Celebrity Death Pool - thumbs up or down?
Robert Armin
Shipmate
in The Styx
This is a topic that bubbled up on the Tabloid thread (I think) which I find I have strong feelings about.
I've never liked the Death thread, but never felt deeply about it. When it first appeared, if memory serves, there were objections, but Erin weighed in in its favour and it went ahead. While I have very fond memories of Erin, and her kindness to me, I don't think she was always right about everything.
For years I've ignored the thread; having been reminded of its existence I now find I dislike it intensely. On the thread itself I suggested an acceptable change would be to keep it in house. Several of us have cancer, any of us could be hit by a bus. Why not speculate on which Shipmates will die this year?
That idea was not well received, which I expected. But if there is something I wouldn't want others to do to me, or my friends and family, should I do it to strangers? "Celebities will never read the Ship, so can't be harmed by it," seems a weak excuse to me. (And if the Hosts really believed that I don't think they would be as cautious as they are about libel issues.) I'd like to see an end to this "game", in case I haven't been clear.
I've never liked the Death thread, but never felt deeply about it. When it first appeared, if memory serves, there were objections, but Erin weighed in in its favour and it went ahead. While I have very fond memories of Erin, and her kindness to me, I don't think she was always right about everything.
For years I've ignored the thread; having been reminded of its existence I now find I dislike it intensely. On the thread itself I suggested an acceptable change would be to keep it in house. Several of us have cancer, any of us could be hit by a bus. Why not speculate on which Shipmates will die this year?
That idea was not well received, which I expected. But if there is something I wouldn't want others to do to me, or my friends and family, should I do it to strangers? "Celebities will never read the Ship, so can't be harmed by it," seems a weak excuse to me. (And if the Hosts really believed that I don't think they would be as cautious as they are about libel issues.) I'd like to see an end to this "game", in case I haven't been clear.
Comments
Erin, whoever that is, is not relevant to deciding something today. And I also don't care to be told that I should care about someone I never interacted with.
The relevant parties to discuss this are those who are involved on the topic, those currently responsible for running things and perhaps other shipmates but the latter, not so much.
Erin is relevant because her ethos defines much of how the Ship currently works.
However I think the main point is all about loving your neighbour. If we wouldn't be happy if we, or our friends and family, were treated in a certain way, should we treat others in that way? Whether we have met them or not?
To do it on the Ship? No - that’s different territory. You don’t play games with the predicted death dates of people you know.
In my view it’s the same as the difference between comedians performing satire about various politicians and celebrities and doing it about their husband/father/son/friend. The first is acceptable, if often edgy. The second crosses the line to unkind and/or cruel.
So, I don't go there. I've visited once or twice, found it rather not to my taste, so won't go there again. We all have the same choice, and it's the same with TV programmes you don't like - use the OFF button!
After all, only few of us are celebrities ourselves, and the Ship is 'irreverent' and satiric, as far as I can tell. Look at it as some sort-of-Christian online version of the 'Private Eye' magazine. I don't mind the Celebrities Death Pool at all, although I haven't signed up very often myself. But why shouldn't we poke fun at the rich and famous, and some rather good people as well?
A tad of subversiveness won't go wrong here, I find.
There is also a death thread in All Saints that no one seems to object to. It doesn't involve prediction or competition though, so I guess those are the main objections, not discussing the deaths of celebrities per se.
According to the rules:
Your argument makes a lot of sense to me - I process something similar when contemplating organized religion. Which, honestly, makes me admit that much of my thinking about the functioning of the SoF discussion boards all stems from how Erin communicated her vision and how that vision completely won me over¹.
When most of us refer to Erin, we do so based on the strength of her ideas - which are still relevant. But that does mean we should be able to wrangle based on those ideas, not just appealing to WWED blindly.
With that in mind, I can understand the Celebrity Death Pool as a mechanism to acknowledge the black humour which functions as a coping mechanism to some people. For [waves arms]... reasons. I would prefer that we do not censor them based on our personal preferences. "Public persons" are recognized as a different class of consideration based on their essential existence in the public sphere (I think even legally), and thus have somewhat less expectation of privacy in many regards.
¹ It's why I'm still here. Period.
I do have to admit to sometimes posting people I'm not fond of. But, in that case, it's not so much wishing them to die, as to announce to whoever cares that those folks are scoundrels and not very nice.
I vote thumbs up, and for anyone who is troubled by the thread, just don't click on it. And many blessings to them, especially @Robert Armin who is in my prayers.
@Robert Armin and I, who talked about Erin, didn't raise her to decide anything and didn't tell you to care about her. We were both just providing the history of the game's existence on the Ship.
I share @RooK 's thoughts about how Erin's vision shaped the Ship and how I think about it. I'd add that many of us old-timers knew her, loved her, argued long and hard with her, and were devastated when she died before she was 40. My own sense of humor is dark enough to note that on a Ship's version of the CDP, her death would have yielded 61 points to anyone who had her on their list.
The main concern I have at the moment is the user who has headed up this year: Baker. I think the Celebrity Death Pool is their only contribution of the Ship and they've made reference to running other pools on other websites, which makes me wonder at their motivation. I did wonder whether their (over)-keenness may have been a factor in fewer participants this year. There are also regular 'score updates' which I don't recall happening when The Rogue was looking after it and which emphasises too much the 'game' aspect of it.
I would be in favour of keeping it, but not passionately so. If it is distressing to some Shipmates, then I would far rather be sensitive to their well-being than to ignore their feelings for the sake of something unimportant.
A story, which I've told here before.... In 2003, there had been in very rapid succession a number of high profile celebrity deaths. One Saturday morning I was in my local pub for brunch, and one of the owners sat with me, and we had our usual chat about current affairs, local gossip, etc. He mentioned, not so jokingly, that a pub celebrity death pool would be a fun idea. I thought that he was joking. He wasn't, and when I was in the following day, there was already a grid set up (you'd buy squares) behind the bar. I thought that it was in poor taste, and one of the waitresses and I thought that it was not only in poor taste, but also bad juju, but didn't say anything, and it proved to be quite popular. It went on for a while, and the pot was getting to be quite large. Finally, there was a winner - "Jack", a regular who was a retired obituary editor(!). (For the Canadians here, the winning entry was Robert Stanfield.) "Jack" was quite pleased, graciously bought a round, etc. Jack died within eight weeks.
There are death pools in other places. So it is not a completely original idea (doesn't mean it is either good or bad). Should it be in the Ship? Surely we are a place of unrest. That means that ideas that are slightly edgy - like this - should be totally encouraged.
The fact that some people are uncomfortable with it should not be a reason to close it. Otherwise we would never have had the ship as it is today.
Whether Baker is the person who should be running it, and whether s-he is running it properly - that is a valid question, and I think there are concerns to be raised on that (as have been mentioned above).
My take on it is that it's harmless fun, though I do appreciate that others on the Ship have different views on this.
I work in a secondhand bookshop, and when Michael Jackson died, we put all the books we had about him on display - we sold 24 books, which we hadn't been able to sell for some years previously. So now we have a "Death Spot" on the front counter, where we display books by or about a famous person who has died. For what it's worth, none of our customers have ever complained.
The thing about the Death Pool is that nobody is profiting from the death of any of the celebrities, whereas the bookshop is profiting by selling the books.
Sadly he would have garnered far too many points (37).
Having been surrounded by death of those I love, I've felt being my friend is itself a kiss of death sometimes. The death pool topic, is it mocking death just a bit? And what's the trouble with that again?
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44107/holy-sonnets-death-be-not-proud
As do I, though I'm ambivalent as regards CDP...
"having fun with" could work.
Despite being the person responsible for this topic rearing its head on the tabloid thread, I have no serious opinions on it. As a matter of historical note, I will mention that the first time I ever heard of a death pool was in the Dirty Harry movie appropriately titled The Dead Pool.
In that film, a group of debauched members of the glitterati participate in a dead pool for money, but things start to go awry when some of the listed celebrities start getting murdered, thus casting suspicion on the players.
The thing is, the players are all supposed to be understood as morally suspect for playing the pool, with one of them, played by Liam Neeson, justifying himself with a nihilistic speech about how "death is all around us" anyway. Of course, Dirty Harry, representing good old non-eurotrash American values, has to come in and straighten 'em all out.
'Putting Death in his place', maybe?
Sorry - tangent...
With you there. I have sometimes been tempted to add myself to my own list. Except that I wouldn't qualify (not being famous. And I think being famous in death doesn't count).
I have never cared for it, and have, accordingly, ignored it. It has always made me uncomfortable. (And I loved Erin, too.) That doesn't mean that I'd ban it, but I wouldn't be sorry if it vanished.
I think that's better than both "mocking" and "having fun with".
I’d quite like DEATH to contribute to the thread - he’d have plenty to say. Of course only cats and children can see him, so maybe he’s here already - we’d better ask a cat to check.
Deciding a list of topics acceptable for discussion by popular vote seems like a sure-fire way to kill any kind of conversation.
Shipmates who do not want to visit CDP need not do so. Pass on by...
Well, my vote would be to close the thread and shut down the celebrity death game. I find it terribly insensitive and disrespectful, as well as gross.
The thread could be seen as crass, even offensive; I get that and can see why some might object to the existence of the thread itself, but then I can see why people might object to many more threads than this on this site. Thing is, though, participation or skimming or even skipping anything whatever on this site is entirely voluntary and up to individual users, every syllable. What's wrong with leaving things as they are? Those who dislike / disapprove of the thread, its content, its existence (take your pick) are perfectly free, as they've always been, to steer clear of it.
And, in fairness, allowing public votes on things does not have a good reputation at the moment.
We would end up keeping it if it were renamed Deathy McDeathFace.
There are threads on the ship I find ridiculous, tasteless, stupid and meaningless. There have been threads I find utterly tasteless. I handle this by Not Opening Those Threads. Or Boards.
So Suck It Up*. Because some of us like to celebrate the lives of people who have passed, or at least acknowledg them. The game is a way of doing this. The humour might be dark, but at least we are not discussing the right colour or shape of a piece of cloth to wear. That would be sad.
*This is not an Official Quaker Response. Yet.
Oh please do this.
The CDP is edgy, dark humour. Thumbing a nose at death.
Edgy isn’t comfortable.
Speculating on shipmates time of death tips over from edgy and darkly funny into unkind and thoughtless. It’s a fine line.
Celebrities may be my neighbours in Jesus’ sense of the word, but they are not my friends or shipmates. In the unlikely event a celebrity did happen on our CDP I imagine they’d file it alongside all the rest of the media attention they get, whether they found it humorous on not would depend on their sense of humour.
Motives vary for participation, there is no "is".