Stop Scaring the Shit Out of Us, Twitter!
I woke up to Mel Brooks trending on Twitter this morning and my brain immediately went to a very predictable, if morbid place.
Well, he had a great run, I thought. Made it to his mid 90s! What a ride! What a legacy! What movies! What memories! And have you ever thought about how, due to political correctness, you could NEVER make a movie like Blazing Saddles today? Well, have you?
But it has to end for everybody, no matter how beloved or famous and that time, unfortunately, seemed to have finally come. The passing of beloved cultural icons is sad, of course, but it’s also part of life.
I was wrong, of course. As of this writing, Mel Brooks is still alive, thank God. Brooks was not trending because he had died but rather because it was his 95th birthday.
Oh no, William Peter Blatty didn’t die AGAIN, did he?
But my response to seeing Brooks trending on Twitter was understandable because Brooks is very old and it has become all too common to learn about someone’s death on social media.
That’s how I learned that Charles Grodin died. I wish that Charles Grodin could have lived as long as one of those weird old turtles that make it to a 175 but we all wake up every morning knowing the following incontrovertible facts:
Thanks to advances in medical technology and also the fact that rich, famous people can afford the best of everything, there are any number of living legends leading rich, full lives deep into their eighties and nineties.
These wonderful, much-loved icons will probably die in the not too distant future and we’ll probably find out about it on Facebook and Twitter, where the mourning process will immediately begin and quickly mutate into something weird and mawkish and self-congratulatory.
When I see that a celebrity in their eighties or nineties is trending on Twitter I naturally assume that they’ve died. I am invariably relieved to discover that they’re still with us and that we won’t be subjected to mawkish memorial cartoons clumsily referencing their best-known work but it puts a little strain on my nervous system to be confronted with the possible death of beloved celebrities multiple times a day.
That is why it would be nice if Twitter could indicate the specific reason that an old person is trending is because they’re celebrating a birthday or they’re being honored or one of their films is being remembered and appreciated.
Don’t make us hold our breath until we discover that someone who has enriched our lives with their art is getting a year older, and has not met a definitive end!
Stop scaring the shit out of us, Twitter! Stop making us think that our favorite entertainers are taking eternal dirt naps when people are just wishing them happy birthdays!
You don’t necessarily have to do something as crass as include the hashtag #Notdead alongside Brooks’ blessed name, but would it kill you to specify that he’s turning 95, not ceasing to live?
It’s a little tweak that could keep a whole lot of people from being scared and sad unnecessarily. I know Twitter has started to make some moves in this direction, but not to the point where it doesn’t needlessly terrify me at least once a day.
Heaven knows we have enough real things in life to be scared and sad about already. We certainly don’t need to add the possible deaths of the geriatric and great to the mix.
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