We’ve rightfully used up plenty of this digital space remarking on the ways the Internet enables people to tear each other down. But it’s worth noting those times when social media can pull us together. Such a moment occurred last night when news spread that NYT media journalist David Carr had collapsed and died. My Twitter stream was almost immediately overrun by tributes and remembrances. Carr existed at the intersection of old and new journalism, of lofty media analysis and gritty reporting, of good and bad living, of sin and redemption. In other words, he was human. And he touched the lives and many journalists, including his colleague A.O. Scott: “He understood better than anyone how hard the job can be, how lonely, how confusing, how riddled with the temptations of cynicism and compromise. And yet he could make it look so easy, and like the most fun you could ever hope to have.”

+ It turns out the one guy who could really sum up what David Carr meant to folks in media is David Carr. From the NYT: The Quotable David Carr.

+ “If I said I was a fat thug who beat up women and sold bad coke, would you like my story? What if instead I wrote that I was a recovered addict who obtained sole custody of my twin girls, got us off welfare and raised them by myself, even though I had a little touch of cancer? Now we’re talking.” From Carr’s me and my girls.

+ Nick Bilton: The two best pieces of advice David Carr ever gave me.

+ If you want a good example of why so many of his colleagues loved David Carr, watch this clip of him interviewing the crew from Vice.