Monday, March 29, 2004
Adam Moss Better Fire Vanessa Grigoriadis
Wrong wrong wrong.
Please don't engage in mindless pop psychology about Teen Suicide epidemics, New York Magazine. If you're going to reference Heathers, it'd be nice if the writer had actually seen the movie. Maybe he could have drawn the conclusion that such analysis is useless, misinformed, and based completely around anecdotal evidence and broad generalizations.
Honestly -- do you think Diana Chien killed herself because "It may also look like the deceased has gotten some sort of reward -- attention, pity, maybe higher social status than when he was alive"? Do you honestly believe there wasn't a rash of suicides after Kurt Cobain because Courtney Love called him an asshole???
This article begins on my floor in my dorm room, probably because Steve's friends and family have been more media-friendly than the relatives of all the others. The problem is, of course, that Steve's death doesn't fit into this handy psychological framework of "suicide clusters" at all -- the guy was high on hallucinogenic mushrooms when he fell (or jumped, whatever you want to call it -- all I'm saying is, he was not in his right mind).
Why don't we blame this all on Spalding Grey? Courtney Love didn't call him an asshole, maybe he gave everyone subconscious psychological permission to kill themselves. Let's ask an epidemiologist at Columbia.
Bullshit bullshit bullshit.
I'm beginning to agree with Gawker on this one. At least it helps make the assholes in the NYU administration look bad.
There is a kid who lives in a tent outside a dorm at Vassar. School regulations stipulate that you may only live in a tent on campus if you are protesting something. So he put up a sign reading "Tuition's too high." In much the same way, random causes are being attached to acts that all have their own, unknowable internal logic.
Which isn't to say that giving all us hard-working debt-accumulating students an extra few thousand bucks to throw around wouldn't save some lives.
You listening, Sexton? |
Please don't engage in mindless pop psychology about Teen Suicide epidemics, New York Magazine. If you're going to reference Heathers, it'd be nice if the writer had actually seen the movie. Maybe he could have drawn the conclusion that such analysis is useless, misinformed, and based completely around anecdotal evidence and broad generalizations.
Honestly -- do you think Diana Chien killed herself because "It may also look like the deceased has gotten some sort of reward -- attention, pity, maybe higher social status than when he was alive"? Do you honestly believe there wasn't a rash of suicides after Kurt Cobain because Courtney Love called him an asshole???
This article begins on my floor in my dorm room, probably because Steve's friends and family have been more media-friendly than the relatives of all the others. The problem is, of course, that Steve's death doesn't fit into this handy psychological framework of "suicide clusters" at all -- the guy was high on hallucinogenic mushrooms when he fell (or jumped, whatever you want to call it -- all I'm saying is, he was not in his right mind).
Why don't we blame this all on Spalding Grey? Courtney Love didn't call him an asshole, maybe he gave everyone subconscious psychological permission to kill themselves. Let's ask an epidemiologist at Columbia.
Bullshit bullshit bullshit.
I'm beginning to agree with Gawker on this one. At least it helps make the assholes in the NYU administration look bad.
There is a kid who lives in a tent outside a dorm at Vassar. School regulations stipulate that you may only live in a tent on campus if you are protesting something. So he put up a sign reading "Tuition's too high." In much the same way, random causes are being attached to acts that all have their own, unknowable internal logic.
Which isn't to say that giving all us hard-working debt-accumulating students an extra few thousand bucks to throw around wouldn't save some lives.
You listening, Sexton? |
