It’s unclear why relatives post photos online of famous actors suffering from serious illnesses — whether it’s to evoke public sympathy and grief, or to show their own emotional involvement in a loved one’s pain.
Countless people are confined to hospital beds, yet it’s always the “most unfortunate” who end up online. Ordinary citizens would never think of staging a photo shoot at a dying relative’s bedside, let alone sharing it with the world.
But for the families of public figures, the concept of “connection” seems to take on a different meaning. Bruce Willis’s daughter, for example, chose to “delight” the actor’s followers with photos by his bedside. It’s unlikely that Bruce himself would have welcomed this kind of “exposure” — but it seems his opinion no longer carries much weight.
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