Pajiba

I have to disagree with you here. Yes, there are people who will fake a crisis to get attention (Munchausens direct and by proxy) in the ordinary world. But when someone is doing it for financial gain (at the end of the day, these "celebrities" make money out of appearances and being known), then it's far more calculated and, I feel, insulting to the genuinely mentally ill to lump them all in together.
There are some mentally ill celebrities of course (I believe Michael Jackson was one), but it shouldn't be assumed that every time a fame whore has (or stages) a crazy attention-getting moment he/she is really mentally ill.

Y'know, I lived for a while with family in the suburb of Detroit from which ICP hails (apparently). Their family home was literally around the block from my family's house. I had no idea who they are until one day, among the perfectly landscaped lawns and the brick McMansions, is this giant bus with all their bizarre imagery painted all over it. I have a really hard time with their "anger" knowing that these jerks come from the most priveleged, whitest of whitebread neighborhoods in Michigan. If they came from Detroit, I'd understand. I'm just everlastingly sick of white upper class doofuses raging against their priveleged lives.

And here I thought Juggaloes was a wet T-Shirt contest in Western New York.

I think even doing a follow-up piece like this is part of the problem. It’s pretty obvious, so in a sense it capitalizes on what happened to her. Whereas, if people ignore Tila Tequila, as so many many people do, she would eventually be forced to search out some other kind of life, get help, whatever, suffer or thrive outside of any kind of D-list spotlight like most people have to do.

Fuck Merriman. He doesn't deserve to have his name spelled right.

I have, for however long it's been, been pretty much completely ignorant of Ms... um... Tequila (really? sheesh). I learned more about her in this article than I ever knew.

For that, Courtney, I will never forgive you.

My theory on this, and I've done no research to back it up, is that certain mental disorders could raise the likelihood that someone would seek out a life of fame and recognition, so that the proportion of mentally ill in "the industry" is higher than that of the general population. And if that were the case we would see these issues more often in famous people, both because they're happening more frequently and because the afflicted are making sure everyone is constantly focused on them. These could include some of the personality disorders, like narcissism and borderline personality, but also the disorders that elicit delusions of grandiosity such as being bipolar or something else that induces bouts of mania. So while it's easy to say it's their own damn fault, I have to wonder how much this is true, which means that I usually end up in the 'feeling sorry for them' camp more often than not. My thought on this specific case is that this is one very mentally ill individual, and in the general population she'd probably be subject to the same treatment as others who are severely mentally ill, which means she'd be homeless and living with the atrocities that come with that.

They even had the nerve to throw shit at Method Man. The man is a founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan for gods sake and they are there to go crazy for fucking clowns. Give me a break. They should all choke on their shitty make-up.

I'd be very interest to find out just how it came to be that Tila Tequila ended up in front of that audience. Was it her representatives that approached the people putting together the "Gathering" or was it the producers of said Gathering who called her up.

It's easy to look down on her for her fame-whoring ways. And again, I ask what I asked yesterday: who was looking out for her that didn't raise the issue of what kind of event this was. Would Justin Beiber have gotten a similar reaction? Yes. Would his management allow him within 2 states of Juggalo Central? Hell no.

but it shouldn't be assumed that every time a fame whore has (or stages) a crazy attention-getting moment he/she is really mentally ill.

But where is the line drawn? When I see somebody going to such extreme lengths for a few minutes of attention, my radar goes off. If she was more the Jackass/Jersey Shore type (where getting drunk/laid/injured on your own show), then I could agree that she is a sane if despicable person.

But when she decides that faking several pregnancies or saying you were lesbian lovers with a dead woman (or for another one, putting yourself through multiple plastic surgeries in order to "fix" whatever was "wrong"), something else is going on. Maybe not full-blown mental disorder, but some sort of disconnect with human emotion bordering on sociopathy.

But back to the point of the article: I don't know what the answer is. If we give them the attention, they will continue doing stupid crap. If we ignore them, they will continue doing stupid crap. If we shout them down, they...well, you get the picture. It is a lose-lose situation.

Probably the best thing to do is to write these folks off and try and change things so that no one else gets drawn into that flame.

She was not Merriman's girlfriend, just happened to be at one of his parties. Now I need to go google Juggaloes and clown stuff because I am clueless....

I sometimes wonder how Frances Farmer would have done in today's world.