Whitney Houston has died (5 Viewers)
- Thread starter Ahmed
- Start date
Oh, come on, Rebel. That statement is actually kind of b.s. though. We can give it good lip service as an idea, but the reality is nothing like that. Whitney Houston will always score far higher in our consciousness than any starving kid in Africa for the reason that she directly affected and personally registered with many more lives in this world than a random kid who dies in Africa ever could.
And it's not just kids in Africa either. Record producers, studio musicians, etc., that have all worked with Whitney Houston will never get so much as a notice when they die by comparison. They are no more "important" than a starving kid in Africa in this comparison. This is the social dynamics of life and media. Pretending that there are other possibilities than that are recklessly naive.
It's not good or bad. It just is.
And it's not just kids in Africa either. Record producers, studio musicians, etc., that have all worked with Whitney Houston will never get so much as a notice when they die by comparison. They are no more "important" than a starving kid in Africa in this comparison. This is the social dynamics of life and media. Pretending that there are other possibilities than that are recklessly naive.
It's not good or bad. It just is.
I don't think this is a question of whether they're deserving or not.
If you met your brother's girlfriend once and she died, versus some random woman who died at the same age in the next country over, of course you're going to relate to the former more than the latter. Let's not pretend those forces don't exist and that we as humans all don't treat deaths -- which happen every day -- unequally.
Millions of people may have never met Whitney Houston, but they can relate to her music, her public showbiz personality, etc., because she managed to impact their lives in some way. The same cannot be said for most people in the world, and all of us die sometime.
If you met your brother's girlfriend once and she died, versus some random woman who died at the same age in the next country over, of course you're going to relate to the former more than the latter. Let's not pretend those forces don't exist and that we as humans all don't treat deaths -- which happen every day -- unequally.
Millions of people may have never met Whitney Houston, but they can relate to her music, her public showbiz personality, etc., because she managed to impact their lives in some way. The same cannot be said for most people in the world, and all of us die sometime.
