Virginia Tech’s student newspaper, The Collegiate Times, reports on the Facebook memorials to the 32 slain students.

For a generation that has grown up with the evolving technology of the
time, it seems most fitting for memorials and prayers to be passed
around through the internet.

Facebook, a social networking site, has been hit with an
influx of recent “groups” created to honor the Tech students caught in
the throes of yesterday’s events.

By searching “Tech Shooting,” 362 groups come up as hits, most
of them dedicated to the memory of the students and their families.

One group created by Tech Student Tim Hall is called “April 16, 2007 — A Moment of Silence” and has 8,712 members thus far.

“It was like having a good dream and waking up in the middle of
a nightmare,” Hall said. “Virginia Tech needed unity. By expressing
what I felt on Facebook, I knew the entire campus would rally and
support the group. We are going through one of those rare times when
every student on campus is feeling the same emotion: emptiness. It was
my way of bringing the university together and showing my classmates
that the entire country supports us. It is truly an amazing way of
watching our beautiful country come together to start the healing
process.”

Each group has a “wall,” which members, after they have
joined, may write on to express their thoughts on topics about the
group. In a five-minute span on the wall for Hall’s Facebook group,
students from Old Dominion University, New York University, Florida
State University, Texas State, Marshall, Christopher Newport
University, University of Miami, Auburn, North Carolina A&T,
Seminole Community College, Rice and SUNY Potsdam all wrote messages
expressing their prayers and condolences to the students of Tech and
the hardships everyone on campus was enduring.

Kara Whipkey joined Hall’s group to honor a friend of hers who had been shot in the massacre.

“I personally joined the group to let everyone who is grieving
know that we are all thinking and praying for them,” Whipkey said. “I
have a friend, Kristina Heeger who is tragically a victim as well, and
I am waiting to hear her status.”

“I just can’t believe something like this has happened,”
Whipkey said. “I really have no words to show how I’m feeling. All I
can really say is that I am praying for the victims and their family
and friends.”

Thousands of students feel the sentiment of Whipkey as well.

One group called “A tribute to those who passed at the Virginia
Tech shooting” is the largest group so far created for memorializing
the victims of 4/16. At 4:00 p.m. yesterday the total members was up to
5,738. By 7:30 p.m., there were close to 31,000 members. The events on
campus have spread their way across international boundaries, the
creator of this group is Paul Jansen: he is in Greece.

Another group created by Michael Leonard, a freshman at Tech,
is called “Virginia Tech Massacre Memorial Group,” “I thought this
would be a good way to increase awareness,” Leonard said.

“I was in lockdown in Torgersen Hall, and I wondered if anyone
had done it. When I got back to my room I decided I would just make one
myself.”

However, not all groups created are in good light. Some
groups, many Facebook members and Tech students have observed, are not
in good taste.

One such group is called, “Duck n Cover … The saga continues,”
where many students have voiced their opinions of the group on its
wall, asking the creator to erase the group entirely.

“I was offended by the nature of that group,” said Alex Weaver, a freshman at Tech.

But groups like these are far and few between. Students and
Facebook members have mobilized themselves on a digital front to show
their support for the Hokies, and everyone touched by the events on
this day in April. Supporters increase by the minute, and the Hokies
hear their heartfelt offerings of remorse.