Kurt Cobain, and the Copycats

There is trend that has been noticed over the years, which has been given the name "Copycat Suicides". The idea is that when people are exposed to the suicide of a person they know, or a person they look up to, there will be suicides that follow.

"Point clusters are clusters of suicides localised in both time and space, and have been attributed to direct social learning from nearby individuals. Mass clusters are clusters of suicides localised in time but not space, and have been attributed to the dissemination of information concerning celebrity suicides via the mass media." (Mesoudi)

This is mostly seen in the "romanticism" of these deaths, where the media or people will portray the death as an almost heroic end of life (which is seen throughout literature) instead of the selfish act that it is. The study was found in when famous celebrities committed suicide, and similar suicides would appear in the news. Point clusters were later noticed, and these two phenomena have led to the idea of a copycat suicide.

One peculiar case, was the suicide of Kurt Cobain. Experts feared that with his death there would cause a large amount of copycat suicides, however this was not the outcome. Much fewer copycats ended up committing suicide after his death and this baffled many researchers and led to confusion regarding the theory of copycat suicides in general, until they looked at both sides of the media.

Courtney Love, Cobain's girlfriend at the time, had a unique response to his death. Instead of discussing how much she missed him, she cursed him, and let everyone know how selfish he was for leaving Love and her daughter, and how he ignored his obligations to their family.


"Referring to her band's 22-year-old guitarist, Love said: ''He goes: 'God, Kurt was cool'. No, he wasn't.

''Not in the sense of that action. That action had a horrible effect on our family. It's not cool. It just wasn't cool.

''And that action was regretted the second it happened. I was expected by the zeitgeist to go with him or something.

''But I worked. I had to work to get money to feed my kid." (The Telegraph)

Love's reaction had a different effect on the way the suicide was taken up by society, and instead of making it seem like a tragedy, she made Cobain seem weak for quitting early.

Since then, there has been an unspoken agreement in society that suicide will not be publicized in a romantic way, but this does not hold true to the "point clusters", which is what all people should have in mind. After a suicide, we must remember the person, but also the pain that their death caused to their family members, and the permanent physical solution to the temporary spiritual problem. Although this may seem a bit cold-hearted, these copycat suicides DO exist, and glorifying them will only lead to more.