The internet is serious fucking business.

So on one of my forums, a girl started a topic bemoaning the deaths of some celebrities. You know the ones. Stanley Winston, George Carlin, Michael Turner. "June has become a dark month," she says, the month having been "overcast in darkness and despair."

Aside from how ridiculously melodramatic that is... I kind of have a moral problem with it. What the fuck is with people who will completely fall apart emotionally over the death of one celebrity they never even knew (Heath Ledger anyone?) but don't even seem to register enormous tragedies when they occur? Is it just that people they see on TV are "real," whereas thousands of faceless Asians just don't have the same impact?

There's nothing wrong with mentioning it and noting that it happened. Don't get me wrong, it matters that celebrities died just like it matters when anyone dies.

But OVERCAST IN DARKNESS AND DESPAIR, guys.

Just repeat that and ask yourselves what would make your world OVERCAST IN DARKNESS AND DESPAIR.

"June has become a dark month" my ass. I guess May wasn't dark enough for her. Just a lot of strangers, right. No one she really knew (and by knew I mean she watched them on TV or went to see their movies).

I held off on replying until a couple of other people jumped on the melodrama bandwagon.

May was a rough month, too. Something like ten thousand people died after the earthquake in China, which sucks because a lot of them were probably trapped under rubble and buried alive. If you want to donate to the earthquake relief to help rebuild schools and hospitals and stuff, you can go here.

There was also that cyclone in Myanmar. A lot of people died there, too, and the worst part of it is that their government wasn't letting international aid workers in for, like, weeks. Bad for the national image, y'know, having other countries help your RAVAGED DYING PEOPLE. Eventually they let aid workers in, though, and if I recall the death toll passed twenty thousand (with over forty thousand missing). Their food infrastructure was also badly damaged, which means there are going to be a lot of hungry people for a good long while. If you want to donate to help all those people, click here.

Then there was our own backyard. The terrible flooding in the midwest around where I live has left a lot of people outof homes and jobs. The link I just offered is a link to donate to help the victims of that flooding. The twisted part is that the rainfall is badly needed in Oklahoma where they've had a drought year. In an area based on agriculture, you kinda sorta do need water. It's all evidently in the midwest drowning people and destroying their homes, instead of keeping cattle and crops alive further west.

So I guess, if June's celebrity deaths get you down too badly... it could always be worse. It could always have been May. May was my month of darkness and shock and grieving, even though the thousands of people dead and homeless and hungry are--in many cases--halfway across the world.

And before you say it, yes. I know that when someone is in emotional distress it's not generally helpful to tell them that what they're freaking out about is not really as worthy of their attention as... well, any number of things. But at the same time, get a fucking grip and get some fucking perspective.

An admin posted in the thread later chastising me and a couple of other people (who will no doubt be seen now as my minions, mindless drones sent into threads by their mistress to parrot my dangerous and malicious propaganda) for trying to remind this girl that if she's going to have a nervous breakdown, it's kinda fucked up that this is what she cares about. At the very least, as one girl stated who lives in Singapore and was closer to the disasters, "if June was a month of darkness for you because of these people dying - I'd say that you're very fortunate because you seem not to be personally affected by the disasters that've been littering the headlines of international news for years on end. Just my two cents."

Also, I get the distinct impression that the staff of this forum have begun to read my other journal (where this is cross-posted), presumably to figure out what makes me such an ornery troublemaking little bitch. This is why. People on your forum will spaz over the deaths of people who died wealthy and old and safe and surrounded by loved ones, but there was nothing on the board about the natural disasters going on everywhere killing thousands in pretty terrible ways.

Those priorities are fucking sick, and that's why I'm such an ornery troublemaking little bitch.