"LIFE ETC."

An Unlikely Life/ An Unlikely Death

We're all back from a summer vacation featuring serious issues such as Israel's attack on Lebanon and a series of murders by PKK, spiced up with lots of "light" news such as the video-destruction of Ali Kırca's charismatic image, Zidane head-butting Materazzi in the chest and the sudden death of Puerto-Rican pop-star Ricky Martin.

According to the news-story broadcasted on the Haber3 website on August 31st, the death occurred because of a cocaine overdose. In a very short time, related topics were immediately opened in both Ekşi Sözlük and Private Sözlük. People didn't hesitate to start their requiems for the famous singer of "Livin' La Vida Loca" and "I Don't Care".

The dramatic death of the well-known singer was, however, a complete fake. A 19 year-old high school graduate declared that it was a joke he designed for his friends but that things went out of control. The link he used for the trick was actually a fake one which borrowed the design of Haber3.com and had no direct relation to the original site. Now, however, his "apology" can be read where the fake story used to appear: "Although I didn't mean any malice," the creator of the joke says, "I apologize since I couldn't predict where my actions could lead to"*.

But, to be honest, who cares? Didn't Ricky Martin's death symbolically happen for lots of people with this simple joke? They've read the news (which traditionally featured a summary of Martin's life-story), felt what they should feel about such a thing, and expressed their feelings somehow. So… Is there a difference between the "actual" death and a fake death as long as we don't know the person in the flesh? In fact, don't we always have doubts about the deaths of the famous? We can easily choose to believe that they're trying to hide Ricky Martin's death. Thousands of people still believe that Elvis Presley lives somewhere on earth**. While thousands of others try to prove that Paul McCartney is already dead and replaced by someone else***.

Any effort to prove/disprove a claim that a popular icon is alive or dead will be meaningless because Ricky, Elvis, and Paul are nothing but images****. No matter how much we want to believe that they're human, it's obvious that these images have no relation with the concept of life and death. Maybe we should bear in mind that we've never felt their pulse or their breath the next time we feel something strong about a pop-icon's (so-called) personality.

* http://www.freewebtown.com/ahmgon/haber/ricky.htm
** The funniest version of this theory takes place in the humorous science-fiction classic "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams.
*** For examples, see: http://members.tripod.com/~taz4158/mac.html and http://members.lycos.co.uk/subberroul/ispauldead.htm
**** I've already discussed this in my article "Tears and Respect (Tears vs. Respect)" on Attila İlhan's death. (Bilkent News, 25 October 2005)

NOTE: Since I will be preparing for TOEFL and GRE this semester, Life etc. will disturb you every two weeks instead of every week.