In a way, suicide is the most desperate way of imposing power on ourselves.
The person who commits suicide, thinks that he is, for a brief moment, the master of himself.
Trying not to be a puppet of his surroundings or even his followers …
When it’s about a celebrity, things are not that simple, though.
Perhaps the suicide of a famous rock star can easily become news.
However, it is not an isolated event from the rest of society.
The pressure that a celebrity receives from the media, their fans and perhaps even their inner demons is enormous.
Even the record labels themselves, as well as their coworkers, do not want to let a goldmine move away from the foreground for a long time.
The main thing is a battle with his own idol, which is an elaborate piece made by an artist for the audience.
In fact, an ambitious musician lives through chasing down, perhaps in an arrogant way, his own immortality.
Like being in Oscar Wilde’s book “The Picture of Dorian Gray“.
Placing his perishable self in a well-hidden picture and at the same time displaying his imaginary immortality.
This is what his followers want, demanding to live their own fantasy of immortality through a celebrity.
In essence, the artist surrenders and delivers his own personality to his audience while at the same time receiving glory and the temporality of futility.
By growing his own image to satisfy the audience and the incompetent personalities of his followers, he loses his own.
He actually uses himself to feed his own audience.
And when he understands this process, the solutions are limited.
He will either take a break from the musical scene or retire altogether.
The desperate effort for recognition…
However, generalizations never tell the truth, and each case is separate.
Or perhaps when it comes to celebrities, the reasons are the only difference?
We will not explain this, nor will we even try to approach it.
The essence is more invisible and indistinguishable.
Something between achieving all the goals and their complete absence.
Someone once wrote, that it “is good to believe in something you can never reach or understand”.
It is a trick that always keeps you in an invisible connection to life, beyond the basic instinct of survival.
But when an artist himself becomes what millions of his followers have been dreaming…
Something inaccessible that simply holds them like an invisible thread with a fake purpose and life, then what is left for him?
A void, which he will either replenish or not.
In fact, it is very easy for a famous star to become like the hero of Patrick Ziscin in the last act of his masterpiece, “The Perfume“.
Through death he goes into the world of absolute recognition and immortality.
“Glory or Death”
Liam Gallagher had said in an interview, that Oasis members’ motto was “glory or death” before they became one of the most famous bands.
Essentially, it suggested that they had nothing to lose, and that might have been their greatest driving force.
Their songs are not famous for their depth, nor are they particularly sensitive.
The talent of the Gallagher brothers did not have any dark cause, which allowed the composer’s ability to come out to the crowd.
In some other cases there is a “demon” that pushes the artist to express his pain.
Glory is not the point, in this case, but the elimination of pain through music.
When this is combined with glory, then, does loneliness become the purpose?
Loneliness seems to be the only shelter from demanding and permanently unsatisfied fans.
Could the rock stars be the gladiators in today’s Colosseums?
Simple game of voracious glances of their followers?
Questions that are difficult, perhaps unlikely, to be answered by someone.
On the other hand, the blind loyalty to the phrase “die young” does not seem to be the real cause of rock stars’ suicides.
Besides, its real significance is to keep on dreaming so you can stay young.
When the time comes, death should find you among dreams and goals…
An act of absolute power?
Even supposedly, life full of abuses is not enough to lead an artist to this act of absolute power.
If you look carefully, the only common thing to all these cases of suicide, is music.
Music itself, which has prevented many people, mainly young, to do the same.
However, music, could hardly be accused of negative influence and encouragement in suicide.
Of course, not a few attempts have been made, mainly organized by conservative circles.
The goal was to find an enemy and an imaginary protection from the enemy.
The voting and manipulation of public opinion were the main goals of this portion of people.
In the end, could not all of these people, simply, have been unable to withstand the weight of a rock star?
Music for them was a way of expressing, searching, and the very way of life.
And not the means of “great life” or the satisfaction of some vanity.
The audience they were searching to listen to them, was what could perfectly reflect the creators themselves.
In order to be able to see themselves during a self-awareness journey.
Possibly, even they did not know the reasons for this tragic and ultimate act of atonement (as they thought).
Perhaps they felt something went wrong in their last song… What we call life!
In an attempt to erase it, change it, write it from scratch in another place or time.
Every case of suicide is different and the only thing we can do is speculate …
Suicide is an act that can be prevented if we turn our attention to those who need it.