided to value 'authenticity' and 'transparency' to the point of being a
little bit intrusive. I'm possibly under-stating it, but I also don't want to
get too far away from what the essay is conveying to me. It's an affirmation
of a perspective I formed and was guided to form as a youth in the arts:
Notariety, whatever its source, has significant baggage.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r31hV_BPFf0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r31hV_BPFf0)

~~~
JohnBooty

         in my opinion, most all highly intelligent individuals - especially those in the public eye - must have one 
    

I think I understand this. I used to run a small but active online community.
So not fame at all, not even "guy in a tiny band that has 15 people show up
for their shows" famous. Less than that even. But sometimes I'd go to parties
and people would know who I was and I didn't know them. That kind of thing.

And I did start to develop a hint of a persona. Like you say it was kind of a
must. Having strangers _that know who you are_ coming up and talking to you is
definitely flattering and also definitely a bit intimidating so you quickly
develop a... a mode you go into or something.

Not a calculated Raoul Duke thing at all. In my case it was more like the
different "personas" any person has - the personality you wear at work vs. the
one you wear around your parents vs. the one you wear around your significant
others. I was always being myself, but you definitely calibrate yourself a
little differently for different groups.

~~~
jamiepenney
I've often felt a bit abnormal for doing this. I guess I only ever see each
person in one mode, so I had no idea if other people do it or not. Nice to
know at least some other people do.

~~~
JohnBooty
Yeah, totally normal, I think. I think that's just basic social mammal stuff -
you calibrate your actions to your social surroundings. I mean even our dog
has totally separate personalities when he's around us at home versus how he
acts around other dogs. And it's not even the same personality for each of the
other dogs - some dogs have calming effects on him, some make him hyperactive.

~~~
6stringmerc
In the way you responded and described your experience, I think the term I
should've included, at least from an academic basis, is that of "code
switching" because it's a pretty interesting concept to me. The big key was
the 'work' versus 'home' concept of self. It's totally reasonable to want to
compartmentalize, I think it's pretty ingrained in our species, so talking
about it as a fact of life is pretty useful.

~~~
JohnBooty
Ah, ok, so there is a term for it!

It's also something that's been much remarked-upon by various minority groups.
I've heard a lot of African-American comedians, friends, and commentators
mention how they have feel the need "act white" when they're not around other
black people. You hear the exact same thing from LGBT folks as well - they
often choose to "act straight" by default in a lot of environments.

I've seen this a lot firsthand myself. It's also a good reminder that having
the _option_ to code switch is a real privilege. For some people it's not a
coping skill, it's a literal survival tactic.

~~~
6stringmerc
Yep! You really did summarize a great deal of the concept, and particularly
well with the groups which seem to have the most frequent need (desire?) to
utilize code switching. I've got several different modes based on personal or
professional situations (definitely privilege), and I think it really started
to click as a 'tool' about the time I got fluent in French language and
culture. Very eye opening, and has been useful when getting to know and be
collegiate with folks from minority or disenfranchised backgrounds.

------
sosuke
My family before me experienced sibling death in a similar prime. I only know
about it as a child of one of the surviving siblings but it haunted that
entire generation. Knowing all I do about how it affected my parent in their
younger years I will say that you're very strong to claim your own identity.
Do not use your brother as a yardstick to measure the worth of your own life
because they cannot measured to each other and don't let anyone else do it to
you. Your post made me very happy Noah Swartz and hope it leads you down a
better path than the one I've learned of.

~~~
mitchtbaum
Thank you for adding this other dimension; children of siblings that
experience this type of loss. My mother lost her brother in his prime, so this
gives Noah and Aaron's relationship meaning I can just now see. For me, my
uncle, like other relatives that passed before my birth, only live through
stories that came through in our family's experiences afterward. I have so
much gratitude for my mother, that they shared so much in their lives
together, and that she could pass on such a rich history for me to build on.

------
Kluny
How is it possible for anyone who knows who Aaron is to not know that he's
dead? How could they possibly mistake his brother for him to the extent of
thoughtlessly calling him the wrong name?

~~~
mej10
It is very common (especially as you get older) to mix up names for people
that are in the same mental category while you are speaking. It isn't
necessarily thoughtlessness. Sometimes our brains just don't work quite right.

~~~
lotharbot
My parents and several schoolteachers often called me by my older brother's
name, or called my sisters by one anothers' names. It's not as though my
parents couldn't tell their own children apart, it's just that sometimes
saying a name is an autopilot thing.

I recently took a friend to the grocery store, and called her son by my son's
name when I wanted him to move out of the way of someone else's cart.

~~~
bandushrew
yup. I have four kids, two sisters and a partner.

Sometimes I need to work through ALL the names to get to the right one..

pap...hil...sam...ji...joan..KIM could you please....

~~~
davedx
Haha, we have the same in our house sometimes! I think I've even heard the
dog's name thrown in there.

Eventually you narrow it down to the right kid, right name :)

------
eloy
The best read about Aaron that I've read in the past few days.

I had a weird feeling while reading this, I don't really know why, after
having read quite a few articles already.

Thanks, Noah!

~~~
maxerickson
The essay isn't about Aaron.

~~~
cooper12
The parent probably meant "related to" Aaron rather than literally about
Aaron, especially since they use Noah's name afterwards. Though you make a
point that bears repeating that this is article is about Noah himself,
especially since his trouble is with people overly associating him with Aaron.

------
ddingus
He's taken a great first step. By getting it all out there, he can carve his
place in the world out again.

It's gotta be damn tough to lose a sibling. To lose one that so many were
connected to... I have no words.

Other than, nice to meet you Noah. Hope to get to know you better and that
your life improves. We don't all suck, and most of us mean well most of the
time too. Draw what strength from that you can and keep doing what you are
doing.

It's important that the world knows Noah. You seem like a pretty great guy
actually. Take care.

 __That 's pretty much how I feel about it.

------
deepnet
Aaron stuck out his jaw and faced down the murky machinery of corruption
offending some very powerful people and showed the internet user-base the
power of collective action.

Then Snowden revealed that control and surveillance was already so very much
worse than even the paranoid imagined.

Snowden's revelations suggest that Aaron would be just the sort of dissident
the domestic spying and manipulation might target.

Whatever facts will or wont become known, we lost a great inspiring creative
soul in that good man's passing.

------
droopybuns
Seeking community at Defcon is kind of a misstep in my opinion. It feels an
awful lot like Highschool to me.

------
versteegen
This is unnerving. I've just discovered that I look almost identical to Aaron
Swartz's brother, except he dyed his hair black and blue!! I wonder if people
would ever mistake me for either of them?

------
leshow
I watched my sister die when I was 5, it's never easy, you just learn to deal
with it.

------
tuxguy
Maybe slightly unrelated but if you have experience the grief from death of a
loved one, this advice helped me :

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Assistance/comments/hax0t/my_friend...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Assistance/comments/hax0t/my_friend_just_died_i_dont_know_what_to_do/c1u0rx2)

{ Alright, here goes. I'm old. What that means is that I've survived (so far)
and a lot of people I've known and loved did not. I've lost friends, best
friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers,
mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children,
and I can't imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here's my two
cents. I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don't
want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter
the circumstances. But I don't want it to "not matter". I don't want it to be
something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the
relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so
was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament
that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I
can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is
stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life.
Scars are only ugly to people who can't see. As for grief, you'll find it
comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage
all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and
the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is
float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe
it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe
it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay
alive. In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you
without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to
catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe
weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they
come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you
out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what's
going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street
intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about
anything...and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.
Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the
waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they
come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or
Christmas, or landing at O'Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and
prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will,
again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to
some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll come out. Take it from an old guy.
The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don't really want them to. But
you learn that you'll survive them. And other waves will come. And you'll
survive them too. If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of
loves. And lots of shipwrecks. }

------
nether
SF tech party culture sounds awful. It sounds no less superficial and
dehumanizing than the worst of celebrity adulation in Hollywood.

~~~
maceo
The comparison is apropos. I've lived in Hollywood most of my life and have to
spend time in SF for work. The entertainment people get a bad rap for being
superficial douchebags and chronic bullshitters, but it doesn't even compare
to the SF scene. At least in Hollywood, if someone thinks they're hot shit,
you can go on imdb and see if they're really as self-important as they think
they are. In SF everyone is the best programmer, is working at the most
important non-profit, is building the next huge app, and it's very difficult
to tell if they're full of shit (hint: 99% of them are).

~~~
shurane
Is there really _that_ much celebrity status thumping for programmers in SF?
Maybe in particular circles, but I want to believe that SF has more diversity
in tech than that.

------
wcummings
Does he look a lot like his brother? My brother and I are very close in age
and look very similar and even our _parents_ mix up our names sometimes. You'd
never be mistaken for a dead son, daughter, spouse... but I bet this isn't
uncommon for people with dead siblings, and doubly so for _famous_ dead
siblings. Something I'd never considered.

