Desvastation

devastation

Pronunciation: /ˌdɛvəˈsteɪʃn/

noun

[mass noun]

1great destruction or damage: the floods caused widespread devastation

2severe and overwhelming shock or grief: she spoke of her devastation at his death

Oxford Dictionaries 

I have never paid much attention to the world devastation until last week, when as part of my assignment I had to draw and recreate a pose that portrayed a sense of devastation.

My first thought was to Google search for a "devastated" image. I was a little bit shock to see that the word had been wrongly used by the media in so many occasions. I found large numbers of images of celebrities with the captions like "Devastated by divorce after a two weeks marriage". 


Obviously I was on the wrong path to find some devastating images, and then it clicked! I had to search for the names of the events that devastated entire cities in order to find what I was looking for. Am I the only one that thinks that this is ridiculous? I really don't think the Kardashian divorce is devastating, in the same way as the Tsunami in Japan or the Earthquake in Haiti. 

I believe the media should choose properly the words they use when reporting something. So they don't undermine the meaning of the words. Words can be powerful, but only when they are used correctly.

With my rant out of the way, here are my drawings and final pose of a devastated person.