I wanna feel the heat with somebody

Social Network sites prove to be increasingly awkward places to visit on the day a celebrity dies. As the story emerges and is gradually confirmed, first the Newsthreads fill, then the rubber-necking posters desperate to be first to "break" the news start to appear. The established pattern is to then post the obligatory RIP tribute YouTube link, and usually the cretinous jokes aren't far behind.

I'm still figuring out why so many feel compelled to post, often about someone they have only had the most passing interest in whilst they were alive. Is it to somehow feel involved, connected? Is it mawkish, or is the online outpouring of sadness a genuine tidal wave of love and sincerity? Wouldn't it be slightly more dignified to make our tributes a bit less public?

I don't criticise, or make myself exempt; like countless thousands, I was drawn into posting a photo tribute when Steve Jobs died, and however I might like to think that's different to the accidental or drug related death of a 1980's popstar, really, it's not. I personally suspect that our collective brains went a bit to mush in the UK at some point in the 1990's when Tony Blair saw his moment to "capture the nation's grief" with his teary-eyed 'People's Princess' tribute to Diana Spencer. As they'd say in Yorkshire, we all went a bit bloody soft and do-lally then, and haven't been quite right in 'ead since.


Post Script... By the way, this is the only Whitney Houston-related record I own... I wasn't a huge fan. Very sad, all the same. There, I've said it.