(August 12, 2014 at 11:13 am)Napoléon Wrote:

(August 12, 2014 at 6:56 am)Fidel_Castronaut Wrote: Lol, am I the only one who got that Napo was being sarcastic?

I actually wasn't being sarcastic.

Surely you've having me on. Robbie Williams?? Really?

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(August 12, 2014 at 12:34 pm)My imaginary friend is GOD Wrote: Right in the childhood. I remember him in Flubber, Jumanji, Aladdin.

Oh, and great, now everyone in my life is going to be watching me more closely because they know about my depression and don't want me to pull a Robin Williams.

Off topic.

Welcome back :-)

(August 12, 2014 at 12:52 pm)StealthySkeptic Wrote: I can definitely see why, and would not call Good Will Hunting my FAVORITE movie for those reasons. But it's still a Robin Williams classic because Robin Williams can turn almost anything to gold.

Coming Soon: "Reading the Phone Book" starring Robin Williams.

I would have seen that movie.

It's kind of strange how much we care about celebrities. I don't mean to sound cold or anything, but this is somebody that literally none of us knew at all.

(August 12, 2014 at 2:37 pm)CapnAwesome Wrote: It's kind of strange how much we care about celebrities. I don't mean to sound cold or anything, but this is somebody that literally none of us knew at all.

Had he died of natual causes, I would have no fucks to give, honestly. It was the manner of his death - clearly the man was deeply troubled by his melancholy, and *that* is something I can identify with.

(August 12, 2014 at 2:37 pm)CapnAwesome Wrote: It's kind of strange how much we care about celebrities. I don't mean to sound cold or anything, but this is somebody that literally none of us knew at all.

Indeed. And what of the thousands of others who aren't celebrities - are we as affected by their deaths?

(August 12, 2014 at 2:51 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote:

(August 12, 2014 at 2:37 pm)CapnAwesome Wrote: It's kind of strange how much we care about celebrities. I don't mean to sound cold or anything, but this is somebody that literally none of us knew at all.

Had he died of natual causes, I would have no fucks to give, honestly. It was the manner of his death - clearly the man was deeply troubled by his melancholy, and *that* is something I can identify with.

Again this is a hard position for me to take, especially because there have been multiple suicides in my family and I've had one close friend commit suicide as well. Those affected me because I knew and cared about the people. Robin Williams I didn't know. Whether or not I identify with the cause is irrelevant to it being sad for me. There is so much suffering in the world and I think that the enormous deal that is made out of celebrities and their problems is not healthy for us as a society.

(August 12, 2014 at 2:37 pm)CapnAwesome Wrote: It's kind of strange how much we care about celebrities. I don't mean to sound cold or anything, but this is somebody that literally none of us knew at all.

I think this is simply an artifact of evolution. We have empathy for people we know. Statistics of those dying of plague, holocaust, or famine somewhere far away don't move us nearly as much as the neighbor girl's car crash. But if we know the story of a single famine victim, it pulls our heart strings. We care about the death of celebrities, because we know their faces and something about their stories--making them everyone's next door neighbor. We are wrong in thinking we know them of course. But that doesn't change the empathy one bit.

Damn.

(August 12, 2014 at 3:16 pm)CapnAwesome Wrote: There is so much suffering in the world and I think that the enormous deal that is made out of celebrities and their problems is not healthy for us as a society.

I agree. I just don't think that humans are emotionally equipped to make that distinction. The solution is to personalize the suffering elsewhere.

Personally, I don't care about "celebrities" and the cultlike following of them. Robin Williams' celebrity status, if he can be said to have one, is of no interest to me. Maybe it's due to being removed geographically that I never encountered this sort of thing, but to me I admired the man because of his enormous talent for making it look so easy to make people happy. That he had a natural ability for this is evident from the interviews I've seen of him, in which he is clearly having a whale of a time. He always came across as being everybody's friend, even through the lens, and he always seemed to make time for his fans; unlike some others I could mention who appeared so remote and standoffish that you could picture their fans having to apply for an appointment just for an autograph. I've been privileged to meet and speak with quite a few well-known stars of the big and small screen (many of them probably only people over here would know, though I have met a couple of Romero's zombies) and I can say with confidence that Mr Williams' approachability isn't particularly common.

That, to me, makes his death all the more personal seeming.