Sympathy Boners

So, most of you are aware of the recent passing of Whitney Houston. Personally, this death did not affect me, but it did bring to my attention three things that kind of piss me off.

Firstly: people who jump on the drama bandwagon

So first of all everyone was like, “RIP” and all sad and shit. This kind of thing is fairly normal; we often feel like we know celebrities personally, because we follow their lives very closely and such. It’s normal for people to feel sad when a favourite celebrity dies and it’s normal for people to share their feelings over Facebook and such. So this didn’t bug me.

But it’s like when there’s any form of drama or tragedy, people have to join in. So a celebrity dies, and suddenly people who know two or three songs are posting “RIP” statuses and saying things like “We will always love you” (I did appreciate this wordplay). It’s like a new form of attention seeking. When there is an opportunity to participate in drama, people jump right on the bandwagon.

I don’t know if people are trying to prove that they are cultured or deep, or just simply trying to fit in (“I, like you, know who Whitney Houston is. Similarly I, like you, mourn her death. Therefore we are the same and that means I have social acceptance... blah blah blah” I could write a whole other rant about this – it’s called Herd Mentality). So people create drama where it is not needed and act like they are more deep/cultured/concerned than they really are. This annoys me generally, but you know what? It’s harmless; let people have their drama. It will pass in a few days.

But then comes: people who jump on the condescension bandwagon

The posts saying “RIP” and “We will always love you” (wordplay is still appreciated) are replaced with posts saying “OMG I hate it when people start liking a celebrity just because they died”. We all know it’s irritating. Honestly, it’s getting old in my opinion. You’re not the first person who’s realised that people become overnight fans when a celebrity passes away.  You’re not the first person who’s annoyed by it. You’re not being terribly clever or better than anyone else by pointing this out. You’re just parroting what everyone said about every other celebrity that has died.

In your efforts to put other people down for mindlessly following a trend, you yourself are mindlessly following a trend. In the process, you are prolonging your suffering – because people will inevitably argue with you, or post long comments agreeing with you. I’m sure you, like me, would rather just see the entire thing blow over and not let it carry on for longer than it needs to? The best way I can think of to sum that up is: why add fuel to a fire that pisses you off? (weak analogy – I know).

**I also realise that I’m writing an entire blog post about something that pisses me off and adding fuel to this metaphorical fire myself. I realise that this makes me a hypocrite. However, I’d like to point out that my blog is for entertainment purposes and not just a place for me to bitch, so pipe down**

So finally we come to: people who get giant sympathy boners

This is something I’ve noticed recently. I’ve seen posts all over saying “One person dies, a million cry” with a picture of Whitney Houston and then, next to it “A million die, no-one cries” with a picture of starving children or something similarly tragic.

**on a quick note I’d like to point out that this statement is very exaggerated, and both ignorant and arrogant – I’m sure that the children’s parents, siblings or friends cried when they died. Just because you, personally didn’t cry, doesn’t mean that many people didn’t mourn the death of these kids**

So now we have people who are effectively saying “You cry over something trivial like the death of a celebrity, but I worry about REAL things, like starving children and world hunger.” Well, I’m very proud of you for being such a fantastic person, well done. You’ve pointed out that there are starving children in the world, and put us all in our place. You also posted that picture from your computer, iPhone or Blackberry.

I’ve decided to call this ironic hypocrisy. You’re not a humanitarian, and posting soppy status/pictures of poverty and shit doesn’t make you one. At least people mourning for Whitney Houston have heard some of her songs, or at the very least recognise her name. Their grief is more valid than yours, logically.

So go take an emotional wank and get over yourself. Posting tragic pictures on Facebook/9gag doesn’t make you deep, it makes you a high-and-mighty tool.

So yeah, it pisses me off.

**On a side note, I’m still quite amused by the “We will always love you” thing. Clever wordplay gives me a giant erection. Also, I’m incredibly tired today so I’m sorry if this post is a bit incoherent/hard to follow/badly explained. Oh, and the term "Sympathy Boner" is stolen from Jennifer's Body. And "Emotional Wank" is stolen from Franki**