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AIBU?

to think that people who are griefstricken over the death of celebrities have serious issues and may even be in need of professional help?

53 replies

wannaBe · 30/06/2009 13:49

I'm not talking about the ones who shed a tear/think about said celebrity all day on the day it's announced and then move on with their lives. But the ones who head out to lay tributes/who camp outside the home/travel for thousands of miles to attend the funeral/who tell people they are grieving.

This morning there was a michael jackson fan on GMTV talking about the o2 tickets, and he was saying that he couldn't yet figure out what to do about whether to have a refund or a souvenir ticket because he was so overcome with grief that at the moment he is unable to think straight.

And we get this every time someone in the public eye dies.

And it really isn't normal, and I can't help thinking that these people who need to grieve like this for someone they've never met must clearly have some serious issues in their own lives that they are unable to address, and that the public grieving somehow gives them an outlet.

OP posts:

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2shoes · 30/06/2009 18:08

yanbu wannabe, I saw the oddball and omg he needs a life

IkeaSnake · 30/06/2009 17:22

yes look

RumourOfAHurricane · 30/06/2009 17:20

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

BunnyLebowski · 30/06/2009 17:09

YAVVVVVNBU

These kind of attention-seeking saddos piss me right off.

How self-centred and self-indulgent must you be to co-opt someone elses grief and make it about you??

It's symptomatic of this ME ME ME society we have now.

Disingenuous, hateful twats the lot of them.

See also the weeping/wailing masses when Princess Di and Princess Jade snuffed it.

StripeyKnickersSpottySocks · 30/06/2009 16:45

Someone at work today was talking about how she's been crying loads afetr the MJ news. She wants to fly out to LA for his funeral.

Its not normal.

IkeaSnake · 30/06/2009 16:38

Utter freaks
i remember them asking the crowd at the QM funeral when they last saw their granparents...

posieparker · 30/06/2009 16:38

Quite strange and indulgent, if you ask me.

MummyDragon · 30/06/2009 16:35

I feel much sadder that both my parents have died than ANY celebrity, no matter what they may have done in their lives. That's normal, surely?

(Dreadful grammar in that sentence, sorry).

Kimi · 30/06/2009 16:04

sorry should have said want to to hot to type

I would not want to donate to a waste of life like him though TBH

KingRolo · 30/06/2009 15:57

kimi - you removed your whole family from the donor register because of George Best? Slight over reaction surely.

CyradisTheSeer · 30/06/2009 15:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

TakeLovingChances · 30/06/2009 15:50

I'm glad someone started this thread. Things like this always interest me.

I never liked MJ's music. Didn't dislike it, it just wasn't my thing. It's sad that a father, brother, son died, but I do not understand why E News and other entertainment programmes keep saying that people 'can't believe' he died. MJ was a human being, human's die everyday!! Yes, he died early, but it isn't a total shock when a man who takes so many medications dies.

I feel sorry for his fans who are going out of their heads with grief, but do think that they are removed from genuine reality.

As for George Best. I live in NI, not far from where he was from. I am too young to have seen him when he was in his peak performance on football pitch, but have heard a lot about him growing up. There are many murals dedicated to him here, community groups have covered up some Loyalist murals with murals dedicated to his memory and achievements. That is good thing. However, re-naming one of our airports for him is a step too far! As good a footballer he was, he was also a wife-beater and alcoholic, who ruined a perfect liver that someone else could have had.

Kimi · 30/06/2009 15:36

The only effect George Bests death had on me was to remove the whole family from the doner register.

I think some people do take the out poring of public grief too far, for lots of reasons, I think when someone in the public eye dies people do relate, it is not unhealthy to sad so sorry and move on, same as on here, when someone says they have lost someone for the most part we go so sorry and then move along.

What I really do not get is people being heart broken when take that or other bands split, now that is sad

spokette · 30/06/2009 15:35

I actually feel sorry for those who feel suicidal because it indicates that there is something lacking in their life that they use their hero worship to provide them much needed comfort.

Very easy to call them loons. It is much more charitable to show them compassion.

5inthebed · 30/06/2009 15:23

YANBU

I saw that man/teenager on GMTV as well and wondered why he wanted to keep all 17 of his tickets. They were £75 a pop. Keep one maybe, but to keep all of them so he can remember MJ? Thats just silly, considering he never met him.

Not the same thing, but I can remember how upset some girls where when Take That split up in the 90's, there was even a dedicated help line for those who did feel suicidal.

Lulumama · 30/06/2009 15:19

slammerkin, the post you linked to.. the person writing that is clearly crying out for support from her family. support she feels she has never had. so she has forged a totally one sided, but very real relationship with a man who has now died.

i do feel sorry for her and those like her , but suicide is not the asnwer and if she was well balanced and supported then she would not be posting things like that

but surely a bit of empathy and compassion is ok ? am a bit torn, as i can't understand contemplating suicde over a pop star. but i understand about depression and what makes people fixate on the unobtainable, but i don't think suicide is ever the right repsonse

spokette · 30/06/2009 15:14

How is it different from the fans obsessed with their football team or favourite footballer player? Look at the outpouring of grief when George Best died, even though his death was self inflicted and all he had done for the last 30 years of his life was to drink himself to oblivion?

I wonder how many fans will be griefstricken when Andy Murray does not win Wimbledon?

I can't explain it but fans do get fixated and it means a great deal to them that others cannot comprehend unless they are a huge fan of something else.

Committing suicide is just plain silly and self-indulgent.

EyeballsandherSunburntNorks · 30/06/2009 15:11

Oh blimey, I didn't read those. That is awful, that you would even consider taking your own life because of this, to even let those thoughts drift into your mind however casually.

Slammerkin · 30/06/2009 15:08

"I've actually been thinking about it [suicide] cuz of my parents and sister who doesn't take me seriously and they don't trust me anymore as my mum told me. She doesn't trust me and on top of that now THIS with the only man I've ever loved soo much...I just can't take it but I will live on for his sake casue I know that's what he had wanted but I'll probably go into depression and I will probably need pills... painkillers."

That's quoted from somebody on the forum LuLu linked to.

Not normal. Not mentally healthy. Completely different to feeling sypathy for his children and shedding a little tear because he died young.

EyeballsandherSunburntNorks · 30/06/2009 15:02

I don't get it. I get being sad and having a listen to the music but week after week is a bit strange. But then no one I really 'like' has died. Ask me again when Debbie Harry pops her clogs and I might have a totally different answer for you.

spokette · 30/06/2009 14:53

Actually wannabe, I think his family will be overwhelmed with appreciation that so many people loved him. I doubt anyone reasonable would say that their expression of grief is on the same scale as that of the family because it can never be.

Lulumama · 30/06/2009 14:51

the general public and fans grieving are not stoppping the family from grieving.

however those who have comitted suicide are in a clearly different bracket to those who shed a tear

you asked do these people have serious issues and need professional help.. i think yes

i also think that yes, that overstepping the mark into suicide or other huge gestures of grief does impact the real mourners and that is wrong.

but there is a huge specctrum of this outpouring of grief..from those who maybe had a little cry, to those who are taking their own lives and a lot in between

spokette · 30/06/2009 14:50

Sorry Lulu, I misunderstood.

wannaBe · 30/06/2009 14:47

not hurting anyone? What about the genuinely bereaved? His family, friends, children, who are genuinely grieving his loss.

I think their grief is overshadowed by these people wanting in on the grief action.

And yes, it's sad and shocking that he's dead but he will live on through his music. It's unlikely he was ever going to make music again anyway - even if he did make it to the o2, as far as I was aware he was going to be miming?

OP posts:

barnsleybelle · 30/06/2009 14:47

I too will remember him forever as a man who paid off a young boy not to go public with his abuse claim.
Sorry, don't mean to inflame, but good music or not i'm afraid that is what i remember when i think of him.

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