There is an old saying that claims the only definite things in life are death and taxes. If you are a celebrity of any kind, there should be a fine print clause that adds “post-mortem tweets” to this list.
The passing of celebrities is always headline news. When Robin Williams died this summer, it seemed as if there was no other news in the country, but the happenings in Ferguson proved otherwise.
Hundreds of tweets about the actor surfaced after his death. Many of them advocated for better awareness on mental illnesses like depression, while others posted and retweeted things like autopsy photos among other ill-willed content.
It got to the point that Williams’ daughter, Zelda, made a public announcement stating her departure from social media, pleading for the harassment to end.
The recent death of Joan Rivers also brought the celeb back into the Twittersphere with a wave of tweets from fellow celebrities and average folk alike. A number of tweets conveyed utter shock, while others were more geared toward the sharing of memories, send-offs and general thanks to the late entertainer.
But again, and as with any person in the spotlight, there were tweets that were not as well meaning. Rivers’ comedy was criticized much throughout her life, and this criticism followed her into her death.
That’s the crazy thing about social media. It is almost as though each member of the public is able to give a eulogy of their own, albeit only 140 characters long.
Every technological advance has so much potential to be an essential tool. Over its short lifespan, Twitter has been used to spread news around the world and bring to light occurrences that would generally go unknown. Our domestic tweets, however, seem to focus less on world news and more on pop culture.
If you were to do a search query of “ISIS” or “Palestine,” tweets from countries around the globe would appear, whereas a query of “Joan Rivers” brings up primarily American tweets.
From all of this we can learn three things. First: social media, especially Twitter, can be a great way to pass on news. Second: what we define as news and what we deem necessary to comment on varies from person to person and country to country. Third: death is inevitable for all of us, and it’s something that happens to more than just celebrities.
