Explaining Negative Affect across Los Angeles in the Aftermath of Nipsey Hussle’s Death: The Role of Neighborhood Context

This study explores trends in the distribution of negative emotional expression on Twitter during the parasocial grieving process following the death of a popular musician, Nipsey Hussle (Ermias Joseph Asghedom), on March 31, 2019. We analyzed a dataset of 43,566 tweets that were geolocated within the city of Los Angeles between March 1 and April 29, 2019. Ontology-based software Emotive and Stresscapes were used to score tweet content for emotional content. A general increase in sadness and stress occurred in the immediate aftermath of Mr. Asghedom’s death, with higher concentrations of stress in tweets from neighborhoods of Downtown Los Angeles, Hyde Park, Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw, and Watts. These neighborhoods also had a higher proportion of Black residents than other LA neighborhoods. This study demonstrates how social media can serve as a tool for identifying and understanding neighborhood-level emotional responses to traumatic events and highlights the importance of the demographic context in shaping grief expression.