Nana’s death and Internet hyenas

The Internet has looked at your life and found it unsatisfactory, game over!

In a world where having an opinion has become the highest ideal, the opportunity to share it to the largest possible audience or express it in the most brutal manner is akin to a badge of honour.

There’s an entire show dedicated to tracking the most inane, visceral, ignorant and entertaining reactions on the Internet on the American E! channel called The Comment Section. Humanity has reached its zenith, and that is its crown.

Beautiful, free-spirited Kenyan actress Nana Gichuru died tragically in a road crash last week on the Eastern Bypass in Nairobi. Though I never met her, I did allow myself a casual glance at her social media pages, like everyone else.

“Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body,” she captioned one selfie, quoting Hunter S Thompson, “but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting: ‘Holy crap, what a ride!”

LIVED RECKLESSLY

She lived carelessly and probably had it coming, the Internet decided.

On Facebook threads, clueless tweets and reshared posts on Instagram, commenters mostly agreed she should have been more restrained. Never mind that all that was left of the young lass were carefully selected pretty pictures from exotic locations and updates often taken out of context.

A man of God, a pastor I have always respected, went on a national newscast to “interrogate the careless, reckless lifestyles most young people live — especially the so-called celebs in Kenya”. I didn’t watch what he said on the soapbox, but his subjective teaser was enough to put me off: “Are you living on the fast lane?”

The televised pastoral condemnation and online vilification of a departed soul’s lifestyle is a paradox for a generation that glorifies early deaths.

Pop songs such as Ke$ha’s "Die Young" and The Band Perry’s "If I Die Young" have romanticised a premature demise with nostalgic lyrics and made it seem mainstream; aspirational.

The death of a young actress driving a German sports car is exactly what Urban Dictionary — the online lingo guide to youthful, often ironic life — describes under “Live fast, die young (and leave a good-looking corpse)”.

Sample this: “They tend to be rockers, glamorous, rich and/or famous, with tragic deaths.”

BLOOD FETISH
That is not even the first definition, which is even more blunt. “Expression meaning take lots of risks, have lots of fun, and don’t suffer through old age. It is implied that the first half of the expression is what causes the second half.”

But first, there is the blood fetish that immediately follows the early death such as the overshared images of the wreck of her convertible and her lifeless body getting pulled out of it.

The commentary machine then goes into overdrive with half-formed conspiracy theories, thoughtless speculation and pseudo religiosity. One school of thought was around the “power of the tongue” and how her worn out body update could have caused her death.

I never met her in person, but from the body of work she left behind and her social media, she sure lived well.

“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart,” the native American leader Tecumseh wrote. “When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death,” he admonished. “Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”

Internet comment sections are often hideouts for under-achieving, disillusioned angry people with a crippling inferiority complex.

I’ve written before here about their compensatory narcissism that leads them to falsely believe that they would feel better by bringing someone else down, even if the subject were already dead.

EXPLORE, DREAM AND DISCOVER
Most of the disapproving comments often mask deep jealousies and insecurities of their authors.

While people are out there living their lives the best way they know how, experiencing breathtaking moments and meeting interesting people, they are hiding behind their devices criticising and finding fault where there is none.

On her website, Nana described herself as an “actor, writer, musician, voice artist, young filmmaker, entrepreneur, travel junkie, mard thinker and an unconventional human in Nairobi”.

The American humorist and essayist Mark Twain would approve of her take on life. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did so.

So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Anyone who’s actively working on their own dream has no time to hate on someone else’s. Mercifully, those truly absorbed in improving themselves, enjoying life and achieving something worthwhile have learnt to tune out the noise and do not live according to anybody’s expectations.

Here’s to dying old and spent.