Amy Winehouse (and how she's all dead or whatever)

Unless you've been locked up in the basement with minimal access to things that arent basic necessities of life, you've most likely heard about Amy Winehouse's death.  Now don't get me wrong, it's sad whenever anyone dies (unless it's crew member #3...that dick) but her death has made me realize that these things get blown way out of proportion just for the sake of having something to talk about.

Before the internet and in the early days of television, coverage for these sorts of things was usually reserved for VIPs like JFK, Marylin Monroe, etc.  Then after that, we started seeing a bit more coverage once television caught on more with the Princess Diana funeral.  Now as I'm sure you're aware, the Michael Jackson death/funeral was a huge ordeal...they even had tv specials and youtube videos come out commiserating his passing.  The thing that's really most interesting about this is the influx in the amount of material we have now...especially since as opposed to "the old days", anyone can get in front of a camera and speak their condolences...no matter how dumb they may be.

He was a light...at the end of a tunnel.  He was my light...and he always beat me at Jenga.

Now the reason I bring up is because I barely even remember anyone even mentioning Amy Winehouse besides my brother-in-law.  At best, maybe someone hearing her "Rehab" song and going "Shit, someone sang that, right?"  Yes, yes someone did sing that.  Now I remember the whole debacle with her when she actually needed to go to rehab (I'll go out on a limb and guess that's what the song was about) and she got a bit of press coverage, but nothing major.  So it just blows my mind to be on youtube and see practically every single channel have some sort of sympathy video for her, along with the endless google news articles, yahoo, etc.  Hell I even decided to try a little experiment.  I googled "John F Kennedy funeral" and "Amy Winehouse funeral".  You know what I found?

         

Yeah, apparently JFK can suck it...They Tried to make us go to rehab and we said "No, no no."  That's right, apparently theres 4.1 million results for one of our nation's favorite leaders passing 58 years ago, and 26.9 million for Amy Winehouse...who died 3 days ago.  You would think just by the sheer fact that he had 58 years on her there'd be more things written about right?  I mean you have the conspiracy theories, the memorials, the actual funeral...google spiderwebs everything together so that you'd have all that material to cover.  But apparently we as a nation like to smile coyly as we sing about drug addiction more.

Now this isn't supposed to be some sort of thing like "She doesn't deserve this attention and to stfu", but it does pose some questions:  such as Do we as a nation struggle to find things to talk about so much that we need a funeral of someone moderately famous to spice up our mundane lives...even if that person didn't necessarily have mainstream fame?  I know she had won several awards, including the Ivor Novello Award and Best Contemporary song for "Rehab", but she still wasn't at the same status level (at least for our country) as say the likes of Lil' Wayne, Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, etc. 

Another question is Do we really care about the death of an R&B/jazz singer more than that of one of the most popular presidents of all time?  Things to think about, America.