What a pop culture buzz kill, I go away from the internet for one night, and the cutest boy from “Glee” overdoses and dies in a Vancouver hotel room.

Argh, that shit is so sad to me.  This is Heath Ledger all over again.  And you know, I call him a ‘kid’ but he’s exactly my age.  It feels like a blip, and then…it’s gone? Bummer.  Needless to say, people are really going ape-shit over this one.  It’s always difficult when attractive, talented people die.  It’s easy to criticize this fact, but it’s true.  It’s fine, I’m not judging, that kind of thing saddens me as well, but I can appreciate how someone could flip through a newspaper and say “Yeah…so?” We do tend to lose perspective in the news, in a world of civil war, genocide, rape, poverty, natural disasters–where unspeakable atrocities are happening right this minute, and we all are politely aware, but then boy oh boy, watch out, Finn from “Glee” dies and there is an unexpected emotional impact.  Why? Because it’s a singular tragedy.  It’s a fucking waste.  An unbelievable waste of potential.  And yes, while it is being deemed a tragic accident, his actions were a bit like Russian Roulette. There was always a bullet waiting in the chamber.  Judgements are flying, because of how he died, that somehow he should be exempt from compassion because it was self inflicted.  Sadly this will be his definition…the guy who had it all, who then died of a heroin overdose in the fancy hotel….

I keep pausing.  I keep trying to wrap my brain around the choices that lead us down ill-fated avenues.  It’s just a crying shame, that’s all.

As a general rule, I don’t follow “Glee”.  I’ve seen the first few seasons and saw a few out-of-order episodes on a very long plane ride.  (why do they do that by the way? Scattered episodes of a series, what good does that do me on a ten-hour Auckland to L.A?)  But it’s adorable, and the singing is fun, and I cry at least once an episode.  In New Zealand, I once left mates at a pub to go home, curl up on the couch to watch “Glee”, and it was wonderful.  But I wouldn’t call myself a ‘gleek’.

Still, Monteith’s death is the perfect mix for a media frenzy.  It’s fascinating stuff.  There are so many articles. So much speculation.  Final moments, last sightings, crystal clear 20/20 hindsight.  And the tweets, my god the tweets!  There are a lot of tweens out there that could fill the Grand Canyon with grief.  Poor @GleesAllINeed, tweeted that she was just realizing that life…”Glee”, twitter, will never be the same.  When I came across the tweet:

“I’m not even close to being emotionally ready for when lea michele makes her first tweet about cory monteith

I didn’t so much smirk, but I rolled my eyes, with an Oh puh-lease when I realized I was a woman, hunched over the computer, well past midnight, who had gotten distracted from research and writing and reading misspelled tweets about Cory Monteith’s ‘heroine’ overdose. And then I think to myself “Oh my god, neither am I“.  Uh oh, here I am, throwing stones from my glass house.  Time to back away slowly from the computer.  But then, the next night and my brain is still pressing on this tragedy; and our obsession with celebrity, that some girl is tweeting about missing someone she’s never met.  But you do, in a sense know who these people are.  You turn to particular programs and characters for comfort or amusement, and I reckon Gleeks are a sensitive, emotional sort right out of the gate.   In a way, the characters belong to you.  And therefore, while I’m sure that @GleesAllINeed is legitimately struggling with losing a television character and celebrity, he was in fact a real person, somebody’s talented and troubled son.  And he has left behind so many people that have to live with the “what if’s”.  He didn’t invent a thing, dying the way he did, there’s a long line of those ahead of him.  Those who could not bear the weight of success, or was unable to exorcise the ghosts that haunt your insides and refuse to let you go.  And you make a choice, and for some, it’s the end of the road.  And you wish it could be different.  But it’s not.

All Images Courtesy of Google