Two tragedies…
You already know by now that this week has brought two terror attacks to Norway, resulting in the death of 92-96 people, many of them children. You may also know that Amy Winehouse is dead at 27. Some of you have decided that if people express mourning or concern for the one person dying, they are automatically incapable of appreciating the tragedy in Oslo. And so, in your infinite wisdom, some of you are belittling Amy's death and anyone expressing emotions about her.
But look, I can feel bad about Amy's death and still be concerned for the people of Norway affected by this tragedy. I feel bad about Amy because she was only 27 years old. She's almost a decade younger than me, but she had great talent and great potential. And now she's gone. It doesn't matter how she died. She died young, and that's always a tragedy. Period. If you feel the need to belittle this death because it isn't as important, you aren't empathizing with the people of Norway better. You're comparing tragedies and deciding that one is more worthy of global attention.
Over on Twitter, I saw over and over, "Hey, let's not forget about Oslo. Amy was just a pop singer who overdosed." Nice. No autopsy yet, but the court of public opinion is already in place to judge another celebrity for the same habits you folks keep. But let's set that aside. The real problem here is, you Twits were all worried that Oslo not being a trending topic would somehow lessen the tragedy's importance, like people tweeting about Amy's death were stealing thunder from Norway. But both events are tragic, and you can feel bad for more than one thing.
All life is important. When you die, you wouldn't want people telling your family "Hey, there was a fire on the other side of the planet, and you need to focus your grief on more important people." But you have no problems doing it to downplay the death of a celebrity because "they aren't that important." That's a lack of empathy, and it's really not helping anyone. In fact, it's hurting people who felt something genuine for Amy by telling them, "Your pain isn't real enough." It's douchebag behavior, and it shouldn't happen to anyone, vapid celebrity or not.
If you want to help Oslo, donate to a local charity taking funds for them, or get online and find an Oslo charity to donate to directly. Keeping Oslo on the trending topics is a useless sentiment. It does not send funds to help fix the damage, nor provide comfort to the families of the victims. Oslo being in the TT only soothes your vanities. It shows you "care," even though you haven't done anything except express concern. It's yet more slacktivism in the place of real activism, which is all social networks can seem to squeeze out of the online masses. "We won't send money to Oslo, but we'll like your Facebook page and keep you in the trending topics for a full week. That's almost as good as cash."
Except it isn't. Your concern is worthless to the victims' families, and putting down the death of a single person over the deaths of these people helps no one. It's just a mean-spirited attempt to shame anyone who expressed concern or sadness at Amy's passing. And you people attempting this shaming, I hope the shame comes right back to you. Because you didn't do anything to help Oslo with this shame campaign. You just belittled the death of one woman, and the emotional reaction of everyone across the planet who chose to send online sentiments to Amy and her family. In short, you're being just as tacky as Fred Phelps booing at a soldier's funeral.
Even if you lack empathy, other people can feel bad about more than one thing at a time. On any given day, I read a dozen stories that break my heart. War, tortured animals, raped women, abused children, missing relatives, natural disasters, famines; the social streams bring me a daily ration of disasters, and I can feel bad about all of them.
BUT, my feeling bad isn't fixing shit. Your belittling and attempts to direct where people should feel bad won't accomplish shit either. So if you really want to help Oslo, zip lip and open wallet. And for the love of God, leave Amy Winehouse and her friends and family alone.
