When celebrities die, we begin to realize that Santa does not really exist, that the snowman we’ve built eventually melts in summer, that Ken and Barbie have broken up and that no matter how hard we pray, God will not bring our grandmother back from her long vacation.
When celebrities die, we are faced by reality. The reality that we often escape by watching movies and staying up late to finish a 3-season series marathon. The reality that pushes us to obsess on the glamourous, eventful, controversial lives of Hollywood, local and even other international celebrities. This is why when celebrities die, we have an unexplainable grief in our hearts even if we are from the other side of the world.
Celebrities are like our parents. We do not necessarily imagine them dying but when they do, life changes forever. At times, we take them for granted. We would think that they are always just there, unconditionally. We treat them like they’re gone. Then, when we hear the news, we break into little pieces.
Celebrities are like our childhood friends. We look forward for them to grow old with us, to know who they’d end up with and to see what their children would look like. We don’t necessarily imagine them permanently gone from our lives but sometimes, we drift apart. Sometimes, we burn our bridges. Then again, when we cross paths, we rekindle our once familiar roads.
Celebrities are like superhero action figures. We rely on them for inspiration, keep them stored up on our dusty bookshelves. Together, we fight our villains even if we’re from different worlds, one’s real and the other fictional.
Celebrities are like our old crushes and former flames. We would stalk them and dig up everything about their lives. What’s their birthday, favorite food, their favorite band, etc. We would be smitten by them every time we find something similar to our own lives, likes and dislikes.
We would think that our favorite celebrity will still appear on the next installment of a movie franchise or that the character he’s been playing for four seasons would still be alive in the next. We would wait for their latest tweets and their upcoming projects waiting to be released.
However, we wake up one day hearing news that they have passed. We wake up. Somehow, everything feels like a dream. Everything is cloudy. We watch the news that seem like noise repeatedly being blown to our ears. It becomes louder and louder but we still would not listen. We search the web, look at his Wikipedia page and observe how short or how full his life was. We read his biography, accolades and previous film/TV appearances that we never knew. We start to regret. Regret because we want to see more.
It just feels too soon.
When celebrities die, most won’t understand the reason behind the pain experienced by a fan or a “non-fan”. Just the mere familiarity of the name makes it difficult not to bat an eyelash. Even if we are not in any way related, as viewers, we are linked. It’s beyond sympathy. It’s genuine grief.
