Celebrity Deaths

First and foremost, I would like to say that I respect everyone as human individuals because no matter our progressions or withdrawals, interests, circumstances or investments, we all end up in the same place at one time or another and for varied reasons - six feet under. Our fates will always come back to the harsh reality that also is our lives, and there is no fountain of youth or immortality that we can drink from to attempt to escape our situations. With that said, I will now begin to state my opinions about celebrity deaths, which is an issue that has come to my mind since the recent passing of Paul Walker and the combined reactions to it that I have come across. 

Because of Paul's celebrity status, and wealth I presume, of course, from all of the revenue from his acting career, it is inevitable that the news of his passing or of his new purchase of a car or of the strange green stain on his pants that night at the red carpet, hypothetically, will be heard by the vast majority of individuals. Nobody can prevent that because the media is a large vermin, per se, that spreads news incredibly fast about the successful people that the status quo would like to hear about because of the popularity of the movie(s) they have acted in. With that said, it would be understandable that most people will hear about the deaths of celebrities rather than the deaths of hundreds of thousands of humans in third world countries. However, when the tragic typhoon had recently struck the Philippines, a large number of people around the world also showed the same generic social-media based care and support, similar to that shown to Paul Walker. Thus, in basic terms, people will sympathise towards what they are aware of, if they choose to.

Paul was a good looking individual. His physical appearance had catered for millions of lovestruck eyes, and this was seemingly convenient for these lovestruck individuals because they have access to the movies he acted in, the interviews he participated in and photoshoots they premiered in. It is safe to say that most people judge others by physical appearance, and that in Hollywood, your physical appearance definitely takes part in how famous you are - Paul's definitely had. With the constant display of his physical state, some people had obsessed, and placed some of his characteristics on their invisible checklists of possible suitors - "blue eyes, check! Blonde hair, check! Stunning photogenic smile, check!" That was slightly irrelevant, but it leads me to my central point.

My central point is that obsession exists and it is not necessarily a bad thing, because dreams also exist. The mixture of the two can create a concoction known as dreamy obsessions, which assists in the popularity of celebrities. Most famous people, including Paul, are either envied, looked up to, or adored. We, as humans, enjoy the screening of possibilities in life because most of us have no access to them. To dream is one thing, but to do is another, and most of us have no chance of being able to do. For example, take Paul's awesome driving skills in the Fast and Furious series. Ironically enough, most people do not possess these skills, thus yes, I am claiming that the driver of the red Porsche that Paul was in did not posses these skills. In a way, though, that driver represents us as individuals. We place our celebrity obsessions in the hypothetical passenger seats of the hypothetical 'car' that we drive called life, and we say, "I like what you have done there, watch me do the same!" and then most of us realise that we can't, and excuse the pun, we come to a crash.

Yes, indeed, famine, deaths, terrorism, rapes, and all other terrible things do happen to other people across the world and we do not project our care, however it is because the need for care is not projected upon us, by our projectors, the media. We live in a world that is based on telling us what to prioritize and what is important and somewhere near the top of the list is celebrity or wealthy people's lives and deaths. When it is projected onto us to care, we do. We send out health support, food support, shelter and clothing support, anything we can. We form charity organisations for those projected events and we all sympathise with one another about it, connecting with one another. Yet our efforts hardly make a difference. Paul Walker's death displays this. His death took up most news headlines. We wake up to check on the news and in our breaks read the news and in the duration of the days speak of the news, how is it that one can ignore the passing of a common figure rather than the passing of an uncommon figure? It is highly impossible. We all use the internet, and the internet today was flooded, wherever you went, with the passing of Paul, because it is a method of conversing about the news that we have heard. Do we mean it? Do we know his family, thus we sympathise because we empathise with them? No. We do so because our varied bulletins are filled with one predominant factor - death, and death is so real to us, just like our dreamy obsessions, that we have to include it in our lives.

It is indeed silly, thus, to sympathise for someone that we do not know, but I suppose we are using the fate of that person we do not know and hypothetically applying it to someone we may know, someone that resonates within us the same way that Paul Walker or any other celebrity does, and we weep. Regardless of who the famous person is, the connection is still there, that we are humans and that we go through the same things. Also, some celebrities make it easier for the general public to connect with them - for instance, if you really supported a certain charity and a certain celebrity continuously donated to it, then you would feel a telepathic bond to that celebrity because of your passion combined with theirs. For many people, Paul shared the same passion with them in that sense. I mean, we could mourn about your Uncle Bill that passed away last Christmas from cancer, and who helped millions of homeless youths get back to their capitalist lives and had an impact on them, but really, the only people who would be able to possibly mourn him would be you, his other family members, and those youths, because that is as far as, unfortunately, his status has spread him. The media did not care, thus the greater good did not see to care. It is, with a deep sadness, as simple as that.

For many, some celebrities are a beacon of hope, a piece of aspiration or a role model, even if what is shown may be fake or genuine, be it even a glimpse - however, if people are given the connectors, they can connect. The media is our connector and unless it is someone personally known to us, without the media projecting the most popular events, we cannot connect. People sympathise because they are mourning a loss, not necessarily based on the person they have lost, but also what came with that person which had made a personal impact on them. Let all those who wish to weep, weep, for we all will feel a need to weep about different things and different people, be not the person who attempts to halt others' weeping because of your personal opinions. The world is wired this way and you can only do so much but comply. At the end of the day, Paul Walker, regardless of his acting career or fame, was another human being who has met his fate a little too early, may he rest in peace.