The Mac Miller Media Melee

September 7, 2018, at 3:55pm: I was glancing through my Facebook feed before my senior research capstone class started.

I scrolled past an article, registering a moment later that the word death was in the headline. I scrolled back. TMZ reports that Mac Miller is dead at age 26. I felt a little shocked to read the headline, but as I read the actual article I wasn’t surprised to read that the suspected cause of death was overdose. I immediately backtracked, realizing how desensitized to death I’ve become in the last year. My family lost my grandpa less than a year ago due to heart failure and my aunt less than two months later to breast cancer. I’m not usually reactive to media about most celebrity gossip or deaths. Like most people, it only really affects me when I had some sort of interest in the celebrity, like the loss of Chester Bennington of Linkin Park to suicide. I locked my phone and set it in my bag until class was over.What I didn’t expect was the onslaught and backlash regarding Mac Miller’s death. A friend had tagged me in an Instagram post, and so I scrolled my feed as I was walking to my car. I noticed comments were removed from Ariana Grande’s pictures. I was a little confused. I quickly found myself in a blind fury. People were blaming Ariana for Miller’s death. People were telling her she is the reason he is dead. People were saying they hope SHE died. Comments like “Hope you are happy with yourself, Mac’s dead now. Way to go, b****”My hands were shaking. I was so angry that I had hot tears spilling down my face. It’s been 24 hours and I’m in a rage as I write this very line. I’m borderline abusing my laptop with every character. I’m not the only one outraged by this dangerous rhetoric.Let’s be honest here. Mac Miller was a frequent casual drug user. This, by no means, is meant to discredit any struggles he faced that may have led him to this behavior and drug usage. Ariana left Mac because the relationship, in her own words, was toxic. Shortly after their breakup, Miller was involved in a car accident, where he was arrested for DUI after crashing into a utility pole. People blamed Ariana for the accident. She responded to one comment, “How absurd you minimize female self-respect and self-worth by saying someone should stay in a toxic relationship because he wrote an album about them, which btw isn't the case (just 'Cinderella' is ab me). I am not a babysitter or a mother and no woman should feel that they need to be. I have cared for him and tried to support his sobriety & prayed for his balance for years (and always will of course) but shaming/blaming women for a man's inability to keep his sh** together is a very major problem.” She even continued by saying that she continues to pray for him and hopes he figures it out.

No one is obligated to stay an unhealthy situation to “fix” someone who continuously makes bad decisions that harm themselves.

Ariana has been under media fire of her own—before this whole situation. At Aretha Franklin’s funeral, Ariana was inappropriately groped by a bishop. People blamed HER FOR IT. People were using her outfit, her attitude, and so many other absolutely BS excuses to somehow justify her being violated by a CHURCH LEADER. This girl has gone through hell and back the last few years. The 22 deaths at her concert after suicide bombers opened an attack, her abusive relationship with Mac, media and social media backlash over her break up with Mac, which continued to blame her for Mac’s reckless actions, being publicly violated and blamed for it, and now this.As someone who’s abusive partner tried to keep me in the relationship by guilt-tripping me, this behavior is absolutely disgusting to me. My abuser used lines like “I have nothing to live for without you,” “I’d probably kill myself if you ever left me,” or “You are the only reason I stay alive.” Do you know what mental torture that is? Have you ever felt completely responsible for someone’s well being while simultaneously being terrified of that person? Do you know what it’s like to end up in ANOTHER relationship where you are mentally tortured, but then question yourself if it’s abuse because “at least this one doesn’t hit you”? That’s where I’ve been. People who blame Ariana for Mac’s death are essentially saying, “It’s your fault he’s self-destructive and you should have stayed in an abusive relationship, so this wouldn’t have happened.”Leave her the hell alone and realize that no one, I repeat NO ONE is obligated to stay an unhealthy situation to “fix” someone who continuously makes bad decisions that harm themselves. Only Mac Miller is responsible for his own death by overdose.