After researching celebrity suicide and its impact, the presenter found: 1) Searches for suicide-related terms increased after Robin Williams' death, showing his influence. 2) Media coverage of celebrity suicide methods can increase copycat deaths, while coverage emphasizing prevention reduces suicide rates. 3) Celebrity worship may cause some vulnerable people to imitate their idols' suicidal acts. Preventing celebrity suicides could thus save others.

1. CWID FINAL
PRESENTATION
Breezy Lopez Rojas

2. TOPIC: CELEBRITY SUICIDE
AND THE INCREASE OF
SUICIDE RATES AFTER.
• I chose this as my topic because it seems too
often that we lose great entertainers to
depression and in turn some turn to suicide and
after the entertainer commits suicide the
suicide rates increase among the common
people.
• I also chose is as my topic because Robin
Williams was one of my favorite
comedians/actor, he has influenced this topic
for me.

3. RESEARCH PROCESS
• Because we don’t really truly know what a person is thinking when the
thought to commit suicide, we can only assume or research.
• I went on to CWI Library website and searched for academic journals that
might have any information with the key words being: comedians AND
suicide. I found very little information that was relevant to what I was looking
for.
• I improvised my key words to: comedians AND depression. Same thing but I
did notice that there was an article that had the word “celebrity” so I
improvised my search.
• The key words I used were then: celebrities AND suicide. With these key
words I found the majority of research.
• This is when I had decided to change my research from the link of
comedians/entertainers and depression to the increase of suicides after an
entertainer commits suicide.

4. FINDINGS
• After much research, these are my findings:
• It seems that I was not the only one influenced by Robin Williams’ suicide to want
more information on the reasoning of why such a great comedian/actor would want
to commit such a tragic way to escape life.
• People were so interested in what had happened to Robin Williams that “both harmful
(hanging, commit suicide) as well as helpful (lifeline, hotline) search terms[in Google]
increased immediately after the media reported on this suicide case [Williams’ case]”
(Arendt and Scherr, 2)
• Not only did the search terms increase after the death of Robin Williams (and other
celebrities) so did the increase in suicide rates with increased media coverage but
decrease if the media covers how suicide is avoided and the impact to others.
• “Media reports are more likely to trigger copycat suicides if prominent and explicit
coverage is given to the method used…There is also evidence that suicide rates may be
reduced if news reports stress suicide is avoidable and look at the negative impact of the
act on others” (Clinical Digest. Press Coverage of Celebrity Suicides Shown to Lead to Rise
in Copycat Deaths,17).

5. FINDINGS CONTINUED
• The need to feel belonged plays a great factor in stars who “crash” as well
as narcissism which is linked to bad financial decisions, relationship problems
and drug addiction.
• Factors that contribute to narcists traits come from “early environment of stars:
Possible abandonment, trauma and overindulgent or absent wealthy parents.”
(Commons, Michael Lamport, et al, 100)
• Unfortunately Robin Williams had battled drug addiction. He was able to
beat his cocaine addiction but not his alcohol addiction even though he
tried his best to beat it. He was suspected of having depression or being
bipolar but it was never properly diagnosed but being depressed and
battling alcoholism lead him to his suicide. (ÖZERDEM, 187)

6. FINDINGS CONCLUDED
• With the substantial amount of common people (non-celebrities) at the
point of thinking of committing suicide its unfortunate that they do after a
celebrity has succeeded in the point of no return.
• “The result that celebrity deaths make a significant number of people across the
line suggests that many people are indeed living marginally on the border of life
and death.” (Hong, Sok Chul and Jungmin Lee, 723)
• Why do the suicide rates increase after death? According to Adrian C. North
and Lorraine P. Sheridan, who wrote the article "Death, Attractiveness, Moral
Conduct, and Attitudes to Public Figures“, there is some kind of “celebrity
worship” whether it be a physical or emotional attractiveness (360).

7. CONCLUSION
• Celebrities are role models to most people and have such a huge influence
on their fans. To help reduce the amount of suicides that occur after a
celebrity has committed suicide, we may need to focus on a celebrity
suicide prevention hotline or lifeline where they can go or call without
feeling judged or worrying about the media finding out.
• On top of that it is in my opinion that we need to up the suicide prevention
somehow. Maybe how we have Facebook and Instagram apps preloaded,
we should have the number to a suicide hotline in our contact information
just in case.

8. WORKS CITED
•Arendt, Florian and Sebastian Scherr. "The Impact of a Highly Publicized Celebrity Suicide
on Suicide-Related Online Information Seeking." Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and
Suicide Prevention, 24 Mar. 2017. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1027/0227-5910/a000455.
•"Clinical Digest. Press Coverage of Celebrity Suicides Shown to Lead to Rise in Copycat
Deaths." Nursing Standard, vol. 26, no. 39, 30 May 2012, p. 17. EBSCOhost,
cwi.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=c8h&AN=104458579&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
•Commons, Michael Lamport, et al. "Stars That Crash." Behavioral Development Bulletin,
vol. 19, no. 2, July 2014, pp. 100-110. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1037/h0100580.
•Hong, Sok Chul and Jungmin Lee. "People on the Verge of Death: Evidence from Impacts
of Celebrity Suicides." Applied Economics, vol. 47, no. 7, 10 Feb. 2015, pp. 710-724.
EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00036846.2014.980571.
•North, Adrian C. and Lorraine P. Sheridan. "Death, Attractiveness, Moral Conduct, and
Attitudes to Public Figures." Omega: Journal of Death & Dying, vol. 60, no. 4, Nov. 2009, pp.
351-363. EBSCOhost, doi:10.2190/OM.60.4.c.
•ÖZERDEM, Ayşegül. "Suicide: The Shark of Psychiatry." Archives of Neuropsychiatry /
Noropsikiatri Arsivi, vol. 51, no. 3, Sept. 2014, pp. 187-188. EBSCOhost,
doi:10.4274/npa.y51.03