We need to stop being gossipmongers of celebrity deaths.
Impact — a word that rarely comes up when we discuss the term celebrity and it is the first thing you will feel when the announcement of their death comes out in the news.
I was never a major Michael Jackson fan, I found his music irritating growing up but as a child I had a VHS tape that I made with a mission to curate what pop culture, specifically music, was like in the early 2000s.
The first thing you would see in the tape was a mash-up of a royal family procession with an old song from the previous tape’s owner which eventually melted into the cinematic version of Michael Jackson’s You Rock My World. Something only a few people had seen and could only access on my tape.
So naturally, I went to watch his documentary This Is It and immediately fell in love with the star. He went from the first video in my memory bank to a star gone too soon. It hurt to know that he would never make music again.
Watching the documentary I learned that it’s OK to mourn celebrities, regardless of what kind of impact they left on you. They're all sentimental to us so naturally it would make sense for us to feel we have lost a friend or family member. That is why so many people were touched by Princess Diana’s death. And that is why so many people were touched by the passing of Riky Rick.
However, in the age of social media the way we grieve has changed. When we lose someone we all come together and remember them through social media posts, stories and even commemorations on YouTube. There is always a modern way to remember a friend, a father or just a star.
Which is where the problem comes in with today’s celebrity grieving process. The death of Riky Rick touched many of those who loved his music, and the way he changed people’s lives. Though he had his flaws, Riky was an important facet of SA history.
But as news of his death was surfacing last week, the internet was flooded with posts that seemed more concerned with being the breaking news under the veil of grief.
Without even knowing his reasons, Riky’s suicide made him the poster boy for how hard it was to be a man. He became the muse for the idea that if you talk about mental health problems you become a meme and if you keep quiet you become a memory. A bizarre take that implies your mental health is the perfect thing to share on social media rather dealing with it (with a qualified psychologist).
And then there were those who centred themselves in Riky’s death, especially his fellow celebrities like AKA who shifted blame to pressure from women. This is the same AKA who often plays victim when things go awry in his personal relationships and somehow forgot that suicide affects women in the country like his late fiancée as well. We only know his side of the story about the argument that preceded her alleged suicide, a suicide preceded by reports of abuse by the All Eyes On Me singer.
At a time when the reasons behind Riky’s suicide were unclear, Pearl Thusi managed to frame his death around cyberbullying, particularly the cyberbullying she has experienced. Another contradiction considering the actress has built her brand as the Queen of CBD Twitter. This is a faction of Twitter famed for rowdy haranguing which mirrors a number of Thusi’s commitment to bullying on and off social media. A particular case is the gender-based violence experienced by Bonang Matheba at the hands of local DJ Euphonik, which she has made a mockery of.
It is valid to mourn a celebrity. It is healthy. You need to let go of the very person who inspired you or helped you find yourself and even helped you become the person you are today. But what is not OK is the need to become the Shwashwi of grief — being the star tweet of someone’s death. Grief makes us do all kinds of things but perhaps it’s OK to sometimes just log off and deal with life’s problems without the likes and comments.
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