beak

“How on earth can we understand the news, reported this week in The Sun, that at least a dozen Michael Jackson fans have committed suicide since his death? It’s easy to scoff, it’s easy to point to past histories of mental illness. But neither of these responses really get at the sorrow of these grieving fans. Perhaps the best means of comprehending the Michael Jackson suicides—and his legacy in general—is through the lens of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 1774 novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, which itself inspired a wave of suicides across Europe.”