Way back in the Fall of 2007, I was hanging out with some friends and somehow (I’m sure there was plenty of drink involved) we got to talking about the actor Jonathan Winters. At one point in our lives this guy was everywhere but where was he now? Was he still working in show business? What was the last thing he had done? Was he dead or alive? That conversation led to a recurring blog post titled, Dead Or Alive, in which I ask if you remember people, occasions, events, etc from our past and do you know where they are today?
In March of 2009, the subject of Dead Or Alive was Andrew Koenig, an actor most famous for his role as “Boner” on a sitcom from my childhood, Growing Pains (that post can be found here). As you have probably heard by now, Koenig’s body was found this past Friday after he had been missing for a week. Koenig’s sudden reappearance in the mainstream media had a ripple effect here on popOmatic as suddenly thousands of people were finding this blog when they searched his name. I guess I was one of the few sites out there discussing the actor before the recent tragic events.
The heavy traffic also sparked an interesting and angry debate in the comment section with people blaming me for Koenig’s suicide, attacking me personally and, what I found to be the most outlandish and offensive, telling me to remove the post from March of 2009. Allowing strangers on the internet to dictate what we can and can’t blog about goes against everything I believe the internet and our country represents. We are fortunate enough to live in a country where, so far, the government doesn’t restrict or control the content (as long as it is legal) that we choose to post and view on the Internet. To remove that post because a handful of people found it in bad taste or offensive to them, would be like moving to China or Iran, where a small group tells the larger population what they can and can’t say or see Online.
I believe that every one of my angry commenters has the right to have themselves heard, which is why I would never dream of deleting those comments even though, as the owner of this blog, I could. I invite everyone to read those comments by clicking here and ring in on the subject if you like.
Freedom of expression is what the Internet is all about. I’d like to thank the people who recognize the absurdity of allowing faceless strangers to censor my blog. Jinni, you rock. Koenig’s family and friends have my sympathy and as I’ve stated before, my Dead Or Alive posts are my way of paying tribute to people from our pasts who had such an impact at some point that I’m still talking about them today. I’m sure that most people out there (but me) will forget all about Andrew Koenig in a matter of days and traffic on popOmatic will return to normal but whether there are 100,000 readers or just me, I’ll keep asking if people from the past are Dead Or Alive?
