Death of an Icon

When Michael Jaskson died, the music loving world came to a grinding halt. Millions of people mourned and for days and Western culture seemed to hang in limbo. I remember thinking “this is ridiculous”. Sad as anyone passing is, fans did not know him and his death would not directly affect their lives. I did not understand why people who did not know him were distraught. Then Paul Walker died.

If you view cars of any sort as a hobby and you went through high school at any point in the early 2000’s then without even knowing it, this man, his work and his colleagues shaped the culture into what it is today. His death affected me massively and if I’m truly honest it brought me to tears on more then one occasion.
As a teenage boy I had idolised this man but what really rattled me is that it took his death for me to realise that. I would not have considered myself a raving fan or spared thoughts for him. What I knew and loved was a fictional character and like all other fictional characters I enjoyed the few hours of entertainment they give us in films and then went back to normal life.
However I had fallen in love with the culture he represented and introduced me to. Cars and more specifically the modified car scene was idolised in my head by the Fast and Furious films and from that the passion to build the car club sprung. We modeled the car club on the scene where Hector and Brian meet.
Paul Walker had a massive role is shaping me into who I am today and I was so naive as a teenager that I was not aware of this. As an adult at the news of his death I truly mourned. Great movies and mechanically inaccurate phrases will be greatly missed.
I now understand why Michael Jackson fans were so distraught.
To this date I have been unable to watch any of the Fast and Furious films since his passing. It may be time to remedy that.