to be sick of all these so devasted x or y celeb/pop star died

[mum80]

Ok so its sad when people die young. However, I personally feel sympathy should be for those closer to home.
Disclaimer. Mum died recently so touchy.

I think the Diana thing was just directly proportional to how massive a fictional character she was. She was on TV/media- constantly, she was part of a soap that'd been running for a thousand years, she died really suddenly and tragically. As with WH and AW- all hammering home the message that money can't buy happiness. It's just the kind of stuff that happens- collective outpouring of grief over pretend person. I don't think it insults the bereaved because it's not the same thing as being bereaved- although it shares the same language.

I was sad about Whitney's death, for selfish reasons, her music formed part of my memories (whether I liked it or not).

It was sad, another bloody waste of a life.

I am not devastated though, and certainly not grieving.

I don't like the hysteria, BUT who are we to judge whether someone feels grief? Why do we feel the need to compare to others? When my MIL died I was devastated, I know the difference. When my neighbour died, I grieved. When my friends child died, and I didn't even know her very well I was utterly distraught... not as distraught as her poor mother but does that mean my feelings were invalid?

I don't like frothing, but on the other side, the dismissal of sadness is something I dislike as much.

I am very sorry for your loss Mum80 but out of all the frothers, there may well be a few who were fans, who really did care, who really are sad, and who just want to say something, anything to acknowledge it. Try not to let hysteria bandwagon jumpers make you angry. There's a lot of people who play the 'I care more competition', you have to ignore it. x

YANBU.

I did look up "I wanna dance with somebody" on Youtube last night and played it, thinking of the time in my life when it was in the charts and the memories that it brought back. And that WH looked happy and young in the video (although who knows), and what a shame that this life had ended sadly, and I felt sorry for her family and friends.

But no, I didn't feel devastated or anything I'd call grief, and I can't think of any famous person who's died where I have felt "grief". I think it's a natural reaction to feel sad, maybe shocked - intimations of mortality et al. That's empathy, and human nature.

The "Diana phenomenon" was new in our culture, and I'm not sure it's healthy - I'm not sure it's made us any better at dealing with our real, personal losses, this public conspicuous grieving tbh - we still expect people, in the main, to shut up and get on with it when they lose someone. Which is odd.

YABU- Some people are attention seeking. Some people genuinely do identify with celebrities they don't know as though they do. Imagine any teen idol with teenagers fainting at his feet. They genuinely believe they love him while he is alive and would feel his death intently. Some people may associate a musician's music with helping them get through a difficult situation or time in their life. Who are you to tell people how they should feel?

OP didn't say "sad" though, she said "devastated" and that is the difference barbiegirl.

I've felt sad when someone famous died but I've only felt real devastation a handful of times (my grandparents and my children).

You can feel devastation on your face and see it on other people's. When we lost our daughter it had only been eleven months since our son had also died. When we arrived at the cemetery for her funeral a young couple were just leaving. They had just buried their baby, and although I never met them, never spoke to them and only saw them as they drove by us, looking at that woman's face was like looking in a mirror. The way her face looked was the way my face felt.

You can be sad or sorry and you can empathise and even shed a tear for someone when you don't know them. I did cry when I saw some elderly people in Haiti on the news, suffering from dementia and living on the street under canvas, frightened and crying to go home. It was that news report that had me donating to their appeal and it still can make me feel sick and weepy now, wondering what happened to them. But I wasn't devastated, no matter how sad and sorry I was for them. I think I could have claimed distress, but not devastation, I do think it takes a more personal tragedy to bring that about.

I feel sad for her daughter i know what its like to loss a parent so young and it is sad she died we put these people up there on this pedstal and take great delight in seeing them fall off as for diana i think it was more the way she died,being chased by paps and causing car to crash. If WE didnt buy all the mags and papers then they wouldnt have been chasing,us as joe puplic want all the lastest goss and pics and love seeing it yet not see the hurt and damage it causes the person and the family.

I don't think the Diana phenomenon was new- it just coincided with the real start of 24 hour news which made it all much more accessible.

Part of the reason I defend it is because of the accusations of 'competitive' or inappropriate grief. In RL when someone dies, I've seen so many people withdraw from the bereaved under the excuse they don't want to be 'jumping on the bandwagon'. I think this mentality contributes to how the bereaved are often left isolated.

I know when I suggested sending a work colleague a card from the department after a bereavement people objected on the grounds 'it wasn't our grief'. I found that odd.

I'm guessing that "devastated" of Facebook land just has a poor grasp of English. It's not unusual or strange to feel sad when someone that you're a fan of dies. I'm not devestated Whitney Houston has died, but I can feel sad for those people that know her, and feel sad for the waste of such a talented entertainer.

I had some really happy times in my late teens, linked very closely to Whitney Houston, so yes, I was sad to hear of her passing in such horrible circumstances.

A few years ago, I didn't want to burden a friend who had lost her daughter at a young age, with a minor sadness of my own. She replied that she didn't have the copyright on grief, and that makes sense to me. We all deal with our own private griefs in the way we feel best, no one is right, no one is wrong. Didn't a psychologist suggest that the outpouring of grief around Diane was because people felt they had been given permission to mourn in a world that encouraged hardness?

I wonder whether the "devasted" lot have ever experienced the loss of a very close relative/friend. I doubt they could have.

I'm pleased for them, but they really do not understand what devastation really is.

Sorry to hear about your mum, OP. I lost my mum a few years ago - it's shit, isn't it :(

Utterly agree wrt "devastated". Same people are probably regularly discusted too

There are a couple of famous people whose deaths have really upset me, but I certainly wouldn't claim to have been devastated and I certainly didn't grieve.

Op sorry about your mum x I dont see why people get hysterical when a celeb or famous person dies , I saw it on FB yesterday morning and there was RIPs and songs all over i though FGS get a grip , Im not a hard person I have feelings i just dont need to weep and wail over a singer or whatever ,