I’m the same age as Luke Perry. His death does not cause me the slightest existential trauma, although of course I’m sorry for his family and friends.
The writer must have a small pool of friends in the entertainment industry. I am part of the GenX cohort, and not one of my friends has “lost it” in the wake of Luke Perry’s death.
I’m a hair away from 60. I check the obits now and then, but the only existential question I have is “how do they get people to die in alphabetical order?”
As a gen x’er I had my existential crisis just out of high school when my boss at the fast food joint (barely in his 30s) has a heart attack and died.
This article was obviously written by a shallow twit.
That's not really what the article was about.
I am a Gex X’er NOT sharing in this shock, because I have never abused drugs. Perry was 52 going on 70. He put himself through hell, with cocaine and alcohol. And it took a fatal toll.
I am trying to think of Baby Boomer (I am one) cultural icons who died of natural causes before their time.
Well, I’m at the tail end of the baby boom and frankly have no idea who this guy was. But here’s a news flash, people at every age die every day
I was born the same year as Luke Perry.
His death is kind of curious, but he was not currently a big star, so it has no real effect.
Also, by the time you reach middle age, you typically know people your age who died tragically due to accident, war, crime, or illness.
Last summer my son dove in a lake to search for a friend who jumped in and never came up. He found him, dragged the body to the beach and started CPR.
Yes, it his him and the others pretty hard then they went on.
It helped that the kid who died was a strong Christian and moved safely into the arms of the Lord.
I doubt people were shocked or panicked, but as the article says, this wasn't drugs or suicide or murder or an accident or even cancer. This was something young people think only happens to older people, and that gives a generation something to ponder if people in it are inclined to.
“..we’ve lost plenty of heroes to drugs and suicide, everyone from Kurt Cobain to River Phoenix to Chris Cornell....”
Kurt Cobain?? Hero??? River Phoenix?? Hero?? Chris Cornell?? Hero??
Damn this guy sets the “hero” bar pretty low.
I’m 58. MY heroes were the guys like my old man and uncles, Airborne and Marines, who saved a world from national socialists and imperial Japanese lunatics.
But, yeah... Kurt Cobain... a “hero”, uh huh.... an idiot Grunger who erased his face with a shotgun because he was too cowardly to face life. No sympathy at all from me.
Generation X was already at the age where people naturally start to think about their own mortality. I doubt Luke Perry’s death caused anyone to panic. 52 is pretty young to die these days, but it’s still far from young.
Ages 50 to 60 are the dangerous age for males. Heart attacks and strokes. You get through that you’re in pretty good shape. Although you can still get run over by a bus or get cancer, or kidney failure, or any other damn thing that human beings get.
Sooner or later every person of every generation has to come to face the realization that they are not immortal. There are all kinds of ways that epiphany happens.
In spite of what this story says, it isn’t a celebrity’s death. Pretty much everybody has people they know who died young. And it matters a great deal more when it’s someone you know and even more if it’s someone you care about.
In 2003 my dad died, in 2004 my mother died, in 2005 three friends of the same age died. 2 by illness and one by accident. That pretty much brings it home. My wife said to me we need to do the things that we want to do now. So we packed everything up and left Florida and went to where we were much happier. As I said to my wife whenever I die it won’t be in Florida thank God.
Everyone is mortal. Stay tuned for more News of the Obvious.
Been watching the “Leaving Neverland” series on HBO - young adults finally coming forward and admitting they were abused by Michael Jackson when they were kids - his generation of fans had a very difficult time accepting his death, and even today most defend him even though the depth of his evil is exposed with the hair-raising stories of what was actually going on at Neverland and how Jackson manipulated the kids and their families into going along.....
This is such a melodramatic article. I doubt that anybody but the author (with an obvious lack of new material) attributed Perry’s death to a “midlife crisis” among Gen X.
Just because we're not liberals like the Boomers or needy like the Millenials doesn't mean we should get smeared.
We're the people who innovate, the last generation who played in the woods, rode bikes for miles without helmets, and played outdoor games rather than staring at our phones all day.
Just today I heard that my SIL’s sister, her husband suddenly died at age 54 of heart failure. I never seen him or know anything more but was told he was a bit husky. None of us are guaranteed a long life.