Has the news of famous persons death ever made you cry even though you never met them, or a stranger that you knew about but never met? Why did it make you cry?
I mourned, legitimately mourned Terry Pratchett’s death. I don’t even have a parasocial relationship with him in the sense you get with streamers and YouTubers and whatnot. He was just a man who brought wonderful ideas into the world, who focused my understanding of life and so much more, and to hear of his end hurt me bitterly.
I was particularly upset by Ray Stevenson’s passing
Just enjoyed him as an actor?
I really did. He brought so much genuine heart to his performances. Baylan Skoll is my favorite Jedi.
Sir Terry Pratchett. Actually, probably counts as multiple because the opening to The Shepherds Crown makes me bawl like a child, and it’s pretty much a step-by-step guide for mourning.
Discworld has been my comfort series for a long time. I have read most of the books more times than I can count. Spent months tearing through multiple a day.
Of course, his condition was known amongst the fans, we had all known it was going to be sooner than later, but it felt like a long chapter of my life was closed. I had looked forward to every release, cherished them. The man’s work had been beside me through some of the hardest times, always bringing a smile back to my face.
Yeah this one for me, too. It felt like humans lost one of the people who understood them best and still kept caring about them in spite of it all. It took me a long time to face Discworld again and I had to put down Shepherds Crown for a bit at that one part.
A fine answer indeed. My brother loved Discworld and used to share some stories with me.
Chester Bennington of Linkin Park low-key destroyed me. I didn’t even hear about it when it happened due to a big storm taking out my power for a week. It wasn’t until 4 or 5 days after the news hit everyone else when I finally found out.
You can say whatever you want about Linkin Park, but Chester was fucking talented and its still so upsetting to me to think about it.
And then last year, they made Chester die again when they brought on a Scientologist to be the new lead singer. Now Linkin Park as a whole is dead to me.
I really like their new singer and album. And Up From the Bottom was on repeat for a good month.
Stephen Hawking. His books gave me a sense of wonder in high school. Those books are a huge part of what inspired my path in life. When I read he had died, I felt a peice of me leave the earth. I cried for humanity, I felt that we all got a bit dumber, as a whole.
Adam Yauch from the Beastie Boys was one, and David Lynch very recently was another. Both hit really hard :-(
Fidel Castro, no one could kill him but time
A man only dies when he is forgotten.
Technoblade never dies.
A bloke at work wears a Technoblade shirt all the time, he lives on
David Bowie. I still miss him a lot. I usually don’t even really know the names and faces of bands I like, and I wasn’t even a big knower of his music, but when I heard he died I cried non stop for a day and a night. He was really something else, this crazy force, changing the whole discourse in music and stardom multiple times in his life. What an awe inspiring character. I wonder who could ever take his place, really.
Without knowing a celebrity personally, you can still resonate deeply with what their art or identity stand for. I shed a tear when David Bowie died because his fearlessness and experimentation was like a beacon to weirdos like me that told us we would be ok if we left the shores of conformity. Plus, he was the funky funky groovy man, man.
We are exposed to enough of their life and personality that we form a bond.
With a performer like Bowie, he pushed the boundaries of what it even means to have a personality. You almost have to talk about him by each era—Ziggy Stardust, The White Duke, etc. That baffling reinvention is part of his allure and his message, in my opinion. You can make yourself into anyone you want to be, even just for a little while, and that experience can be magnificent. You aren’t just the sum of your experiences, you are also the product of your intention, so why not get a little freaky-deeky with it, man?
Did not cry exactly but… if you are like me and you like Babylon 5, do not check up on the cast.
Maybe not full-on “cry” but I have gotten teary-eyed more than a few times over the decades when a favorite (and unarguably world-class) musician dies. Eddie Van Halen, Neil Peart and Jeff Beck come to mind right off the bat
When I was about 17 was looking at several full pages of names of people who died in 9/11 when looking at a news paper and started crying
I cry sometimes when I see what is happening to the people and babies of the world
I cried when those women in Sudan were at a hospital and rebels showed up to rape and murder them then trapped them inside the clinic and burned it down
The world is a sad place with so much need for mourning
Mac Miller for me. We were the same age and his music resonated with me a lot. I understood the drugs, depression, etc.
For a while, I had thought “I could have been successful like him, if i had applied myself”. Not music, but other ways. It had felt like he was everything I could have been.
But then his he died and I realized that I had gotten out of that world (drugs and partying). And that I was the successful one. I had a house, a job I love, a wonderful wife, etc.
I’m not rich. I’m not always happy. I regularly think about my addictions. But Im clean. I’m sober. I’m intelligent. I have a good life.
If I didn’t figure out how to step away from that life, Im sure I would have OD’d. Mac’s death hit me hard, because I went from “that could have been me” to “that could have been me”
Adam Schlesinger, a likely preventable death in this selfish fucking country. He gave so many beautiful things to the world while he was here.
