Celebrities die a lot these days, don’t they? At least, we are made to confront the fact more often. Before social media, older people of renown existed in a kind of sub-Schrödinger state, in which I assumed they were dead until informed to the contrary. Now, we all find out bad news immediately, in a blizzard of digital RIPs, jokes and opinion. It’s a kind of accelerated mourning, with little space to process the loss of our own formative years.
But social media – which I affectionately think of, in Lady Gaga’s words, as “the toilet of the internet” – also has a more positive face at these times. It’s a forum in which unexpected, funny stories are shared, from Roger Moore’s charming autograph shenanigans to George Michael leaving a cheque for £25,000 to distraught, debt-ridden strangers.
It’s beautiful to read tweets about Luke Perry calming kids down with balloons on a plane, or helping to change lightbulbs. A reminder that these were people, not just personas. Good people, who we never really knew. Keith Flint – whose diabolic image I grew up both terrified of and compelled by – had a charity jar above the fireplace of the pub he owned. Whenever any patrons made the weak, predictable joke, a good cause somewhere saw the good stuff.
Celebrities die a lot these days; often while they are still alive, if you keep half an eye on the news. We are braced to hear our heroes are heinous, above-the-law deplorables behind closed doors. It’s an atmospheric pressure that makes these stories all the more uplifting: to hear that not all famous men are cut from the same cloth. The sharing is an act of healing, and more direct and personal than obituaries. These are eulogies, for the funeral we find ourselves thrown into more and more.
