by Will Emaus

Created on: July 21, 2010

RIP Mel Gibson, said the tweet late on Sunday night. A couple of minor YouTube celebrities got together and decided it would be interesting to start a Mel Gibson suicide rumor; next thing you know David Spade had tweeted a reply and RIP Mel Gibson took off like wildfire, hitting the top 10 trending topics on twitter and generating a couple of news stories, which basically reported on the twitter status rather than taking the rumor seriously.

When I saw the first tweet, stating that Mel Gibson had committed suicide, I had this quick flash of sick horror that the media and celebrity story overload had finally done it; they had pushed someone so far that they saw no hope other than to off themselves.

Of course, as I said it turns out that it wasn't true; but that didn't stop me from ruminating on the potential; what if Mel Gibson actually did commit suicide over all of this? How would we all react?

Would we feel bad? Would Oksana and her group feel bad about allowing tapes to be released that didn't need to be public domain? Would Radar Online or any of the rest of the media outlets that allowed for these outbursts to be released in almost a song fashion, in little 3 or 4 minute chunks every day, feel responsible somehow?

Would the rest of us feel like we participated like salivating dogs in an obviously sick person's demise?

I don't for one second think that Mel Gibson is a victim; if anything he probably radically underestimated the stress level that an unscriptural divorce has on a religious person; if you know what the Bible says on the topic and are trying to evaluate your forever on whether or not a divorce is OK, and the alternative is pretty, there isn't a much stronger brew to create rage than that.

Armchair psychology aside though, Mel Gibson is certainly responsible for his anger and his words and the vast majority of the planet that he has managed to offend; but did his destruction need to be as thorough and merciless as it was?

Probably not.

It could have probably been handled a lot better, if the tapes "needed" to be public domain for some reason than it all could have been released at once; the whole world would gasp and agree that the guy needs some serious help and while he got it we would all move on to the next subject.

But 3 or 4 minute excerpts every day? Ensuring that Mel Gibson stayed the hot topic for weeks on end by managing the release of materials so we had a bit more to chew on every day; so that all manner of media got to participate in the frenzy and evaluate all of the evidence on air or in print every couple of days?

That is excessive. What if a guy was so sick inside and had his buttons pushed every day and couldn't get away from the frenzy of what he had caused? What if he knew his kids were probably listening?

You can argue successfully that he had it coming; you can further argue that as a result of his celebrity that he is fair game to all of this and needs to know how to handle it; even though it's painfully apparent that Mel Gibson is currently too unstable to handle a conversation with his girlfriend.

But, the media will do this to anyone, celebrity or not.

It just has to be news.

Someday someone really is going to do it; they are going to send a message back to the world and to the media that this is too much.

Are the media going to keep maximizing the brutality by finding more effective ways to generate clicks to their sites at the expense of sick or hurting people? Does someone need to kill themselves before we start taking how rough this is seriously?

I hope not...

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