One of the byproducts of the hyper-viral society we live in is an immediate outpouring of emotion when a notable figure passes away.
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Long gone are the days when you would hear about someone’s passing on the evening news, and even farther gone are the days when you wouldn’t know until you opened the day’s newspaper.
Now, our emotions are kick-started with an email alert, a tweet, or a barrage of Facebook and Reddit postings.
When these figures are legends of screen, dying in bed at an old age, they are remembered for a connection to a bygone period of time that we are quickly forgetting about. When they die with tragedy, a la Philip Seymour Hoffman or Whitney Houston, it is remembering the smiling figure we saw on screen or the sounds we heard in our car.
So sad to hear about Harold Ramis. One of the all time greats.
— Seth Meyers (@sethmeyers) February 24, 2014
It becomes “What could have been?” And “We will never know what work they could have done.”
We take the actual death of a human being out of the equation and focus on what it will mean to us. By having the ability to share these thoughts or memories online, we comfort ourselves with the peace that, even though someone is dead, we did our duty by remembering them through our sadness.
https://twitter.com/SethMacFarlane/status/438009013616132096
Today, Harold Ramis died. For anyone who has even the slightest interest in the art of comedy, Ramis would fulfill a selective piece of the comedy Mount Rushmore of the 1980s. Through his strange look, emotive words, and often-absurd scenarios, we now have films like Ghostbusters, Caddyshack, Stripes, National Lampoon’s Vacation and Groundhog Day. We also have Bedazzled, Year One and Stuart Saves His Family. Just like anything in life, Mr. Ramis’ career was filled with some stinkers. Stinkers that will now be lost to time because we will never have the hope that they could be good.
No Harold Ramis, no comedy as we know it today. #RIPHaroldRamis
— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) February 24, 2014
In the round of tributes that have already begun to come in, you will hear little about the last decade of Mr. Ramis’ life. You may hear of his brief turn as Seth Rogen’s father in Knocked Up; no doubt you will hear endless speculation of a new Ghostbusters film. What you will also see is a deep focus on a 10-year period where the Harold Ramis stamp was the equivalent of comedy gold.
Sad to hear my friend Harold Ramis
passed away. A brilliant, funny, actor and
director. A wonderful husband and dad.
Big loss to us all. bc— Billy Crystal (@BillyCrystal) February 24, 2014
There will be tributes, there will be analysis like this, and everyone will wait for Bill Murray to say something perfect. And then things will get back to normal, until the next one goes. It is a cycle and an unfortunate one at that, where an online community can very rarely remember someone while they are still living. Express joy for a human being’s existence in a time period before and after their immediate death. Instead of simply writing #RIPHAROLDRAMIS #GROUNDHOGDAY #GHOSTBUSTERS on Twitter, go out and show someone why this man made you laugh or, better yet, go out yourself and make someone laugh.
As Harold Ramis himself said,
“As much as we’d like to believe that our work is great and that we’re infallible, we’re not. Hollywood movies are made for the audience.”