Ah, the standard SDMB how to human-Beep boop I am above all that silly pop-culture nonsense-i don’t even know who a celebrity is thread.
You do realize that the general public being upset when thing happen to celebrities is not a new thing, it’s been happening ever since there were celebrities to begin with.
Every time a Star Trek:TOS cast member goes, it hurts.
Neil Armstrong hurt too.
Deaths of John Lennon and Princess Di really really bummed me out.
Phil Hartmann, too.
You say that as though becoming unhappy because famous strangers dying is a good thing.
No one said it was good. Being sad isn’t a great thing. Dismissing other people’s emotions doesn’t speak to a high degree of maturity and understanding, though.
Yeah, I sometimes feel a bit weird because well, no, they don’t really affect me emotionally in any sort of “real” way. I mean, I may be sad an idol of mine died. I may be dismayed by an early demise. I may have a little bit of a memorial and listen or review their work when they pass away (for example, I really rediscovered Prince when he died.) But I don’t feel any sort of “real” sadness the way I do when something I cared for has died or gone away or disappointed me. It’s more an intellectual sadness than an emotional one to me, if that makes any sense.
Are you seeing a lot of that?
I think the celebrity death that affected me the most was when WWF wrestler Owen Hart died after falling from the rafters while trying to rappel into the ring for his entrance in 1999. Granted it didn’t actually air on TV but when the announcer Jim Ross came on and said Owen had died it just hit me like a ton of bricks. It was just so shocking and unexpected; it made me stop watching the WWF for two months.
And it makes me angry today looking back about how many unneccesary risks both WWF and WCW did at the time trying to compete with each other.
– John Donne
That’s one perspective, which I don’t agree with. I do not become a bigger man with each baby born, and I do not diminish with each death.
This is not to say that you shouldn’t be constantly heartbroken over the 150,000 people who die every day - that’s between you and your emotions. But my monkeysphere is smaller than the entire planet, and in my opinion there’s nothing wrong with that.
Or possibly because they help them understand the world. Most celebrity deaths don’t particularly affect me, but Anthony Bourdain was an exception. Along with his loss, I mourned the loss of someone with what I see as particularly astute observations on the world and human nature. (I did also meet him in person once at a book signing, and my impression was that his TV persona was not so different from his IRL persona - blunt and genuine.)
To a lesser extent I felt that way about John Lennon’s death, too, partly because of how he died and partly because I was young enough when it happened that I didn’t know about some of the more unsavory sides of his life.
Affected? Yes. To the point of tears, not that a can remember.
I remember being quite depressed when Chris Farley and Phil Hartman died.
I remember reading an article about the problems of celebrity culture (no cite, sorry, it’s half remembered and been a long time). According to that article, after you’ve seen someone and made eye contact so many times, some part of your brain starts to think of them as someone you know. After you’ve that happens so many more times, you start to think of them as part of your close community. It’s a process that works really well if you live in a medium sized village near other medium sized villages (you’ve seen that man a ton. You may not know him, but he’s probably friendly.) It’s a process that utterly fails us when the movie/television/sports star of your choice has been projected into your living room more times than your nearest neighbors and spent a decent chunk of that time looking soulfully into your eyes. I’m assuming that’s what happens to some people - the celebrity might not be part of their “monkeysphere,” but their brain is telling them the opposite.
For me, there’s also some part of it that highlights that someday people who are actually close to me will die, and so, too, will I.
I’ve seen a lot of death. Way too much. Both natural and unnatural. I may be slightly numb to it. I grieve greatly for those in my life but not much for those outside. That isn’t to say I’m not saddened by the deaths of celebrities I admire. And on occasion I will genuinely grieve because of how much they meant to me. I didn’t cry like he was a family member when I heard about Neil Peart but became depressed and spent several days listening to his interviews and music. It doesn’t usually hit me like that but I understand how it does affect others.
If people who entertain me can no longer do so, I mourn the loss. e.g. Jim Henson, Terry Pratchett, Carrie Fisher, Robin Williams, Brittany Murphy, Heath Ledger, Charlotte Coleman.
If a very old person who is unwell finally dies, like all humans inevitably do, I am grateful for their contribution and am respectful of their passing.
Though I have sometimes been dumbfounded by the unexpectedness, I don’t think I have ever cried at the death of a celebrity.
Please explain how this is anything other than meaningless pablum. How the fuck did a basketball player “help [someone] know themselves”?
Unless they welcome knowing themselves as a shallow idol worshipping voyeur, for whom other peoples’ achievements and shortcomings are more important than their own.
And there it is. Did you actually ask to understand or to take pot shots? It’s not a good look. Maybe listen with an open mind instead of looking for chances to show how superior you are.
This thread is filled with people being all “Of course not! I am above such things!” and then “Well, except for this person and this person.”
Different deaths hit people differently. Considering them shallow and yourself on some higher plane is a disgusting way to view your fellow humans. Prince hit me hard because he and his music were “with” me during various stages of my life. To never be able to see him perform live again or get new music to the soundtrack of my life was a blow. For me. Is that a valid enough reason?
Don’t conflate my attitude with callousness. I’m not above feeling great grief and I am not shallow or disgusting. Celebrity deaths don’t affect me much because I’ve had to endure worse. If you think my attitude is shallow, than you are totally incorrect.
Talk to me about your grief after you watch your highschool sweetheart spend 7 years consumed by brain cancer dying in bed after being comatose for two weeks at age 30. I still hear the rapid shallow breaths as she struggled to stay alive, they never leave me.
Its been over 25 years since it happened. You think I’m over it? You think I’m shallow because Kobe’s or Prince’s death doesn’t mean that much to me in the scope of things?
I think you’ve misunderstood the arguments of the two posts preceding yours. In the absence of clarification by Dinsdale and HelenTroy, my take is as follows:
In post #56, Dinsdale implies that people who are emotionally affected by celebrity deaths are “shallow idol worshipping voyeur[s]”.
In post #57, HelenTroy is taking Dinsdale to task for his remarks:
Nobody who is emotionally unaffected by celebrity deaths (this would include you) has been accused of being shallow.
I typically do not get emotional at the deaths of celebrities unless it is someone whose work has had an impact on my life especially if it was from the years of my youth.
I was affected by the deaths of Sam Kinison, Kurt Cobain, Scott Weiland, George Carlin and to a certain extent Chris Cornell.
Other than those I cannot recall any other celebrity deaths that made me particularly emotional.