The three camps appear to be "she was a druggy and deserved it", "terrible lost" and indifferent. Not to draw an unwarranted comparison to the death of Osama bin laden, but it truly has brought out the worst in people, again.
Addiction is not a fun string of hilarious incidents of partying, you do not instantly become 'a lost cause' and more importantly addiction is not limited to needles, pills and lines. in the last few days people have been commenting throughout what should be a period of relatively private grief and mourning (disregarding the notion of celebrity and the need for people to make expressions of support, sadness and personal grief) with a sideline in snide jokes and critical commentary on how junkies in some way deserve their fate and that it is inevitable. Which of course it is not.
It's also interesting how many of these commentators are quasi functioning alcoholics, workaholics, religious obsessives, sex / love addicts, shopaholics. All using the resources (socially acceptable or otherwise) that they have to sooth themselves from the reality of being human. Be it a distraction from looking at that or straight escapism.
Disconnecting yourself further from the media demonised junkies can be a comforting way of not looking at your own problems, or your own inadequacies as a person. We all have coping mechanisms and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool. Although it's a lot easier to spot such a fool when they are spouting rhetoric about how people who need help in some way are infectious waste and deserve what they get.
Another complaint was that 'real tragedies' have occurred and have been ignored and forgotten in the press blitz over 'some druggy singer'.
No one forgot about the massacre in Norway which while a brutal, tragic atrocity has garnered much more press attention that the incidents with higher death tolls happening on a regular basis in NON WHITE countries. Or the soldiers in Afghanistan.
But we live in a culture obsessed with celebrity, and when a celebrity dies then of course it will be poured over with massive, intrusive and disrespectful attention. These indignant commentators being the same Heat 'magazine' readers who've thumbed through the descent of a young woman as if they're watching a soap opera, thoroughly sated, now scream about how people have 'forgot our heroes fighting for our safety in afghanistan because of the death of one druggy'.
Fucking hypocrites. Well, whatever helps you sleep at night.
