If you research Stephen Fry a bit, you'll find a great many people who believe he's a somewhat of a national treasure, and the world is better for having him in it. It goes much beyond his acting. He's a cultural icon.
To find that someone so beloved wanted to kill himself, it's... jarring.
A prominent and - present company notwithstanding - quite famous actor has "come out of the closet", so to speak, regarding an issue that is very rarely discussed in a public light by celebrity figures. Very few people in a position such as his will admit to feeling depressed, for the very reasons he's listed in his article. They'll feel all the more guilty for their affliction because by all appearances they should have no right to feel what they feel.
Think of all of the other celebrities who have been in his shoes, many of whom succumbed to the suicidal thoughts they battled alone. Might things have been different, had they known that they were not alone? That the burden they bear is not so shameful in light of their outward success? Stephen says in his blog that since his condition came into light, he has fared far better. Maybe if others in his position were not so frightened of what the public would think of them, they could safely seek the support of their fans and family and avoid letting it consume them.
This is indeed very newsworthy, though it will likely not appear on any newscasts outside of the UK and neighboring regions. It is also an article of interest about an emergent phenomenon, specifically concerning the treatment of depression as a disease (and by that I do not mean treatment in the medical term, rather the manner in which it is thought by the public).
Hi, I wrote the grandparent (and later deleted it to try to save my karma).
Making the comment was an interesting experience from a meta-HN perspective: I expressed a contrarian view (basically questioning why this article is HN material). Despite getting downvoted several times, my comment generated some informative posts, like the parent -- relevant facts and opinions about the article's context and meaning, that's missing from the article itself.
Despite losing some karma to it just now, I like the downvoting system. But I don't think that we as a community want to suppress well-worded, cogently argued opinions that generate informative replies, just because they're unpopular.
So please, make an effort to not downvote things just because you disagree with them, and pro-actively upvote high-quality comments that have been downvoted without merit.
It'll make HN a better place if we, as a community, reserve downvotes to censure people who truly deserve it.
I can't remember the exact wording of your original comment, however I do remember a phrase like "wall of text" regarding the inclusion of "to be or not to be" and expressing dismay over the number of positive votes it had accumulated.
In my mind I found it to be not only contrarian, but disrespectful to the author. One could concede that it did spark informative responses, but I would argue that a more serious attempt should be made to absorb the article's own message before trying to refute it.
> I expressed a contrarian view (basically questioning why this article is HN material).
It was contrarian; not interesting. (I think the article being on HN makes it HN material.) I find people around here not trigger happy with the interesting.
> I think the article being on HN makes it HN material
Our culture is what we collectively make it, by definition.
But I don't want to see the frontpage filled with articles about suicide, depression, and celebrity gossip -- that's not what I'm looking to read when I get on HN! And I assumed that others felt as I did, so seeing this upvoted to #2 on the frontpage, I was a bit shocked that my assumptions had been violated.
It's fine if we occasionally discuss those things when there's some (potentially nebulous) link to HN's core topics -- a blog by a celebrity making a foray into programming, a discussion of suicide after a well-known startup founder takes his/her own life, or the technological underpinnings of an innovative treatment for depression are definitely linked to topics of broad interest to HN.
But I didn't really see any link between this article and any of those things. And that's what I meant by "not HN material."
> But I don't want to see the frontpage filled with articles about suicide, depression, and celebrity gossip -- that's not what I'm looking to read when I get on HN! And I assumed that others felt as I did, so seeing this upvoted to #2 on the frontpage, I was a bit shocked that my assumptions had been violated.
So flag it. if others agree with you, they will too. If they don't, maybe it is not really your culture, then? It is just an online forum; there will be others.
Perhaps the context you are missing is the history of suicide among startup founders. Suicide may not be technology itself, but history (and previous discussions I have read here on HN) has shown us that its relevant to the people that create technology.
Hackers & entrepreneurs are human too, and appreciate clear insights into horrible things they cope with first- and second-hand. It's hard to understand some things which affect your understander-thingie, or which cause loved ones to do things which horribly obscure the problem. Those getting help can help others with "don't go there" or "here's the way back", clearly describing their own experience (which is very hard to articulate).
Downvoted for heartlessness, even if innocently so.
BTW: the guy is indeed an actor, famous for roles which often appeal to nerds.
