2009 kills again: pop star Stephen Gately dead at 33

Stephen Gately wasn't my favourite pop star. Hell, he wasn't even my favourite member of Boyzone.

He died suddenly on holiday. He was only 33 and apparently it wasn't drugs or suicide.

2009, seriously, why are you now hitting up the young, healthy people?

Who?

2009: THE FIRST YEAR ANYBODY DIED!

Frankly, given the planet's BO problem, it was something of a relief.

Nice, Knorg. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Chris91 wrote:

Nice, Knorg. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Everyone knows you're my sockpuppet, Malice.

ZoZo wrote:

2009, seriously, why are you now hitting up the young, healthy people?

SWINE FLU!

Penguin wrote:

ZoZo wrote:

2009, seriously, why are you now hitting up the young, healthy people?

SWINE FLU!

Apparently it was natural causes, so other than being genetically programmed to pop his clogs at a stupid young age nowt was wrong with him.

Holy fuck, has anyone seen the Daily Mail column about this? There is one thing to bear in mind while reading this: Stephen Gately died of natural causes. Got it?

Why there was nothing natural about Stephen Gately's death

Quote :

Robbie, Amy, Kate, Whitney, Britney; we all know who they are. And we are not being ghoulish to anticipate, or to be mentally braced for, their bad end: a long night, a mysterious stranger, an odd set of circumstances that herald a sudden death.

Um, actually that is a little ghoulish.

Quote :

All the official reports point to a natural death, with no suspicious circumstances. The Gately family are - perhaps understandably - keen to register their boy's demise on the national consciousness as nothing more than a tragic accident.

Even before the post-mortem and toxicology reports were released by the Spanish authorities, the Gatelys' lawyer reiterated that they believed his sudden death was due to natural causes.

So, everyone says it was natural causes. The labs confirm this. The autopsy confirms this. Therefore...

Quote :

Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again. Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this. All that has been established so far is that Stephen Gately was not murdered.

And I think if we are going to be honest, we would have to admit that the circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy.

After a night of clubbing, Cowles and Gately took a young Bulgarian man back to their apartment. It is not disrespectful to assume that a game of canasta with 25-year-old Georgi Dochev was not what was on the cards.

It must be because he's gay. Seriously, the article is worth a read, simply for the sheer fuckwittery.

Oh yeah, gay marriage is to blame, too:

Quote :

Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.

Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.

Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately's last night raise troubling questions about what happened.

'Civil Partnerships can only end in DEEEEAAAATH!' Oh Daily Mail, don't ever change.

Apparently they think his death was the result of unashamed gayery and smoking a joint. Or something. They seem to imply that his partner and the guy they had back at their room killed him in some weird gay sex act that made it look like an undiagnosed heart disease.

Fitchsticks wrote:

'Civil Partnerships can only end in DEEEEAAAATH!' Oh Daily Mail, don't ever change.

Apparently they think his death was the result of unashamed gayery and smoking a joint. Or something. They seem to imply that his partner and the guy they had back at their room killed him in some weird gay sex act that made it look like an undiagnosed heart disease.

Got to love the Mail. Twitter has exploded with fury. I hope the crazy bint who wrote that apologises.

The Press Complaints Commission website is down due to traffic. Harharhar. This might go bigger than Sachsgate.

Also, pretty hilariously, they've hastily changed the title of the article to 'A strange, lonely and troubling death...'

I hope Jan is starting to sweat a bit.

Read the article - it's hilarious in it's own way.

Because ya know, a gay man (especially a famous one) can't die of any cause other than an alcohol, cocaine and rent-boy party, can he?

Jesus bloody Christ, it's still top of Twitter's trending topics. The writer is unpleased and maintains that gays can only die of buttsex and drugs.

ETA: and Marks and Sparks have pulled their ads. Man, she's in so much trouble.

ZoZo wrote:

Jesus bloody Christ, it's still top of Twitter's trending topics. The writer is unpleased and maintains that gays can only die of buttsex and drugs.

... So, does that mean they're otherwise immortal?

Does that make bisexuals particularly long-lived then?

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOOOOOOOOW! [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Saleha wrote:

... So, does that mean they're otherwise immortal?

Does that make bisexuals particularly long-lived then?

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOOOOOOOOW! [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

TVTropes has the answer!

Quote :

"In what is clearly a heavily orchestrated internet campaign I think it is mischievous in the extreme to suggest that my article has homophobic and bigoted undertones."

Bolding mine. I think the tones were pretty OVER at the very least.
Also love the idea that the internet can be orchestrated. Like we have a leader.

Fitchsticks wrote:

Quote :

"In what is clearly a heavily orchestrated internet campaign I think it is mischievous in the extreme to suggest that my article has homophobic and bigoted undertones."

Bolding mine. I think the tones were pretty OVER at the very least.
Also love the idea that the internet can be orchestrated. Like we have a leader.

The response is indeed LOLtacular - she's the English equivalent of Chris91.

Shorter Daily Mail:

"LET'S CONCOCT MORE LIES!!!"

Quote :

Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again.

Sudden Adult Death Syndrome

Quote :

Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this. All that has been established so far is that Stephen Gately was not murdered.

Actually, "death by natural causes" means any death not caused by active human intervention. So if he wasn't murdered or assaulted, it WAS "death by natural causes". Just because you feel the Grim Reaper's bony hand on your shoulder all of a sudden is no reason to start screaming about DEATH BY GAYNESS.

Quote :

Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.

Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.

Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately's last night raise troubling questions about what happened.

LORD KNOWS NO STRAIGHT COUPLES ARE EVER STRICKEN BY THE TRAGIC DEATH OF ONE PARTNER

AND CERTAINLY THERE IS NEVER A CASE WHERE ONE PARTNER WAS MURDERED BY THE OTHER

and oh my god please read her half-assed apology in which she ACTUALLY SUGGESTS STEVEN DIED OF GAY SEX and expresses shock that civil partnerships have the same problems as marriage!!! WHY IT'S ALMOST AS IF THE GAYS ARE HUMAN BEINGS OR SOMETHING

Charlie Brooker over at the Guardian [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Quote :

It has been 20 minutes since I've read her now-notorious column, and I'm still struggling to absorb the sheer scope of its hateful idiocy. It's like gazing through a horrid little window into an awesome universe of pure blockheaded spite. Spiralling galaxies of ignorance roll majestically against a backdrop of what looks like dark prejudice, dotted hither and thither with winking stars of snide innuendo.

Now that is snark.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Quote :

and oh my god please read her half-assed apology
in which she ACTUALLY SUGGESTS STEVEN DIED OF GAY SEX and expresses
shock that civil partnerships have the same problems as marriage!!! WHY
IT'S ALMOST AS IF THE GAYS ARE HUMAN BEINGS OR SOMETHING

I have no idea who this woman is, yet I suddenly wish to commit serious bodily injury against her.

Also, I'm not entirely sure, but I have this idea that unless you're into extreme erotic asphyxiation, sex, gay or straight, isn't likely to kill you.

rachel wrote:

Charlie Brooker over at the Guardian [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Quote :

It has been 20 minutes since I've read her now-notorious column, and I'm still struggling to absorb the sheer scope of its hateful idiocy. It's like gazing through a horrid little window into an awesome universe of pure blockheaded spite. Spiralling galaxies of ignorance roll majestically against a backdrop of what looks like dark prejudice, dotted hither and thither with winking stars of snide innuendo.

Now that is snark.

Charlie Brooker is an incredibly snarky guy. His TV criticism articles are just about enough to make me piss my pants sometimes.

Rabid Badger wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

Quote :

and oh my god please read her half-assed apology
in which she ACTUALLY SUGGESTS STEVEN DIED OF GAY SEX and expresses
shock that civil partnerships have the same problems as marriage!!! WHY
IT'S ALMOST AS IF THE GAYS ARE HUMAN BEINGS OR SOMETHING

I have no idea who this woman is, yet I suddenly wish to commit serious bodily injury against her.

Also, I'm not entirely sure, but I have this idea that unless you're into extreme erotic asphyxiation, sex, gay or straight, isn't likely to kill you.

I heard that if you have a heart condition and ingest enough Viagra to give a dead guy a boner, you could have a heart attack. But it's not the actual act of sex that kills you...

Quote :

I heard that if you have a heart condition and ingest enough Viagra to give a dead guy a boner, you could have a heart attack

You're more likely to faint from severe Hypotension or suffer from (usually) non-fatal arrhythmias, but yeah, you can develop polymorphic VT --> VF, which can kill you.

Man, I feel like smacking that idiot reporter with the looooong-ass list of perfectly natural causes of sudden death in apparent healthy adult [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] . As for the late Mr Gately, my money's on Brugada syndrome, an aneurysm (brain or Aortic), or AVM. Poor man; usually those aren't found until they start "acting up", and then it might be too late (especially with the first two).

Cyberwulf wrote:

LORD KNOWS NO STRAIGHT COUPLES ARE EVER STRICKEN BY THE TRAGIC DEATH OF ONE PARTNER

Half of all marriages end in divorce! And the other half end in death! What are the politicians doing about this? Huh?