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[Te] So when did death stop being sad and stuff!?

Wild horses

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So when did death stop being sad... was I on vacation!?

So I have been thinking about this alot recently, mainly due to the fact that if you're a celebrity it seems your days are numbered if the last couple of months are anything to go by... So first there was Farah and Michael Jackson... Ok so anything surrounding Michael Jackson is going to turn into a circus therefore I was half expecting to hear the jokes after his death... perhaps not the day after but ok we'll let that one slip by... Then there were a few crude remarks about Farrah and her illness etc. Now it's Patrick Swayze. A group of kids that were like 13 got on the bus and started chatting about some assembly they had at school about Patrick Swayze... about his career and about his death. It was a subject for alot of fun... Especially the 'Twitter scandal', 'Death by Twitter' etc. I wondered if it's just because these are celebrities and so we can detach ourselves from their deaths, however, I remember not that long ago a friend of a friend commited suicide and there was like the 'we must be sad' obligatory FEW DAYS before getting on to how funny the circumstances were surrounding his death (Won't go into the details though)

I do have a pretty dark sense of humour myself and I'm down with the whole 'Look on the bright side of life thing'. I think humour is a great tool to face life's challenges and I actually think that due to the positive effect that laughter has on our health and stress levels it may even be just a normal human response... mode of survival almost... My family have so demystified death that they have taken to buying eachother plots in our local cemetary as birthday presents, and have even had arguments about who's is the best (Really..... no joke :shock:) So I get it... Death can be funny

But really.... THIS funny!??? :D
 

Haphazard

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I think it stopped being sad when we reached about 5 billion people.
 
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Phantonym

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As you said, laughing about death is a mode of survival. It seems that these past few years have been much more about one disaster following another than ever before.

People die all the time but the notion of death has been amplified and people are satiated with it. Laughing about it makes it less scary. There's no escape from it but people still try to escape thinking about it.
 

runvardh

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It's getting that far along in the years that all those very famous people in the world are getting closer to their expiry dates. Anyone surprised doesn't understand the numbers. As for the lack of solemnity: humour and pain are eternal partners, so one one comes out to play so must the other. I guess it helps that they're well known by enough people with no real attachment to them.
 

kryten5786

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perhaps because death is everywhere.... TV, video games, movies, the US is in two wars yet few seems to care or sacrifice because of it.. I couldn't believe the jokes being made about Michael Jackson the night of his death... Jimmy Kimmel couldn't wait one day out of respect?
Maybe this is just the same old cycle that history go's in until some "event" challenges society to look at it self again. it happens about every 80 years...so...we're due this upcoming decade.
 
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Phantonym

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Maybe it's also about the tendency that there isn't much respect going around? Everybody's life is everybody's business. People's lives are too accessible and the boundaries get easily crossed even when it might be unintentional.
 

Kyrielle

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So when did death stop being sad... was I on vacation!?

So I have been thinking about this alot recently, mainly due to the fact that if you're a celebrity it seems your days are numbered if the last couple of months are anything to go by... So first there was Farah and Michael Jackson... Ok so anything surrounding Michael Jackson is going to turn into a circus therefore I was half expecting to hear the jokes after his death... perhaps not the day after but ok we'll let that one slip by... Then there were a few crude remarks about Farrah and her illness etc. Now it's Patrick Swayze. A group of kids that were like 13 got on the bus and started chatting about some assembly they had at school about Patrick Swayze... about his career and about his death. It was a subject for alot of fun... Especially the 'Twitter scandal', 'Death by Twitter' etc. I wondered if it's just because these are celebrities and so we can detach ourselves from their deaths, however, I remember not that long ago a friend of a friend commited suicide and there was like the 'we must be sad' obligatory FEW DAYS before getting on to how funny the circumstances were surrounding his death (Won't go into the details though)

I do have a pretty dark sense of humour myself and I'm down with the whole 'Look on the bright side of life thing'. I think humour is a great tool to face life's challenges and I actually think that due to the positive effect that laughter has on our health and stress levels it may even be just a normal human response... mode of survival almost... My family have so demystified death that they have taken to buying eachother plots in our local cemetary as birthday presents, and have even had arguments about who's is the best (Really..... no joke :shock:) So I get it... Death can be funny

But really.... THIS funny!??? :D


Sometimes it's not about something being funny. Sometimes a topic is not funny at all, but laughing about the topic removes tension and keeps an otherwise depressing notion from crushing people.

Most people don't want to watch actors and other "ledgendary" people since childhood die, as that makes them realise that one day, they, too, will die.

Also, celebrities these days are akin to the heroes and villains in myth. Because we have idealised them so much and placed them on such high pedastals, they have, in our culture's mind, become like gods--immortal. So when one dies, I suspect there's a large amount of disbelief: "Oh they can't possibly be dead! They've been around since I was a child and they still had that vigour and vitality! No, it's all a scandal!"
 

Wild horses

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Sometimes it's not about something being funny. Sometimes a topic is not funny at all, but laughing about the topic removes tension and keeps an otherwise depressing notion from crushing people.

Most people don't want to watch actors and other "ledgendary" people since childhood die, as that makes them realise that one day, they, too, will die.

Also, celebrities these days are akin to the heroes and villains in myth. Because we have idealised them so much and placed them on such high pedastals, they have, in our culture's mind, become like gods--immortal. So when one dies, I suspect there's a large amount of disbelief: "Oh they can't possibly be dead! They've been around since I was a child and they still had that vigour and vitality! No, it's all a scandal!"

a I go along with this actually... aren't there some people looking for MJ in Mexico ! :cry:
 

Wild horses

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perhaps because death is everywhere.... TV, video games, movies, the US is in two wars yet few seems to care or sacrifice because of it.. I couldn't believe the jokes being made about Michael Jackson the night of his death... Jimmy Kimmel couldn't wait one day out of respect?
Maybe this is just the same old cycle that history go's in until some "event" challenges society to look at it self again. it happens about every 80 years...so...we're due this upcoming decade.

Interesting theory... What type of event do you think it would take to bring us out of this funk... bearing in mind that now even loss of life is funny! :shock: I do think that life is a cycle and so it civilisation. People, usually the older ones go on about how things are getting worse, but I don't think that they are. In fact the major thing that I think is different is the way we communicate actually. The media has alot to do with building up the idea that society is 'worse' and then under the influence of mass conciousness it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy
 

kiddykat

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Maybe laughter is also a way that we repress our sadness/insecurities, in order save face? I cry solemnly when I'm alone when it comes to these things- death of a person/relationship.

Goin off on tangents here:
Some cultures view death as a continuation of life.. Although mourning is important, remembering the good times spent with that person is also another way to keep them alive, and a way to wish them happiness in the afterlife.

I also think that what we see in the media does have a desensitizing effect.. I think the worst thing that can happen to us humans is the effects of media on apathy & how we relate to one another.. The influence of mass communication is so subtle that we don't quite notice it our daily interactions with others.
 
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Wild horses

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Yea I do actually cry alone.. in fact most negative emotions (On the rare times that I experience them) I almost always have to be alone before I can experience them if that makes any sense. I didn't actually think about this when I originally posted the thread but I actually have a nervous laughter thing, ie on a few occasions when someone close to me has died or received sad news I have burst out laughing but ti's different to actually finding the event funny if you know what I mean. i think that's what I'm trying to get at really; how much of these jokes at death actually people nervously trying to deal with pain and how much of it is people actually seeing the funny side and being almost insensitive to the loss.

I do agree that spiritual beliefs have a huge impact on how you view death. In fact many can lok at death as just a new and exciting chapter of life.

I agree with the whole media thing. I think mass media is perhaps the biggest influence on our culture and even our psychology today.
 
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