Whenever a celebrity dies, most decent people will think that it is a tragedy. Even if they weren’t fans of the particular actor, singer or writer they will still see the death of a human being as tragic. That is the normal reaction to someone’s death.

However sadly as we all know a death in the limelight can often bring out the worst in people. It can cause people to become more judgemental and harsh than they would normally be and do things that to be blunt, make them look like complete and utter cretins.

Below are what I believe to be the worst 3 types of reactions I have seen online to the deaths of celebrities. Please remember this the next time a celebrity passes on. Obviously if you put yourself in the limelight then you can expect to be judged more harshly than someone who is not, but the following examples are just people being dicks for whatever reasons.

 

3/ The Parasites

These people will sell stories about a celeb after their passing, claiming to be their long lost son, best friend etc, and are sometimes happy to talk mere hours after the celeb they were supposedly so close to has died. Obviously sometimes a celebrity will have skeletons in their closet, or the person in question will have been their friend, but I think its safe to say that a lot of these people are often just parasites looking to get a quick buck. Sometimes even if they did genuinely know that person they will still milk it for all its worth.

2/ The Hypocrites

Probably the most famous awful reaction people have to a celebrities death is when those who slated the dead celebrity when they were alive, suddenly start acting like their biggest fans.

Among the most notorious examples include NME magazine who regularly slated Amy Winehouse, even nominating her for villain of the year twice opposite the likes of George W Bush and Osama Bin Laden. They also voted her worst dressed woman of the year twice.

After Amy died however, they were among the first to come pouring in with their sycophantic tributes. They went on to vote her the 5th greatest icon a year later, one place above Jimi Hendrix! They also went on to vote Rehab as the second greatest song ever made too.

Eminem meanwhile is yet another example of this gross type of hypocrisy, not only with Amy Winehouse whom he ridiculed when she was alive, yet praised after her death, but with Michael Jackson too. As you can see in the above picture Eminem slated Jackson and made jokes about him being a pedophille. After his death however he praised him as a misunderstood genius.

Someone should ask Eminem what he actually thought about Michael Jackson. Was he a misunderstood genius Eminem was happy to slander as a child molestor because it was trendy to bash him? Or was MJ a revolting pervert whose perversion Eminem was happy to overlook when it became trendy to praise him? Either way Slim Shady doesn’t come off to well.

Then of course there are the papers who have literally become a by word for this type of hypocrisy with their reactions to everyone from Princess Diana to Whitney Houston’s deaths.

These people I think are much worse than just hypocrites. They actually profit on the persons misery when they are alive. They kick this person when they’re down, follow them everywhere they go and take unflattering pictures of them and plaster them everywhere for people to see and laugh at. “Look how fat she is, ha he’s going bald”.

They profit from making these people’s pain worse, but then when that person dies and it becomes to trendy to say you like them again they praise them; perform at tribute concerts to them, give interviews about how influential they are, sell tribute issues about them, and profit from that.

They’re not only parasites and hypocrites, but sheep too who always manage to find a way to twist something to benefit them.

However having said that I feel that there are people who blow this type of reaction out of all proportion and act like everyone who grieves for, or even says they like the deceased celebrity is one of these people.

Indeed many people act like these celebrities were never popular when they were alive. The three most popular examples of this Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse and Michael Jackson were all massively successful when alive.

Also discovering an artist after they died or even because of their passing is not the same thing either.

Its important to point out who the actual hypocrites are, rather than just accuse everyone who likes a deceased artist of being a hypocrite.

1/ The Grief Police

These are the people who disgust me the most when a celebrity passes on, those who go around telling people which persons death to be upset over.

I guarantee you whenever any celebrity dies you will see this message from someone either in your facebook timeline, your twitter feed, or even just in the comments section in a yahoo article.

“Oh come on everyone why are you getting upset over this one person you didn’t even know dying. A solider was killed today do you care. There are millions of people who are dying of starvation everyday and you don’t care about them”.

It always annoys me the way these comments are usually the highest rated, or everyone feels intimidated by them.

First of all anyone who makes a comment like that doesn’t give a damn about the poor starving children, or the soldiers who are regularly killed in pointless conflicts. If they did they would be out doing something about it rather than ranting like a sad git on a tribute page to a celebrity. Ironically Amy Winehouse (who sadly recieved this kind of treatment in particular) did more to help people through her many philanthropic activities than these people have ever done.

http://amysarmynow.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/amy-jade-winehouse-quiet-generosity/

http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/celebrity/199249/amy-winehouse-in-naked-photos.html

http://www.looktothestars.org/news/5914-amy-winehouse-donates-clothes-to-charity-shop

http://www.contactmusic.com/news/generous-amy-winehouse-paid-for-pals-life-saving-operation_1239621

People who leave these comments about how they care about all the little people rather than celebrities who die only say that to try and make themselves look smarter.

It is perfectly okay to feel upset over a celebrity you liked dying. Obviously within limits, but still I am not ashamed to say that I felt really devastated when Amy Winehouse, whose music really touched me deeply passed on.

Fact is these people who claim to care about all the little people are full of shit as there is someone who dies every few minutes. Unless they are constantly crying over everyone who dies every few minutes then they are just like us. They recognize every death is tragic, but are obviously more affected by those whom they have a connection with in some way, and chances are they wouldn’t be saying this if it was their favourite celebrity who died.

Its such a flawed logic they have anyway. Apparently because there are horrible things happening to other people, you can’t be upset over someone else’s death? Where does it end? Are we going go to someone’s funeral and tell their loved ones to stop crying as there are hundreds of people dying of starvation today and that’s a worse tragedy than the one person they like dying?

They are grief police going round telling people not to feel bad about whomever they deem unworthy of sympathy’s death.

They attack the recently deceased on their tribute pages and try and turn grief into some kind of competition. Pitting all of the “little people” who die against the celebs to see which is more tragic and that’s why I find them disgusting.

Now fair enough you might want to argue that a celebrities death should not get more exposure than another important world even. That’s fine, but that’s not the same thing. These people I am referring to will, especially if the celebrity in question was an addict make out that the celebrity is undeserving of attention, or sympathy and that anyone who feels bad about their deaths is a moron or a sheep.

Its often worse when there is another tragedy side by side.

The classic example of this was when Amy Winehouse died and there was a tragedy in Norway on the same day, where Anders Breivik slaughtered close to 100 people. There were endless remarks like this.

“1 junkie against 90 people in Norway I know what is the true tragedy”

“its disgusting that they haven’t mentioned anything about Norway since that junkie died”

“RIP to those people who died in Norway. Their deaths are real tragedies unlike that fucking Junkie whom I have no sympathy for as she brought it on herself.”

I cannot begin to describe how much these grief police sickened me that day.

Again are the two tragedies in competition with one another? Big deal an Amy Winehouse fan might be more upset about her dying.

If someone’s friend died that day would you tell them not to feel as bad about that, as its one person dying compared to the hundred in Norway.

Again if you want to say there should be more coverage given to the Norway tragedy as its a bigger event, fair enough, but as I said it went further and nastier than that. The hatred that Amy Winehouse got that day was staggering, all because she apparently stole sympathy from the Norway victims by dying? WHAT A BITCH!!!!

Once again the funny thing is the grief police didn’t care one bit about the victims in Norway anyway. The Grief Police who were so upset about the victims in Norway, showed far more hatred towards Amy Winehouse than to Anders Breivik, the man who actually carried out that atrocity.

Ask yourself this, never mind who got more sympathy, who got more hatred that day? The young 27 year old woman who never did anyone any harm, who was, as you can see in the links I posted above a generous, charitable woman, who brought joy to millions, this blogger included with her music and whose only apparent crime was dying on that same day? Or the mass murdering lunatic who actually carried out that act of unspeakable horror and was even proud of the atrocity he committed!

Anyone who is reading this and who made those vile comments about Amy Winehouse do not for five seconds tell you actually cared about those people in Norway. If you did then the monster above would have been the object of your hatred, not the kind, caring woman above.

Oh I am sure these people would say they did hate Breivik more, but again ask yourself this who was the one they left all of the hateful comments to that day?

Who was the one whose life they wrote was meaningless? Who was the one they told the most disgusting jokes about? Who was the one they said they were glad had died?

That would be the woman above.

The idea that anyone could look at those two people and have more hatred towards Amy is sick, and its ironic that the people who did have that reaction are the ones who went about lecturing other people on morality.

Conclusion

As we can see there are sadly many revolting ways ordinary people can react whenever a celebrity passes on, which are motivated by many things from opportunism to just plain hypocrisy.

Ultimately however at the end of the day there’s no excuse for having more hatred towards Amy Winehouse for being an addict than towards a mass murdering sadist like Breivik.