Celebrity Suicides Spawn Copycat Attempts

Celebrity suicides are not a new thing. In fact, they're not even all that uncommon if you look into it: Kurt Cobain, Elliott Smith, Marilyn Monroe...and that's not counting all of the celebrities who have admitted to suicide attempts: Halle Berry, Owen Wilson, Drew Carey, Drew Barrymore and Vanilla Ice to name a few. That being said, the effect of the internet on the publicity created post-suicide is so impacting that it now appears as if celebrity suicides and attempted suicides influence and encourage others to follow in their footsteps.

A new study published from Queen Mary, University of London, warns the media against glamorizing these acts. At the new Research Centre for Psychology at Queen Mary, Dr. Alex Mesoudi found evidence that the influence of the media paired with the ever-growing number of people given "celebrity status" increased the number of suicides around the same time and near the same geographical location by this copycat effect.

What's most interesting is that Mesoudi studied the behavior of computer "people" who were pre-programed with rules and mores that govern how people learn from one another and react. He then used his research to investigate if the copycat suicidal behavior does indeed fit with sociologists assumptions.

Previously there were two suicide clusters identified by sociologists. The first is a "mass cluster" of suicides that occur across an entire country and are strongly associated with the media coverage of the whole nation. "Point clusters," on the other hand, generally occur in the same time and geographic location and are usually brought about by the news coverage within a specific community or social network.

The "mass cluster" of suicides is most directly linked to the celebrity suicides. During the week after Marilyn Monroe died suicide rates across the United States rose 12 percent. After Kurt Cobain's suicide MTV went into overdrive covering the story in the news while constantly purveying the message, "Don't do it!" and even posting suicide hotlines and help numbers for distressed individuals to call. While this did help to stabilize suicide rates in the following weeks it did not altogether stop a number of teens and young people to mimic his death over the years.

Where mass clusters are most closely related to celebrities, they do directly effect point clusters. As people across the globe imitate their favorite passed on stars, individuals in their community are strongly effected and may find themselves doing the same. Therefore there is a large correlation from a prestigious celebrity's suicide to an increase in national suicide figures.

These findings highlight a need for the dissemination of the glorification of suicides. We can no longer put these celebrities on a pedestal after death because it clearly feeds others the notion to do the same. Australia, Austria, and Switzerland have already imposed rules to enforce these ideas and America should be hard pressed to do the same.