Has the news of famous persons death ever made you cry even though you never met them, or a stranger that you knew about but never met? Why did it make you cry?
Johnny Gaudreau. Hockey player. Johnny Hockey was one of my favorites that wasn’t on my favorite team. He was a small guy, who proved everyone wrong. He was a good dude from all the clips and interviews I’ve seen over the years.
I saw the comment that broke it on reddit, some random guy in the Phillies GDT. Said “Johnny Gaudreau is dead”. Spent the night following the rumors until it was confirmed by a retired league ref.
He and his brother, Matt, were in town for their sisters wedding, staying at their dad’s house. They were cycling and a drunk driver killed them both, only stopped because the bikes were still under the truck. His wife was pregnant at the time too.
I cycle, I’ve got brothers and it just hit me so hard. I was fucked up about it for a week at least.
I was pretty fuckin sad when Judy Tenuta passed.
Adam Yauch from the Beastie Boys was one, and David Lynch very recently was another. Both hit really hard :-(
Stephen Hawking. His books gave me a sense of wonder in high school. Those books are a huge part of what inspired my path in life. When I read he had died, I felt a peice of me leave the earth. I cried for humanity, I felt that we all got a bit dumber, as a whole.
Fidel Castro, no one could kill him but time
A man only dies when he is forgotten.
Technoblade never dies.
A bloke at work wears a Technoblade shirt all the time, he lives on
David Bowie. I still miss him a lot. I usually don’t even really know the names and faces of bands I like, and I wasn’t even a big knower of his music, but when I heard he died I cried non stop for a day and a night. He was really something else, this crazy force, changing the whole discourse in music and stardom multiple times in his life. What an awe inspiring character. I wonder who could ever take his place, really.
Without knowing a celebrity personally, you can still resonate deeply with what their art or identity stand for. I shed a tear when David Bowie died because his fearlessness and experimentation was like a beacon to weirdos like me that told us we would be ok if we left the shores of conformity. Plus, he was the funky funky groovy man, man.
We are exposed to enough of their life and personality that we form a bond.
With a performer like Bowie, he pushed the boundaries of what it even means to have a personality. You almost have to talk about him by each era—Ziggy Stardust, The White Duke, etc. That baffling reinvention is part of his allure and his message, in my opinion. You can make yourself into anyone you want to be, even just for a little while, and that experience can be magnificent. You aren’t just the sum of your experiences, you are also the product of your intention, so why not get a little freaky-deeky with it, man?
Maybe not full-on “cry” but I have gotten teary-eyed more than a few times over the decades when a favorite (and unarguably world-class) musician dies. Eddie Van Halen, Neil Peart and Jeff Beck come to mind right off the bat
Did not cry exactly but… if you are like me and you like Babylon 5, do not check up on the cast.
When I was about 17 was looking at several full pages of names of people who died in 9/11 when looking at a news paper and started crying
I cry sometimes when I see what is happening to the people and babies of the world
I cried when those women in Sudan were at a hospital and rebels showed up to rape and murder them then trapped them inside the clinic and burned it down
The world is a sad place with so much need for mourning
Mac Miller for me. We were the same age and his music resonated with me a lot. I understood the drugs, depression, etc.
For a while, I had thought “I could have been successful like him, if i had applied myself”. Not music, but other ways. It had felt like he was everything I could have been.
But then his he died and I realized that I had gotten out of that world (drugs and partying). And that I was the successful one. I had a house, a job I love, a wonderful wife, etc.
I’m not rich. I’m not always happy. I regularly think about my addictions. But Im clean. I’m sober. I’m intelligent. I have a good life.
If I didn’t figure out how to step away from that life, Im sure I would have OD’d. Mac’s death hit me hard, because I went from “that could have been me” to “that could have been me”
Adam Schlesinger, a likely preventable death in this selfish fucking country. He gave so many beautiful things to the world while he was here.
Gord Downey of the Tragically Hip.
His music was songs of more than one generation of Canadians. I caught the last few songs of the live streamed final concert. I almost missed it because I was on graveyard shift and slept through an alarm.
I caught my favorite song “Ahead by a Century” and since he passed, I haven’t been able to listen to that song again. When it comes on the radio I either turn it off or leave the room. It is too sad to hear. It has been harder in the last two years because my sister died of the same brain cancer as him. She played music with a few Canadian bands but never met them.
Anthony Bourdain hit me pretty hard. I was a huge fan starting with Kitchen Confidential and ate up basically everything he produced. But more than just his content, which was great, his worldview and philosophy really spoke to me. It was cynical and angry, without being aimless or shallow. He seemed to be doing something different from everyone else and writing his own rules in a way which had no parallels anywhere in mainstream media.
