Heath Ledger.
The more I think about his shocking death, the more I have come to realize how small the world has become (and I mean that in a “creepy, closing in on us” way, not the hippie, “Kumbaya” Disney ride variety) because of this crazy digital age we’re living in:
- 600+ articles about your death written and posted within mere minutes.
- A complete slideshow retrospective of stills and publicity shots of your newly concluded life.
- Your Wikipedia fully updated within an hour of your death to more accurately represent you in the past tense.
- Your career accomplishments become a series of easily digestible bullet points, no more than four.
- Footage of your body is streaming on blogs and entertainment portals in 17 languages in 24 different time zones.
What have we become? I am clearly a proponent of the Internet and the 24-hour day it stands for, but at what cost are we delivering these “newsworthy” items?
People’s lives, and deaths, have become content and gossip. For the unfamous, their MySpaces and Facebooks become a mausoleum. All guised a “tribute,” of course.
No one should ever consider these things an homage to these lost lives. It is merely capitalizing on and making an advertising spectacle of their deaths.
Would Perez Hilton ever encourage us to all pray for his daughter, family, acting community and friends? Would TMZ ever upload video of candles being lighted in mourning of his passing?
iTunes would sooner create a “REMEMBERING HEATH LEDGER: 1979-2008” store tout so they could sell his movies in a packaged bundle.
We are pathetic.
