Alexander McQueen, the visionary fashion designer known for his unconventional sense of style, was found dead on Feb. 11 in his London home.
McQueen may seem like just another in a line of celebrity deaths, a trend of national interest that began with Michael Jackson’s passing in 2009’s so-called “Summer of Death” and continued with the losses of Billy Mays, Brittany Murphy, and J.D. Salinger. McQueen was a cultural icon like Jackson, creating looks that set trends and defined stars like Lady Gaga. He was an artist like Salinger, with designs that captured the imagination and resisted tradition. He left too soon, like the 32-year-old Murphy.
What makes McQueen’s death different, however, is that his was a suicide.
Perhaps in this tragedy is the opportunity for us, at last, to talk about suicide, not in hushed tones, but as a national epidemic. Suicide is the eleventh leading cause of death in America, ranking higher than homicide, and is responsible for approximately 33,000 deaths every year. It is estimated that with every suicide death, there are between 12 and 25 attempted suicides. And those numbers aren’t falling, but rising—according to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the suicide rate has increased almost 5% in the past ten years.
But this isn’t what the media is reporting, of course. This isn’t the kind of dialogue celebrity deaths breed. Instead, we update our Facebook statuses with urgent “R.I.Ps,” partly to mourn, partly to be the first to spread the gossip to our friends. The newspapers summarize his life neatly and tidily, while magazines print sentimental retrospectives. McQueen will be missed dearly… for about a week. Until the next status update, until the next episode of “Lost.”
Alexander McQueen was never one for appropriate and inoffensive—just ask the models who walked down the runway in his famous 12-inch armadillo shoes. He loved to defy expectations and push boundaries, whether that meant using amputees as models or designing dangerously low-rise jeans that redefined traditional “cleavage.” He loved to get people talking about issues that matter, as he did when he named a 1996 collection “Highland Rape,” inspired by the “rape” of Scotland by the British and featuring distraught-looking models in torn clothes.
Suicide is an issue that matters, but unfortunately it gets less attention from the health world than proper sneezing etiquette. How many Americans suffer from undiagnosed, untreated depression, and how many can recognize the signs in friends and family?
McQueen did not leave a suicide note, but he did leave tweets on Twitter. The day after his mother’s death on Feb. 2—only a week before his own—McQueen tweeted the following somewhat incomprehensible message: “i’m letting my followers know the my mother passed away yesterday if it she had not me nor would you RIP mumxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.” He followed the note, only a minute later, with “but life must go on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” A later Tweet: “sunday evening been a fucking awful week but my friends have been great but now i have to some how pull myself together and finish with the HELLS ANGLES & PROLIFIC DEAMONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Though his Twitter account has since been deleted, earlier messages suggest he may have gone through difficult times for much longer.
Twitter, Facebook: it’s like a diary on display. I found myself poring over these messages, as if in them were clues that could have prevented tragedy, had we only looked closer. But no—later on Feb. 3, McQueen was watching “La Reine Margot,” and on the ninth, he was wishing his friend a happy birthday.
We college students rarely call up friends to talk, and heart-to-hearts may be rarer still. Much of the communication we do is completely blind—emails, texts, wall posts. We have hundreds of Facebook friends whom we keep up with by “liking” their silly status updates or posting comments on their links, but how many friends do we spend actual, human time with? If you followed McQueen’s Twitter in the week after his mother died, you may have taken the exclamation points and upbeat birthday message and assumed all was well—when all was certainly not well. We put too much faith in the efficacy of online communication, when in reality these public personas are just collections of nothing. What good is knowing a friend’s favorite movie or reading every news article he posts if you can’t recognize when he’s feeling down and support him when he does?
I don’t know if looking at McQueen’s final tweets could have prevented anything. I don’t know what stock to put in any of these small instants in online communication—from a cryptic status update to a Bright Eyes lyric under “Favorite Quotations.” But I do know that a cup of coffee with a friend on a bad day is worth more than every one of your 400 Facebook friends posting their condolences on your wall.
Aarti Iyer is a Columbia College junior majoring in creative writing. She is the editor-in-chief of The Fed. Culture Vulture runs alternate Fridays.