I'm a little upset about Whitney Houston's death.
Not because i'm a fan, in any capacity. Nor because i think she was a great person who did great things or any of that perhaps-delusional nonsense. No, i'm upset about Whitney Houston's death because of the public reactions to it across Facebook, the Cheezburger network, and everywhere else i spend time on this vast Sea of Internets. The controversy has been frankly weird and uncalled for.
Yeah, Whitney Houston died at 48 because frankly that's what happens when you eat a mountain of cocaine with your nose for breakfast. This isn't something that needed to be pointed out by, you know, everybody. We get it. Quit acting like you're the only one who knew she was a cokehead.
And sure, i'm irritated by the fairweather fans, or whatever the opposite of that is, who are jumping on the "I always loved Whitney Houston" bandwagon because they think that will make them cool, or something. You didn't like her, or even didn't know her, before she died, and i'm not sure who you think you're fooling.
But by far the people who piss me off the most are the ones who are trying to trivialize her death. Get a grip on yourselves. As Mitch Clem once said, "It's sad when anybody dies. Anybody. Except Jerry Falwell." And that applies to Whitney Houston as well. Many people were genuinely touched by her music. That's the nature of music. So if your intention by spewing acid over anybody who expresses a fondness for her work is to injure that person in some way, then fuck you. Shut up.
What hits me hardest, though, and the reason i chose to write this blog, are the things that are being passed around the internet by that particular subset of people. There's this one:
Which ticks me off, but not for the reasons it's getting at. Quorthon's death is sad, for sure. He will be missed deeply by his friends, family, and fans, who surely consider him more important than Whitney Houston. But here's what they're missing: it's not Whitney Houston's fault that his death isn't being covered by the media. It's theirs. Yes, you very same people who put this exact image together, who are now passing it around your Facebooks and Tumblrs and Twitters and whatever the fuck else, are to blame for his obscurity. Because you didn't talk about him enough in life. Whitney is remembered by millions because she was topical to millions; i'm willing to bet that the majority of people clicking the "share" button on the Facebook had never cared to mention Quorthon in casual conversation with friends, or even never heard of him until they saw this image, and were suddenly enraged. And besides that, did you make any posts in his memory besides this one? Is your only tribute to this great man to set him next to Whitney Houston, in order to devalue her? That's really shitty, guys. I'm pretty sure it's not what Quorthon would have wanted.
In fact, he probably wouldn't have wanted the rampant media attention that Whitney got. So your point is moot.
But what pisses me off even more are the vast multitudes of posts that say bullshit like, "How can you be upset about Whitney Houston's death when there are STARVING CHILDREN IN AFRICA?!" or worse, "WHY ARE PEOPLE POSTING ABOUT WHITNEY HOUSTON BUT IGNORING THE TROOPS WHO ARE DYING FOR YOUR FREEDOM?!" If you have posted either of these, i say again, fuck you. Both of those are cheap shots that probably took you less than five seconds to come up with. They're both the equivalent of a knee-jerk Yo Momma joke, easy to fire off and requiring no thought. And they're both irrelevant.
Starving children in Africa and our troops overseas have received, by far, more media coverage than Whitney Houston ever has. I'm pretty sure that nobody forgot about those things simply because Whitney Houston came along. Do you want a week-long media circus every single time a child dies in Africa, or for every single fucking troop that comes home in a bodybag? Actually, i kind of do, because if those sorts of things were thrown in the public's faces on such a regular basis, the war would have ended long ago and some millionaires would probably have actually donated fortunes to African relief rather than tax evasion. But politics aside, Whitney Houston is going to be forgotten by the media, again, within days of her burial. Fallen troops will not. Starving babies will not. These are things that have received far more media attention and Facebook chain-posts than any dead celebrity, and will continue to well into the future, and forever, since we will never achieve world peace, as long as we are humans.
So please, show some fucking respect for the dead. Quit your bitching about Whitney Houston. If she didn't affect you on a profound level, then ignore it. It's no harder to ignore a Facebook post about Whitney Houston than it is to ignore a Farmville invitation, and if you don't like all the media coverage then quit checking TMZ and refocus your valuable time on some other news source. This is the internet, for fuck's sake. There is no shortage of news outlets, and i'm sure many of them have ignored Whitney Houston entirely.
So stop focusing so much on detracting Whitney Houston and start focusing more on popularizing things you do like. Take that Quorthon example above; here's what you should have done:
Much better.
Not because i'm a fan, in any capacity. Nor because i think she was a great person who did great things or any of that perhaps-delusional nonsense. No, i'm upset about Whitney Houston's death because of the public reactions to it across Facebook, the Cheezburger network, and everywhere else i spend time on this vast Sea of Internets. The controversy has been frankly weird and uncalled for.
Yeah, Whitney Houston died at 48 because frankly that's what happens when you eat a mountain of cocaine with your nose for breakfast. This isn't something that needed to be pointed out by, you know, everybody. We get it. Quit acting like you're the only one who knew she was a cokehead.
And sure, i'm irritated by the fairweather fans, or whatever the opposite of that is, who are jumping on the "I always loved Whitney Houston" bandwagon because they think that will make them cool, or something. You didn't like her, or even didn't know her, before she died, and i'm not sure who you think you're fooling.
But by far the people who piss me off the most are the ones who are trying to trivialize her death. Get a grip on yourselves. As Mitch Clem once said, "It's sad when anybody dies. Anybody. Except Jerry Falwell." And that applies to Whitney Houston as well. Many people were genuinely touched by her music. That's the nature of music. So if your intention by spewing acid over anybody who expresses a fondness for her work is to injure that person in some way, then fuck you. Shut up.
What hits me hardest, though, and the reason i chose to write this blog, are the things that are being passed around the internet by that particular subset of people. There's this one:
Which ticks me off, but not for the reasons it's getting at. Quorthon's death is sad, for sure. He will be missed deeply by his friends, family, and fans, who surely consider him more important than Whitney Houston. But here's what they're missing: it's not Whitney Houston's fault that his death isn't being covered by the media. It's theirs. Yes, you very same people who put this exact image together, who are now passing it around your Facebooks and Tumblrs and Twitters and whatever the fuck else, are to blame for his obscurity. Because you didn't talk about him enough in life. Whitney is remembered by millions because she was topical to millions; i'm willing to bet that the majority of people clicking the "share" button on the Facebook had never cared to mention Quorthon in casual conversation with friends, or even never heard of him until they saw this image, and were suddenly enraged. And besides that, did you make any posts in his memory besides this one? Is your only tribute to this great man to set him next to Whitney Houston, in order to devalue her? That's really shitty, guys. I'm pretty sure it's not what Quorthon would have wanted.
In fact, he probably wouldn't have wanted the rampant media attention that Whitney got. So your point is moot.
But what pisses me off even more are the vast multitudes of posts that say bullshit like, "How can you be upset about Whitney Houston's death when there are STARVING CHILDREN IN AFRICA?!" or worse, "WHY ARE PEOPLE POSTING ABOUT WHITNEY HOUSTON BUT IGNORING THE TROOPS WHO ARE DYING FOR YOUR FREEDOM?!" If you have posted either of these, i say again, fuck you. Both of those are cheap shots that probably took you less than five seconds to come up with. They're both the equivalent of a knee-jerk Yo Momma joke, easy to fire off and requiring no thought. And they're both irrelevant.
Starving children in Africa and our troops overseas have received, by far, more media coverage than Whitney Houston ever has. I'm pretty sure that nobody forgot about those things simply because Whitney Houston came along. Do you want a week-long media circus every single time a child dies in Africa, or for every single fucking troop that comes home in a bodybag? Actually, i kind of do, because if those sorts of things were thrown in the public's faces on such a regular basis, the war would have ended long ago and some millionaires would probably have actually donated fortunes to African relief rather than tax evasion. But politics aside, Whitney Houston is going to be forgotten by the media, again, within days of her burial. Fallen troops will not. Starving babies will not. These are things that have received far more media attention and Facebook chain-posts than any dead celebrity, and will continue to well into the future, and forever, since we will never achieve world peace, as long as we are humans.
So please, show some fucking respect for the dead. Quit your bitching about Whitney Houston. If she didn't affect you on a profound level, then ignore it. It's no harder to ignore a Facebook post about Whitney Houston than it is to ignore a Farmville invitation, and if you don't like all the media coverage then quit checking TMZ and refocus your valuable time on some other news source. This is the internet, for fuck's sake. There is no shortage of news outlets, and i'm sure many of them have ignored Whitney Houston entirely.
So stop focusing so much on detracting Whitney Houston and start focusing more on popularizing things you do like. Take that Quorthon example above; here's what you should have done:
Much better.
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