Poignant Onion Article Discussion Thread

[opebo]

Actually it is the mourning which is in poor taste.  What is wrong with people, idolizing a merchant for selling them something?

[opebo]

The placement of people's most intimate feelings are disturbingly out of whack.

Very well said, and observed, Fez.  I've nothing against Steve Jobs or Health Ledger or any of these others, but I agree that these strange reactions reveal a lot about the fairly 'unreal' world many people (particularly Americans) live in, in which they may have a dearth of intimacy and 'real relationships' in their actual day-to-day lives, and place a great deal of importance on narratives with which they actually have no connection.

For me I never had even the slightest thought about people who aren't in my day-to-day direct interaction circle (though I suppose the weirdest aspect of that circle nowadays is that it includes some of you here, but still only a minor part of the whole).  In a funny obverse story - lately several of my current and previous colleagues have appeared on Thai television, being interviewed as 'experts' in this-that-or-the-other-thing, and it rather freaked me out to see the unreal and the real so connected.

[opebo]

And I can understand being upset over the death of someone you don't know personally. I can understand being upset over the death of someone who put his life on the line for meaningful social change (like MLK Jr.) or someone who bore part of his soul in his work (like John Lennon). Hell, I can even understand being a bit upset over the death of of a young, talented actor like Ledger. But being in tears over the death a reclusive electronics salesmen??? In what way did he really move regular people who don't work in that field? I don't understand that at all.

Apparently for many modern americans their little electronic doo-dads give life meaning. 

[opebo]

I suppose this goes back to the idea of advertising as (increasingly) selling more than just the actual products; Jobs did a fine job of selling himself to the people that also bought his products.

True, though arguably people who are the market for 'technology' products tend to be far more easily duped than average.  They have many psychological problems.