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Thursday, September 3, 2009

Glorifying Dying

I'm sick of lyin' I'm sick of glorifyin' dyin'
I'm sick of not trying, shit I'm sick of being a nigga
Destiny sent me to this dread and she said she felt led
to offer me some wisdom from this notebook she read
and it said that right then the black man's downfall
was to not know that we were not ever niggas at all, hmm


Goodie Mob “The Experience”

Ever since MJ died, I’ve been noticing that people are becoming a whole lot more vocal in their grief. Maybe it’s because I see it all the time on Facebook, but whenever a celebrity or pseudo celebrity dies, people lose their ever loving mind. It seems like overkill to me. While, I can understand friends and family being grief stricken, for the life of me, I can’t understand the outpouring of emotion over some of these people that I just know people didn’t care about when they were alive. For example, a couple of days after MJ, that guy Billy Mays died. I don’t know anything about the guy personally, but I seriously doubt that he had a large impact on the culture. At least not large enough to elicit the level of faux grief that was displayed all over the internet. I’m just saying, his death was not an OMG moment for most of the world. His friends and family – absolutely, but a stranger that only saw him on commercials? I can’t see it. I don’t think I’m being heartless when I say that.

DJ AM died the other day. People in my demographic don’t know nothing about him except that he used to date Nicole Richie and survived a plane crash. Pretty sure you didn’t cop that new DJ AM “Playing Other People’s Music” CD. Or you didn’t go to the DJ AM “Foam and Jagermeister” party hosted by Nicky Hilton. Why are you so sad? Because you heard of him a little? What’s your connection to him? Would you care if it was some regular dude that died with a bag of crack and a pipe under him? Would you turn up your nose and call him a junkie, or would that be a tragedy as well? (Don’t get me started on the word “tragedy.” It wasn’t tragic if he did it to himself on purpose. )

But for real, it just seems like people are either pretending to be sad or are actually sad just to be sad. Family, friends, someone that you have a connection with, a cultural icon -- I can understand. But I’m not gonna cry because someone I’ve heard of died. People die every day. I’ll reserve my grief for people that actually mean something to me, not pseudo-celebrities. It just seems like, people are glorifying people for dying. If they didn’t matter to you while alive, then death shouldn’t cause you to all of a sudden act like they were your favorite entertainer.

12 comments:

Jameil said...

lol. we've discussed this many times. i don't know what it is about the recent spate of deaths that has folk going crazy! i think people need a little perspective. maybe no one close to them has ever died so they get crazy over everyone. idk.

Keith said...

True Dat! We indeed seem to be becoming a culture of celebrity death worshipers.

dejanae said...

dont u know better than to talk ill of the dead man?
lol
sometimes people do get a lil extra but hey
thats their prerogative

Go said...

I agree...good Post...look at you posting post and shyt! LOL

Sincerely,

Go

Nerd Girl said...

I totally agree. My aunt? My grandmother? For them, yes I shed tears. Billy Mays, Farrah Fawcett, MJ? Not so much. I'm sorry for the pain that their families are experiencing, but their deaths do not personally affect me and I'm not going to pretend like they do.

Now if Prince dies before I do, all bets are off!

Anonymous said...

Sorry to post as anonymous...don't have an account and too lazy to create one first THEN comment.

I agree with you. It's straight overkill when it comes to celeb deaths. However, I'm not in the least surprised. We live in a culture that wants constant entry into and updates regarding celebrities' lives. Many people want to feel like they "know" them. The paps don't get paid large sums of $ for celeb photos just because. That stuff sells like hotcakes.

It stands to reason that their deaths are closely followed and mourned by those same folks who want to "know" them or those who want to feel like they are a part of something.

Not so Anonymous said...

Facebook is definitely the incubator for the glorifying. Maybe other sites are too, but I only deal with FB.

I do think some of the deaths over recent months have touched people on some level, and the fact that anyone and everyone shares that impact with the world really magnifies it and sheds light on the overkill of it.

Does my comment make any sense...I just reread it. I dont' feel like rewording it though, lol.

Aretha

Ladynay said...

Good point. I'm just an emotional softie so bad news makes me go awwwwwwwww and happy news makes me happy whether I know the person or not! *shrugs*

MJ made me sad. Mr. Mays and DJ AM made me go "damn".

People do go overboard about folks they didn't have a connection with though so again, good point and post.

pserendipity said...

I will never get it, either. When MJ died, and people were talking about they didn't know what they were going to do? WTH? I'm thinking "What? Ya'll don't know that dood like that."

12kyle said...

i feel your point. when mj died, it hit me. i can't lie. not to the point of tears but i feel like i lost somebody who i really knew. i said that i was gonna blog about it but i couldnt put it into words. as strange as it sounds.

honestly, i dunno who dj am was. sorry that he's gone but i didn't know that dude.

12kyle said...

btw...that verse is one of the tightest that cee-lo ever spit. one of the tightest that i've heard and it's very fitting.

good post

Southerner in Suomi said...

I'm with Nerd Girl. Don't really care about most of these celebs, but I'll snap if prince dies.

And maybe it's like they say The Experience, "it's all for another nigga to see!"