Clickhole is part of The Onion and parodies sites that post items that go viral. Today, Clickhole featured a “story” obviously inspired by the viral story of Brittany Maynard, who, along with a great deal of technical assistance from Compassion and Choices, shared her wish to kill herself using Oregon’s assisted suicide law. Part of her pitch was to demand that all 50 states in the USA legalize assisted suicide. Below is one of the photos from today’s story – and an excerpt. It’s Friday, we needed a laugh, and we were gifted with this:
Meet The Terminally Ill Woman Who Is Choosing To End Her Life With Dignity, At The Snapping Jaws Of 20 Hungry Wolves
Henrietta Green is brave. In fact, the only thing the 61-year-old from Yarmouth, ME fears is dying without dignity. That’s why, when doctors diagnosed her with leukemia two months ago, she made a decision: She would not die slowly and pathetically in a hospital bed. She would go out proudly, being torn apart and eaten by wolves.
Henrietta’s family supports her choice. Her son Charles is even helping her enact her plan.
***
Right-to-die activists all over the country have released statements of support for Henrietta and others like her, including Alan Davis, 92, who passed away being peacefully drowned by a killer whale at Sea World, and Mark Jenkins, 87, who, surrounded by loved ones, pulled a gun on a group of police officers.
If you are sickeningly familiar with the repetetive format of articles using an individual to pitch a change in public policy. The only part of the Maynard story not included here is the “pretty white girl” aspect of the viral story. It’s a well-known phenomenon that stories about *any* tragedy get more attention if the victims are young, pretty and white – attention from the press and the public. Older, nonattractive (by white male-dominated standards) don’t get the kind of viral attention Maynard got and continues to get after her death.
Methinks they’re all so similar because they’re all written by media /ad companies.
We caught ‘Dignity in Dying’ in the UK out -they were using a media firm called ‘sea change’ to advertise for unemployed people to be filmed for an ad in favour of assisted suicide (sorry ‘dying’…ABC1 females don’t like the word ‘suicide’)…
..they’re used to selling cola drinks- mainly youngsters, and completely disconnected from the death…hence the shallowness of the pitch.
Something seems very surreal about this–it reminds me of the “death with chocolate éclairs” scene in “Brave New World” (you’ll know what I’m talking about if you’ve read the book). Thanks for bringing this to my attention, ma, something very interesting (and very creepy) to research
Here – http://www.seachangeagency.com/digital-campaign-for-dignity-in-dying/ – they even got assisted suicide written into the storyline of the most popular soap opera in the UK – ”coronation street’ thanks to the fact that two famous people in showbiz (terry pratchett and sir melvyn bragg who used to be a tv presenter and has a neurological condition in his family) can pull in favours in the industry.
Showbiz!
Their other ‘accounts’ are a campaign for schools to plant fruit trees, and a drive to persuade supermarkets not to throw out so much food- its all the same to them – old fish, old people ..we can sell the public any thing!