Un-aliving yourself, the church of Anthony Bourdain and perspectives on celebrity death worship

For one reason or another suicide has been on my mind lately. And no, it’s not for the reason you’re probably thinking. It has more to do with perceptions, definitions and the stigma surrounding it, especially on-line.

If you haven’t noticed, people use different words to describe death these days. No one says “killed” or “murdered” or “suicide,” instead they say “un-alived.” They do this to try and avoid being flagged/banned on social media or (my personal favorite), become “demonetized,” which sounds eerily similar to being “de-rezzed” in Tron.

Being derezzed and demonetized equal the same thing in today’s technocratic-corpo-hellscape that we pretend to exist in.

Much like the Sentry in Tron’s universe, the bots in ours control speech on social media and thus we users have resorted to using code words/newspeak to skirt the system. If the bots catch users using prohibited words, they are derezzed. Because after all, Master Control Program is always watching.

Which brings me to a news story I read recently about a local firefighter who murdered his wife and then killed himself. They call this particular act a “murder-suicide” but on-line it was referred to an “un-aliving incident.”

It made national news and it seems to be a common occurrence in the careers of first responders. And thinking on all of this made me reflect on the (several) reasons why I chose to pursue another path instead of one in EMS/Fire.

I’ve written about my time in EMS before, well, some parts of it at least, but every now and then I get reminders about what it was like and why I chose the path that I did. The mental health aspect of the job was definitely a factor.

It was reported that the wife of firefighter posted on social media about his grueling schedule and how he was never “100-percent” when home. She shared statistics from the runs the department did and I can honestly say that not only could I relate but was relieved that I did not end up with a career slowly grinding myself into dust or taking it out on others.

That kind of career takes its toll on you in one way or another and I am a huge believer in the philosophy of every action has an equal and opposite reaction. There’s a reason there’s a lot of suicides in the first responder world, as well as burnout and career switches.

But the news and the county treated the murder-suicide of the firefighter in question with kid gloves because no one ever really talks about suicides, which I find strange. Couple that with the fact that we’re not allowed to talk about suicide on-line.

It is expressly verboten by MCP.

Case in point, a while back I couldn’t find any posts from one of my favorite bands, Suicidal Tendencies. It looked like they’d deleted their social media accounts but it turns out that Meta (Master Control Program), deleted their accounts for violating the rules and “promoting self-harm” with their band name.

It took weeks for them to re-instate their account and to this day, if you type the word “suicidal” into the search bar, you will find nothing - the results are blank.

This is, of course, ridiculous.

You can find any manner of debauchery, sleaze, death, destruction and hate on Meta but you cannot find suicide. The act and mere idea of killing yourself is still taboo and wrapped behind centuries of stigma and biblical shame.

September is technically “suicide prevention awareness” month but you’d never know because you can’t talk about it on-line. Suicide is still a leading cause of death in the US but discussions about it on social media are nil because MCP doesn’t want anyone getting any ideas.

Even the Buddhists frown on suicide if that gives you any idea of the gravity and fallout from the act.

“Some people commit suicide; they seem to think that there is suffering simply because there is the human life, and that by cutting off the life there will be nothing… But, according to the Buddhist viewpoint, that’s not the case; your consciousness will continue. Even if you take your own life, this life, you will have to take another body that again will be the basis of suffering.” - 14th Dali Lama

Which brings me to Anthony Bourdain, the world renowned celebrity chef and icon that everyone seems to idolize postmortem.

Not a a day goes by that I don’t see someone posting something about him; a quote, a clip, a photograph etc. etc. And I question it because I think it’s worth asking if we should value the opinions on how to live from people who quit on living?

This, of course, is blasphemous to the fans of Bourdain and you’d sooner insult a religious deity than cry foul on the sacred Church of Bourdain.

Even still, for as cool as he seemed, Bourdain hanged himself.

There was no explanation, no note, nada. It was a shock to the world and no one really knows why he did it.

But there is, of course, speculation, namely on his relationship woes, heartbreak and depression.

There is one damning quote in particular that stuck out to me while researching the Church of Bourdain and it’s from him to his ex-wife.

“I hate my fans, too. I hate being famous. I hate my job. I am lonely and living in constant uncertainty.” - Anthony Bourdain

For me, anyone who worships the man should read that quote and possibly print it out and staple it to their foreheads because the people you idolize are never what they seem.

And…it seems to me that were Bourdain still alive, he’d loathe the almost religious icon status that he’s attained on social media.

I raise these points because my own opinion changed on Hunter Thompson after he too killed himself. At one point in my life, like devotees of Bourdain, I idolized Thompson in almost every regard. But after he “un-alived” himself, I questioned whether, what, if any of what he said over the years really mattered.

Truth be told, I still admire Thompson’s work.

And when I see quotes by him, I still “like” them for what they are. But I’d be lying if I said that every single time I see something by him, the thought of him quitting doesn’t cross my mind. Because it does and it cheapens his work and it cheapens the man’s life by a fair amount.

At the same time I wonder if it matters at all.

I wonder if we should even care that these people killed themselves and if that really does make their life’s work worth less? It’s the old separate the art from the artist dilemma.

But I do find the postmortem worship of Bourdain particularly strange.

I mean, I get it, he was a seemingly cool dude and one who many could see themselves hanging out with like a normal person. He was a salt-of-the-earth dude and to a certain extent, an anti-hero for many.

For lack of a better analogy, Bourdain seemed genuine - but I’d invite you to read that quote by him again before you get carried away.

It’s painstakingly obvious that no one really knew the real Bourdain and that he kept the bulk of his identity - his real one - secret.

If he was so miserable that he felt that the only remedy to that was to hang himself, alone, in a hotel room, for all to find as a grotesque spectacle, well, that speaks volumes to me about his opinions on life and living.

Thinking about all of this made me think of Steve Buscemi’s monologue on tipping (waitresses) in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. Buscemi’s character says he doesn’t believe in tipping and when the rest of the crew give him shit for it he backs it up with a very sharp analogy.

According to Mr. Pink, it makes no sense to tip waitresses just because they work a shitty job but not to tip the people at McDonald’s who also work a shitty job. He points out the hypocrisy in the two examples and it makes perfect sense.

I think that same example can be made for suicides and particularly, when it’s celebrities who kill themselves. Most of the time, when non-famous people kill themselves, people’s reactions to it are the same; pity, shame, sadness, grief, anger, bitterness and silence.

But when a celebrity kills themselves there’s often a complete sidestepping of the suicide itself and people go into automatic worship of the person ad nauseam.

Like Mr. Pink recognized about tipping, why is it we mourn-celebrate these people over here? But demonize and shame these people over here..?

I like Bourdain too - he said and did some cool shit - same as Hunter Thompson. But if I’m being honest, I can’t get the image of his rotted corpse hanging from a hotel closet rack out of my head every time someone posts about him. I also can’t forget the quote about him hating his fans. It cheapens his words, particularly the life-advice ones, which he was keen on sharing.

At the same time, we are we to judge and why is taking one’s own life still so stigmatized? These are ages-old questions that have no answers to but they are particularly interesting in an age when we are forbidden from even thinking them.

Bourdain once said, “You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.” I think that’s good advice and I think he accomplished that.

I also think, as a society, we need to relearn how to take things, particularly from celebrities, with a grain of salt.

• S/C