Why this tale riveted the world

In the darkness, down the twisting stone tunnels and through the murky water, they awaited an uncertain future. Outside, under the skies of a modern planet, cameras and bystanders and a rapt global audience of many millions looked towards the remote hills of northern Thailand, connected by cables, satellites, wireless signals and gadgets.

We have barely a hint of what the past 18 days were like for the 12 young Thai soccer players and their coach. But for the rest of us, watching from afar as an uneasy planet’s media juggernaut beamed us live shots and the unknowable was revealed drip by tantalising drip, we knew one thing: It was hard to look away. Particularly when these two words were splattered across the world’s websites and apps: “WATCH LIVE.” Were they even alive at all in there after so many days? Probably not. And yet they were. Could we get a glimpse? There they were, captured on video, waving tentatively to what had fast become their public. Could they be pulled out, through water that rose and fell and threatened to rise again? That question, drawn out for days as the clock ticked menacingly, found its answer with a resounding yes.

“We really needed something to cheer for right now. We needed some positivity. We needed a good headline that could carry the day,” says Daryl Van Tongeren, an associate professor of psychology at Hope College in Michigan. “People started believing, like a snowball rolling down a hill: ‘Maybe they WILL get out’,” he said.

It was easy to conclude for several days that they’d met their end prematurely and unfairly. When they did not — when children not unlike those in our own lives had a fighting chance at being okay — many eyes locked in on the story. At that point, the saga was also fuelled by hope, and by a possibility of a good outcome.

There are other reasons this particular story was so

captivating, though. They cast light on some things about ourselves and about the strange forces that shape our lives in a modern media society.

● It’s become cliche to compare the real world to showbiz (“It was like something out of a movie,” so many witnesses to disaster say). But even bearing that in mind, it would have been impossible to craft a Hollywood treatment that felt more cinematic.

● Our world today is utterly consumed with technology but also increasingly uneasy with the way it affects our lives and landscapes. So to look at such a remote area and watch a good outcome unfold because of smart uses of technology, from the pumping effort that drained water out of the cave to the carefully calibrated oxygen tanks used in extracting the kids, illuminated the ways technology can encourage our humanity rather than whittle away at it.

● Saman Gunan, 38, a Thai Navy Seal died in the cave late last week

during rescue efforts. People who die heroically trying to help others become martyrs who are seen as the best of us.

● It’s pretty obvious that our media-consuming world needs some news that couldn’t possibly be contentious or political. This story managed that. The enemies were nature and the ticking clock.

Would the waters rise again? Would oxygen run out? Would rescuers beat the countdown?

In the end, it was the kind of story that we are literally conditioned through life to consume. It takes its place among similar underground sagas that entranced the planet such as the trapped Copiapo´ miners in Chile in 2010.

We watch, we wonder, and we hope for a happy ending. And then we move on.

This time, though, in this contentious season of humanity, we can do it with a smile.