Yesterday, after the shocking news of Taylor Hawkins’ passing, I posted immediately about what we MIGHT begin to see in the media, bc all too often now, this is how things go.
I’d found an outlet early in the day, that picked up on the “suspicion of this being a drug-related death” – an outlet that placed that possibility front & center in their headlines.
In comments (though 95% were very supportive of the post addressing why that type of coverage was harmful), I had a few folks that weren’t too happy – opining that by sharing that information/headline, I was perpetuating the very news that was unfair to Taylor & his family (& millions of his fans).
Then last night, our biggest fears about HOW the media WOULD cover this tragedy, became a reality. Major outlets from The Associated Press to NBC to News.com.au reported that Taylor was found to have: 10 psychoactive substances & medicines in his system at the time of his passing.
I spent a LOT of time last night reading thru the articles in those publications. 9 out of 10 mentioned the “news” of the substances w/o much else. The other 1 out of 10 tried to at least paint the picture that this was a human being, a supreme talent, a father & husband, adored by many.
I wanted to/hoped I’d find articles – fairly talking abt Taylor’s LIFE, not just his death. I wanted to hear abt his struggles as a human being.
Without this context – what gets me so angry – is that the narrative is now: Rock n’ Roll partier ingests too many drugs at once looking for a greater high, & dies as a result. Is that fair to this man? To his family? Is it fair to understanding why & how drugs are often used not for “just partying” but to cover up other things.
Do we as a society learn anything abt who is susceptible to these types of outcomes (so we can prevent them in the future) other than “partying rock stars” when this is how our media/social media cover these tragedies? Does it humanize the struggle…or are these outlets all looking for the “train wreck headlines” that will sell papers, w/o much care for the damage it does?
I found one outlet – Rolling Stone, that was published yesterday, the full last interview they had w Hawkins. In it he was asked: Have you always had this level of anxiety about shows? His response: “Always. Always. Always. Oh, yeah. I have major stage fright, major, major, major. Like today is like, I’m in hell right now. The last year and a half, other than watching the world crumble on the news, I’ve been on the road for 28 years.” Coming back from not playing for two years he was mortified about getting on stage.
To add to that: In talking about how he felt about an upcoming show: “I’m just not
having a good day. I feel like everything in
my body is wrong. My leg doesn’t feel right & all that kind of shit. Like all these kind of crazy psychosis kind of things that you go through to get yourself prepped enough just to play a little club show.” Finally he talked about his perfectionist attitude: “I just have this idea of perfection in my head, how it should be. But I just feel a certain way when there’s 100,000 people waiting for you to go onstage. I put a big burden on myself to play perfectly.”
THIS type of back story needs to be shared. To know what he struggled w…to know why someone might even be taking drugs (emotional stresses & pain). Not “partier.”
