The New Worst Person On Social Media: The Anti-Celebrity Death Mourner

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Paul Walker died the other day. It was a bummer. As soon as I heard about the actor’s death, I walked outside and gave my Japanese-made car a hug. I found out about the actor’s death like I assume most other people did, through social media. My Facebook feed was a smattering of “OMG RIP Paul Walker so sad [insert sad emoji that best conveyed said person’s feelings about mortality and tragedy].”

As much as I roll my eyes at almost every trendy thing to post on Facebook (no one cares about your half marathon), I actually don’t mind the outpouring of mild sadness that comes with a celebrity death. These people were probably fans of the actor/musician/athlete/porn star, and if they’re sad about not getting to enjoy their work anymore that’s totally understandable. On a side note, I’d really like to see more statuses mourning the loss of porn stars.

“RIP Rod Jammington. So long, my long friend. You left us unlike you came: too soon.”

In fact, from now on, every year on Facebook I’m posting the In Memoriam video from the AVN Awards, and right after someone posts a sonogram, too. It’ll be a circle of life type thing, plus it’ll remind everyone that the little blurry bundle of joy they’re looking at was made from hot steamy bonin’.

While I don’t mind the mourning statuses on Facebook, Twitter, etc., there is something terrible that comes out of a celebrity death, other than the, you know, death. That would be the self-righteous statuses of the obnoxious, holier-than-thou assholes who feel the need to call out all the statuses mourning the celebrity as shallow and unnecessary.

“Wish people would care as much about the 8 million children who starve to death everyday as they do about some actor.”

Oh my God! How insightful! Other people in the world die! GOOD POINT! And they die more tragically at that! You’ve done us all SUCH a favor by writing that. I, for one, am glad that YOU care about these children. I assume you post statuses about them all the time to raise awareness, since you clearly care so much. Here, let me just peruse your timeline to see these statuses, which I assume are plentiful, YOU being so caring and all. Aaaaaaannnnnd, oh wait, YOU NEVER POST ANYTHING ABOUT DYING CHILDREN FUCK YOU.

These people are the fucking worst. They’d like to think they’re acting as some sort of moral compass, but the truth is they’re more like a backseat driver to your morality, shouting out unnecessary directions as you begin to regret ever giving them a ride in the first place.

The vast majority of these people do not actually give a fuck about other people dying. They’re just being contrarians, trolling for attention in the form of imagined head nods, and feeling vindicated as soon as someone comments on their status with something like, “I KNOW! It’s like, ‘Hello people, he was just an actor.’”

TOTALLY! That human being who just lost his life was just an actor, and thus not deserving of even a throwaway memorial on Facebook that took two minutes to craft. He’s just some rich spoiled actor who’s now living it up with all his money in fancy pants Hollywood Heaven with Tupac and Marilyn Monroe.

The other day, the dumpster fire fueled by hipster musings that is Thought Catalog posted a column entitled, “I Don’t Really Care About Paul Walker’s Death.” That’s pretty typical of a Thought Catalog writer. Few things are more hipster than loudly declaring your indifference to a mainstream actor dying. So whatever, so cool. That opinion will really drop some striped leggings.

Paul Walker is too mainstream for sympathy, you guys, even if he died in a tragic accident that was in no way his fault. Meanwhile these same assholes are the type of people who STILL mourn Mitch Hedberg, a dumbass drug addict who killed himself with heroin nearly a decade ago. This is mostly, I assume, because he looked and sounded like them. Same for Elliot Smith, whose absence from this world is somehow deserving of routine regret despite the fact that he stabbed himself in the chest.

The very title of that article is idiotic. The author DOES care about Paul Walker’s death, at least enough about it to commit time to writing about it, and possibly make money off it, however minuscule the payment for the article might have been, if there was one. He cares more about Paul Walker’s death than the people posting 10-word statuses about how they care about Paul Walker’s death. Within the article there are gems like this:

I think about all the victims of family members dying in car crashes, or about people who have experienced a traumatic car crash themselves. How angry they must feel. How pissed off they aren’t in a headline — that sympathy toward their loss isn’t being circulated around the world. How they have no voice, because they’re nobodies.

1) What’s funny is that the author probably does not normally think about victims of car crashes, so in a way, Paul Walker’s death served to make him more sympathetic to, and aware of, others. Paul Walker’s death was more meaningful to him than he knew, and more meaningful than most other deaths. He should probably thank Paul Walker for touching him in such a profound way.

2) You’re a REAL asshole if at any point after getting in an accident you think, “I better make the paper for this.”

3) By the way, fatal car accidents make headlines everyday. People love that stuff, or does he not listen to Don Henley?

I also enjoyed this glorious piece of nonsense.

I think your emotional priorities are fucked up if you’re more focused on giving your sympathy to a celebrity that will never know your name instead of channeling that energy into the people in your everyday life.

Let me go all Allen Iverson for a moment, if I may.

*Puts on unnecessary but super cool looking sleeve*

Listen, we talkin’ about tweets. Not a monument. Not a monument. Not a monument. We talkin’ about tweets. Not a monument. We talkin’ about tweets, man. I mean, how silly is that?

*Takes off sleeve, half-asses it at work for the rest of the day*

That article, and more importantly that mindset, contribute even less, and are even more worthless than the most misspelled, emoji filled status lamenting the death of Paul Walker or any other celebrity. I’m not saying that celebrity deaths are all that important, or more important, just that I understand why someone would memorialize a dead celebrity in a 12-WORD STATUS over say, a complete stranger they never knew. Also, people post stories about strangers dying all the time. ALL THE TIME. There’s at least one “So sad 🙁 [link to soldier dying of cancer after marrying high school sweetheart in hospital chapel]” in my feed every day. You know what’s less important than a celebrity death though? What some random asshole thinks about your interests and feelings.

Also, Paul Walker was a pretty damn good dude.

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Rob Fox

Rob Fox is a Senior Writer for Total Frat Move (as Bacon), Rowdy Gentleman, and Post Grad Problems. He is a graduate, without honors, from the University of Missouri. From St. Louis originally, he currently lives in Austin, Texas, and still has not admitted to his family what he does for a living. He is also prone to having wet nightmares ever since losing his virginity in a haunted house. Email: rob@grandex.co

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