To be creeped out by people who make a huge deal out of celebrity deaths?

Right, but anyone who thinks they "know" Matthew Perry or David Bowie either has a tenuous grasp on reality or is just putting themself into the centre of the story.

You can feel that this person's art played a significant part in your life but feeling a "connection" with someone whose public image was so heavily curated is impossible.

Matthew Perry is a good case in point: his public image was so completely at odds with the reality of his life: a tortured alcoholic and drug addict. You'd think someone would triangulate this and realise that the "Matthew Perry" they are grieving didn't actually exist. Sadness and compassion for the reality of his life are completely understandable but identification with the fictional character (which didn't exist) is a bit nuts.

I don’t get the hysteria when a drug addict or alcoholic dies. Yes it’s sad but nobody gives a damn when it’s the local heroin addict from the flats in town do they?

See my later post, it autocorrected from adored.

Anyone's death might be desperately sad but there's no excuse for the people who wait in the wings, practically frothing at the mouth to make it about them, tripping over themselves to write a status on Facebook either announcing it or weeping and wailing about it.

#rip #gonetoosoon #flyhighangel

Vomit.

Ah seen your update. Sorry.

What do you mean "a mother of two young children whom she adopted"? She gave birth to them.

YANBU

And people who are over invested in celebrities on general are just a little odd. But there is a whole industry thriving off it (Hello, Ok magazine, reality TV etc), so it isn’t unusual.

They feel like they know these people. They follow their lives snd work and admire them. They feel a bond and connection with them.

Its really not hard to understand why they are upset.

I’ve never really followed a band or celebrity, but I can still understand what’s going on here.

Adored not adopted.

I felt like you until Mathew Perry died and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I didn’t follow him on social media or I wasn’t a super fan or anything but it really upset me.

I think it’s the reality of the fact that no one is invincible and if it can happen to them, it can happen to anyone. Which is obviously common sense but it still makes you sad.

I know for me I watched friends for the first time when I was going through severe PND/psychosis and it absolutely helped me. So it stirred up a lot of personal emotions.

I was shocked and saddened when Princess Diana died. Here’s the thing though. She was a young, fit and healthy woman, the mother of 2 young children whom she adopted. In my mind completely different from say a 90 year old dying. Or a drug addict who isn’t going to win father of the year.

It's not a modern thing either. I remember going around to my best friends house the day Elvis died and the whole family (mum, dad, friend, and sister) were crying like they had lost a relative.

Another friend cried when John Lennon died, but that was desperately sad because he was minding his own business when he was assassinated.

I knew one of them who did, and she just said something like "I know he was a paedophile but he was a brilliant singer" I was speechless! Just glossing over the abuse because she liked his songs. There is no hope for humanity with people who can shrug off abuse like that. It's no wonder so many "slebs" were at it if those close to them just shrugged off their abuse.

I felt very sad when Michael Moseley died. My partner did too.

Although obviously not to the extent I would if it was someone I actually knew.

And I wouldn’t post about a celebrity death. I think it’s a hangover from when well-written posts used to go viral on facebook, and people would try to say something profound.

YANBU

Its pathetic.
Main character syndrome.
People die.
Get over it.

I was living in London at the time and I didn't get it. It was crazy.

Yes my MIL does this. Her Facebook page is some kind of unofficial celeb obituary interspersed with memes about immigrants. Not surprisingly I have unfollowed her as it’s just depressing

I cried when The Queen died. My dm was the same age and ill at the time too,I think that had a part to play.
But I will never understand weeping and wailing over celebrity deaths.

i’m on a couple of websites devoted to an actor who died last year in his 80s after 20 years of ill health and a lifetime of cigarettes and alcohol and questionable behaviour.. It is full of people going on about how shocked they were and he died too young and they love him and how the light has gone out of their lives and offering each other support. I don’t think it’s creepy. I think it’s either sad or ridiculous. Sometimes both. Before anyone asks-I’m in the groups because of the pictures of him when he was the most gloriously beautiful young man.

I've been sad when some celebrities have died, but the calling in sick and mass hysteria is weird.

A celebrity I really admired died a few years back, and I was in a music group where his sister was as well. I went on to privately message her with my condolences for her loss, but when I went on the group people were on tagging her and discussing their loss, and equating her loss with theirs. I was horrified. As if a singer you like dying is equal to your sibling dying.

Grief vampires.

I understand people being upset. It's natural that when someone who provided the emotional backdrop to your childhood/teenage years dies it will affect you.

It's people's insistence on putting themselves at the centre of the narrative which I find cringeworthy: having to take days off work, performative crying and self-indulgent SM posts for days and talking about how "devastated" they are. As if they had a personal relationship with the famous person.

Its knowing where the line is.

Yes this one was a surprise who would cry for him.

This hits the nail on the head for me. I've only ever felt a passing sadness when I hear that anyone has died, famous or not, unless I've been particular close due to being family or close friends. Certainly not obsessed about nor randomly bursting into tears for people on the periphery of my life.

Yet, 2 years ago, for the first time ever, I shed a tear over a celebrity death. That was Olivia Newton John. My own reaction really shocked me! But it was because of the memories it brought back of my teenage years as she was the "background music" to my teenage angst, broken romances, etc - my "go to" back in my teenage years when I'd had a bad day was to listen to her LPs on repeat! Through my life, I've always kept an ear open to what she was doing in her life, reading magazine articles, seeing her on chat shows, watching her sing in the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics, then her opening her cancer centre and her Great Wall of China fundraising walk. I realised she's been a kind of "background music" throughout my life, all based on my teenage angst years. There are still a couple of her songs that I can't listen to without a tear in my eye. But it's because of my personal sad memories it brings back that are linked to her, not directly because of her.

They’re not though. Their music is, and when they’re dead their music still is. So to the average person nothing changes.