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RIP Cranberries lead singer Dolores O'Riordan, aged 46

Since we're all telling everyone how to write, I'll just point out that various press guidelines discourage the use of the phrase "commit suicide", which dates back to when attempting suicide was a criminal offence - we commit murder, burglary, rape, etc.

Since suicide hasn't been a criminal offence since 1961, the preferred term is "died by suicide".

Thanks.

Thanks for correcting that usage but not being at all bothered about false insinuations of suicide.
 
Thanks for correcting that usage but not being at all bothered about false insinuations of suicide.
Right. Not that I feel the need to justify myself to you, but I didn't particularly want to dash some post off on my phone about this subject, because it's not the kind of thing you want to fuck up on. But do feel free to continue to insist what I should post and when.

Suicide is an emotive and painful subject. It makes people angry. It makes them confused, and scared, and they try to find certainty. Sometimes the way they try to find certainty is to insist that it isn't at all possible that the person died by suicide, but that it was either some tragic accident, or some more sinister thing. Sometimes, it goes the other way, and the narrative people want to cling to is the idea that someone did die by suicide, when the reality is (probably) that it was accidental.

The truth is, we can never really know for sure. Because, to "decide" whether it was suicide or not, we have to know what was going on in the mind of the person who has died. In fact, it's worse than that, because we'd have to know what was going on in their deeper unconscious - did they want to die, but deep down actually were trying to survive (I suspect a lot of uncompleted suicide attempts are down to this - the "miraculous discovery", the silent 999 call, etc); or was it the other way around?

And that's why I think speculation - either way - is useless. And disrespectful. Someone has died untimely. That is in itself tragic. There will be facts surrounding that death. But there will be a lot of unknowns - including the state of mind of the deceased. And, unless it is abundantly clear what that state of mind is likely to be - suicide note, etc - we're in no position to speculate. Even if there is a note, we don't know if they might have changed their mind between writing it and expiring (on the (in)famous Golden Gate suicides film, several survivors relate how, the moment they let go of the bridge, they suddenly didn't want to die).

So I am bothered about "false insinuations of suicide" - they're disrespectful, hurtful, and pointless. I'm even more bothered about speculation in general, in either direction. Someone has died. The coroner's job is to determine the facts. At that point, some measure of respect to both the deceased and all those who care about them needs to apply, and one way of doing that is to stay the fuck away from wild speculation. Either way.
 
If someone else speculates about it, I'm sorry, but I have the right to reply. Only having therapeutic doses in your system despite having access to more is a pretty good indication that it's not suicide. I'm not obliged to keep my mouth shut and not point this out.
 
If someone else speculates about it, I'm sorry, but I have the right to reply. Only having therapeutic doses in your system despite having access to more is a pretty good indication that it's not suicide. I'm not obliged to keep my mouth shut and not point this out.
Is anybody suggesting that you have no right to reply?

If you are trying to insinuate that I'm saying that, then you're talking complete rubbish. You took me to task for not saying something that you thought I should have said; I've expressed my opinion on the matter. What you choose to do with that is entirely up to you
 
Is anybody suggesting that you have no right to reply?

If you are trying to insinuate that I'm saying that, then you're talking complete rubbish. You took me to task for not saying something that you thought I should have said; I've expressed my opinion on the matter. What you choose to do with that is entirely up to you

Ok, so when you said that speculating at all - in either way - was disrespectful, you weren't actually making a value judgement? Because you know that's what I meant by right of reply - I wasn't making the strange suggestion that you actually have the ability to stop me writing on here, but that I should be able to disagree with someone making a false insinuation about suicide without being told I'm just as disrespectful as them.
 
Ok, so when you said that speculating at all - in either way - was disrespectful, you weren't actually making a value judgement? Because you know that's what I meant by right of reply - I wasn't making the strange suggestion that you actually have the ability to stop me writing on here, but that I should be able to disagree with someone making a false insinuation about suicide without being told I'm just as disrespectful as them.
I don't think this conversation is going anywhere particularly useful, so I think I'll close my side of it by saying simply that I was speaking my view. Nothing I said was aimed at anyone, from anywhere, on this conversation or elsewhere. Merely that my view is that speculating about whether or not someone had deliberately taken their own life wasn't a particularly productive activity.

And, on that note, I am bowing out.
 
I honestly don't believe it matters "how" someone died. Yes, for the family I agree it probably does. Both my parents are dead for different reasons.. It doesn't matter to me, their family, why they are dead, what really matters to me is that they are actually dead. I'm not going to tell you why they died or the circumstances because that really isn't important. To me, their daughter, it matters immensely that they are dead, not WHY they are dead but that they ARE dead. And for me personally, even more so, the reason they died doesn't matter a single bit. To me, personally, in my own opinion, if someone dies, they are dead, it does not matter HOW they died, just that they are dead. And even more so for me personally, that applies even more so for "celebrities" . To the fans left behind, in my opinion, why could anyone care WHY they died. They are fans and in my opinion the fan is upset the celebrity died because they will have one less form of entertainment to"enhance" their world. I do not in any way understand that the reason a celebrity died makes a difference to a fan. Because the only way it affects them, again, in my own opinion, is because that person believes their entertainment which is quite superficial in the scheme of life, has now been cut short or terminated. The reason doesn't matter to them, what matters to the fan is that they feel sad because a source of their entertainment has been taken away from them. It doesn't affect them personally as they never knew anything other than that particular celebrities entertainment value to their enjoyment of the genre of entertainment that they enjoy..
Perhaps no one will agree with that and that's ok. But to get upset over how the method a "celebrity" died is ridiculous unless they actually knew that celebrity personally. Which the large majority of people do not.
 
I honestly don't believe it matters "how" someone died. Yes, for the family I agree it probably does. Both my parents are dead for different reasons.. It doesn't matter to me, their family, why they are dead, what really matters to me is that they are actually dead. I'm not going to tell you why they died or the circumstances because that really isn't important. To me, their daughter, it matters immensely that they are dead, not WHY they are dead but that they ARE dead. And for me personally, even more so, the reason they died doesn't matter a single bit. To me, personally, in my own opinion, if someone dies, they are dead, it does not matter HOW they died, just that they are dead. And even more so for me personally, that applies even more so for "celebrities" . To the fans left behind, in my opinion, why could anyone care WHY they died. They are fans and in my opinion the fan is upset the celebrity died because they will have one less form of entertainment to"enhance" their world. I do not in any way understand that the reason a celebrity died makes a difference to a fan. Because the only way it affects them, again, in my own opinion, is because that person believes their entertainment which is quite superficial in the scheme of life, has now been cut short or terminated. The reason doesn't matter to them, what matters to the fan is that they feel sad because a source of their entertainment has been taken away from them. It doesn't affect them personally as they never knew anything other than that particular celebrities entertainment value to their enjoyment of the genre of entertainment that they enjoy..
Perhaps no one will agree with that and that's ok. But to get upset over how the method a "celebrity" died is ridiculous unless they actually knew that celebrity personally. Which the large majority of people do not.

Let's forget the 'celebrity' title for a bit and think of them as a fellow human being that died tragically and too early.
Of course fans wills feel a sense of loss. That's life if you have enjoyed their work, whether it be art, music, literature etc.
It's called human emotion ffs.
I never met Victoria Wood, but I still felt a sense of loss because of the joy/laughter she brought me growing up. So fucking shoot me.
 
Tell the victims/survivors of the troubles that the reason their dead died doesn't matter. The people blown to bits ...shot up in pubs.....tell their communities that how they died doesnt matter. See how far you get.

It matters that 1.5 million Irish died of starvation. Tell any Irish person that doesn't matter... that they'd have died anyway just maybe 20 years later. See how far you get ...


It matters that women in Ireland are dying of cervical cancer because of errors in diagnostics. It matters how they die.

It matters that someone's death is wrongly labelled as suicide when it wasn't regardless of their celebrity status.

How people die ...the circumstances.... matter to many people for many many reasons.
 
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Sorry, don't agree. To their family members yes it is important. To anyone else it's not only none of their business but it ought not to matter on a personal level. An example here is Michael Schumacher. He's not dead, so not a perfect example. BUT he's a celebrity for sure, and his family are rightly keeping every detail of his illness under wraps and will continue to do so and probably will do so until he's dead and long after. Because people who do not personally know the person have no business poking their noses into his and his family's misfortune. It's just that "the public" or "human nature", call or whatever you wish decide it's their "right" to know. No it isn't. It should not matter to anyone else and fair play to the Schumachers for having the compassion and intelligence to know the difference between what everyone feels they think they need to know and something that's very personal and private
 
Still don't agree. Because what media tells people isn't usually truthful. What a coroner tells family probably is based on the facts they have at hand. And even then is subjective. The family will care and rightly so, probably. My father died under dubious and rare circumstances. No one needs to know details other than my family and the coroner and perhaps medical science people who might use those facts to prevent another death but don't need to know who it was who died. They might need to know how and why but not who. Someone who died who I don't know personally, the reason they died does not matter one iota to me. They are dead and it's sad, but personally it means nothing. Murdered, suicide, accident, they are still dead and the reason they died isn't important to me personally. If people knew my dad, who he was and how he died and then speculated about it and believed it meant something to them personally can fuck the fuck off. It doesn't affect them in my eyes, it only affects me, my family and his friends. And probably the way his friends feel about WHY the reason or the method he died makes no difference. He's still dead and nothing will change that however notorious or not he was. Robin Williams is another, recently in the news there was a bullshit article about how it might have been murder and not suicide. Police might be interested but to anyone else other than his actual family should not care. He's dead. Nothing will change that. So anyone else doesn't matter
 
Gonna have a listen to that once I've got a moment to be a bit sad about it.

O'riordan's death upset me more than most famous people tragedies and I'm still not sure why tbh.
 
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