Alright, this is going to be an unpopular post, particularly among certain circles of my friends and readers. I just wanted to get that out of the way. But I am rather good at having unpopular opinions, and therefore I am writing this post.
So.
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Let me be the first to admit that most of the "celebrities" that I have admired and been inspired by are long dead. If you want to see a modern woman who is a huge fan of "old dead white guys," you're looking at her. It's the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death today, April 23rd, 2016, and I've been celebrating him in multiple ways. Most of the music that I listen to and the literature that I read was written by those old dead white guys. I'm not ashamed of that by any means. However, that does not mean I am completely out of touch with the modern world. There have been many celebrities in my lifetime that I have admired and who have made an impact on my life, through their words, music, and acting. When Heath Ledger died in 2008, I was devastated to the point of being totally unable to focus on my classes. I felt as though I had lost a friend. The same feeling rose in me again when Leonard Nimoy passed, and Brian Jacques, and Terry Pratchett, and David Bowie, and Alan Rickman, and there are others who I have not named.
We are nearing the end of the fourth month of 2016 and it seems we have lost a disproportionate number of famous people this year, the most recent being the artist Prince. And every time the internet has exploded with tributes for each of these actors or musicians. They touched a lot of lives, that much is clear. The impact these people have on us should not be discredited. Just because they are famous and get more attention than anyone else does not mean we ought to demonize those who mourn.
Celebrity status is a fluid thing, and the fact that these people have found lasting recognition for their talents and audacity and willingness to be themselves is pretty amazing. The personal reasons each of us mourns the death of a celebrity will vary exponentially, but at the root of it all these people have a way of expressing what it means to be human. It's hard to explain to many people, but those who get it really get it.
Four hundred years later, William Shakespeare is arguably the biggest household name ever. We're still listening to the music of Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. We're still reading the words of Plato, Austen, Tolstoy, and Dickens. The influence of all these artists is undeniable. Who's to say any of these recent deaths won't catapult their author's works completely into immortality too? I, for one, do feel like the world is a darker place now that they're gone. And that's okay. I'm not going to dwell on it forever, but let me mourn, and let me remember them well.
They may not be soldiers, but they have had an impact on us in a different way. Those soldiers have fought for our freedom and given everything, and that should always be recognized. We even have a day for that, to show how important that recognition is. But don't make the deaths of musicians and actors out to be worth nothing. They're human too.
