How to Make a Celebrity Death All About YOU

You KNOW who you are...

REDUCTRESS.com from March 2014: Tasteless Ways to Make the Next Celebrity Death About You

http://reductress.com/post/tasteless-ways-make-next-celebrity-death/

When a celebrity dies, we all mourn. But some of us need to let everyone know how deeply we’re affected by this devastating loss of beautiful, ageless talents. Use these tools to channel people’s interest from the tragedy to yourself, and let them know that this is really all about you:

Mention the Real-Life Connection You Had With The Departed

Did you stand next to James Gandolfini in a supermarket once? Use this incident and embellish details. Make others certain that the two of you shared a meaningful connection and that you witnessed him in a rare moment of vulnerability. Share an anecdote that illustrates how gracious and clever he was; if necessary, fabricate the encounter entirely. The facts aren’t as important as the truth of your incredible grief in this moment.

Exaggerate the Importance of Their Work in Your Life

No one ever really bothered to ask you anyway, so it’s perfectly believable that Paul Walker got you through a very difficult time with his work in The Fast and the Furious. Saying you had “all the VHS’s” of a certain celebrity adds a childlike sentiment to your sadness at their departure.

Share Important Facts About Them That You Just Learned

Listing facts about the departed (even if you didn’t know them until you read their Wikipedia page) shows that you understand their importance in the cultural narrative. Sharing photos of the deceased from iconic moments in their career or childhood proves that you really know who they are and what they did. You get it. The most.

Idolize, Idolize, Idolize

Like most people, you may have had an average appreciation for Elizabeth Taylor. That doesn’t mean you can’t call her your “greatest role model” in your 500-word Facebook eulogy. Be highly specific in your adoration; it will show how well you articulate the complicated nature of loss.

Every tragedy in the news is a chance to remind the people around you that you are capable of feeling. But celebrity deaths are the greatest tragedies of them all, so take every opportunity to insert yourself into the discussion of their lives and deaths. The important thing is that people see that you’re feeling this celebrity death more deeply than they are. They need to know that their pain is nothing in comparison to your grief upon your hero’s death. Making a celebrity death about you is a great reminder that you exist, even if she no longer does.

Updated On: 1/15/16 at 08:41 AM

Can we get a moratorium on "This dead person would be blank years old today!" threads, too?

whoops, post in wrong thread.... big time. sorry. DELETED. NEVER MIND.

Updated On: 1/15/16 at 10:29 AM

The call is coming from within this thread!!! Get out! Run!!

My favorite is the inevitable Happy ___th Birthday post to a dead celebrity. I just find it so weird and creepy. Just so you all know, I don't want any post-mortem birthday announcemets. I'll be dead. Stop counting. You may celebrate my fabulous life but it makes no sense at that point to continue celebrating my birth.

Talking about death,and respect your remarks PJ, why do people find it necessary,or are allowed to, to put crosses,tie flowers etc on the roadside where someone crashed and died? Why not make a shrine everywhere someone drops dead? At least there would be lots more flowers scattered around[even if they are plastic like the roadside ones].

5am-can't sleep-celebrity death topic-roadside death--see the connection? Neither can I.

SweetDreams from SL.....x

I find celebrity death hijacking and the attendant revisionist history as annoying as the rest of you. But, aren't the offenders free to eulogize the deceased as they see fit?

Updated On: 1/15/16 at 07:01 PM

I have always felt that the general reaction to Michael Jackson's death was a perfect example of how ridiculously people react to a celebrity's death. Yes, he was extremely talented and hugely influential to pop music. But throughout his entire career, there were multiple controversies, from extreme plastic surgery to a Peter Pan complex to child molestation accusations that magically washed away to dangling his baby by the arm off of a balcony. But the moment that he died, all was forgiven and forgotten. Everyone only remembered the good, and he was idolized as the perfect saint and savior of pop music. Why can't we appreciate the art that a person has left behind without pretending that they were a flawless gift to the world?

FN you KNOW Mr/Ms Platypus means MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !

I suppose, after posting this, this is hypocritical of me but...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ETHEL MERMAN!!!

I agree with the sentiment of the article and appreciate that it uses extremes as examples. But we all draw our own lines, don’t we? What might, to me, read as using a celebrity death as an excuse for a narcissistic, self-aggrandizing Facebook post penned for maximum likes, might, to the author, be coming from a place of genuine grief and loss.

When Bowie died, 75% of the posts I saw on Facebook read this way to me – over-the-top “OMG how will we ever go oooooon now?!” kind of stuff. Paragraphs upon paragraphs. I rolled my eyes hard and repeatedly that day. And that’s probably because David Bowie didn’t especially beat my drum. He was exceptionally talented, but I failed to see the mystique that most people seemed to. All that stuff about him going back to his home planet and “Who was the real David Bowie?” etc. Cancer sucks, and he died too young, but I didn’t feel like a giant had fallen. So the eulogizing struck me as excessive and self-indulgent, everyone trying to out-grief each other.

But on the other hand, boy, oh, boy, when Leonard Cohen passes away (assuming he doesn’t outlive me) I’ll likely have similar feelings that people felt for Bowie – an actually profound sense that the world is now devoid of something extraordinary and that someone whose work has been intensely influential in my life is gone.

I felt genuinely sad when Mike Nichols and Philip Seymour Hoffman died, and I penned my own small tributes to them. I did not feel much personally when Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston died, so I mostly shut up and let everyone self-flagellate grotesquely in peace.

But isn’t any public eulogizing inherently selfish? You’re expressing to your public that YOU have been affected. So, what’s the solution? No public comments on artist’s deaths at all? That’s silly and infeasible. All any one person can do is do it in their own way, try to make it honest and reasonable, and hope it doesn’t annoy the sh!t out of everyone else. But in the end, we all draw our own lines, and to what extent is it fair that you try to convince anyone else that their line should be your line?

While people are free to write their thoughts anywhere they please, I find these "eulogies" to be incredibly selfish, especially when considering the family of the celebrity. THEY are facing the loss, much more than any fan. There's also so much disrespect - all I saw about Alan Rickman's death were Harry Potter quotes and grievances. Alan Rickman played so many other incredible roles that nobody seemed to be talking about - and of course the most important role - Alan Rickman the person. I wish people would realize they're talking about a real life person, not just a movie character or actor.

Concern Trolling? Regardless, I find any post about the deceased to be grasping for attention and I typically will roll my eyes when I see one.