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Kyle Welling

HIST 153

Dr. Thomson

17 June 2018

A Fallen Star: Kurt Cobain

The suicide of beloved Nirvana front-man, Kurt Cobain, came as a sudden shock to

America and fans around the world. On April 8th, 1994, Seattle police discovered his body in a

greenhouse on top of the apartment building he lived in. This left waves of sadness around the

grunge community that would have a lasting effect for years to come. Cobain may have felt like

his existence did not matter to anyone, but the aftermath of his death certainly shows that he had

a great influence on many lives.

In high profile, tragic deaths like Cobain’s, there is a concern of a “ripple effect” from the

suicide. Nirvana’s music reached to many misunderstood, troubled fans, who looked at Cobain

as their hero, someone who understood their struggles. Many were concerned that the loss of

Cobain would cause ripple effect suicides in many young, troubled fans around the world.

According to Jerry Reed, executive director of the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, it is not

uncommon to see fallout like this from suicides that hit close to home. “Suicide doesn’t just

affect the individual; it affects the whole family and neighborhood” (Reed). There was a huge

concern throughout the country that Cobain’s suicide would directly cause others who loved

Nirvana’s music to commit suicide as well. Because of this concern, there were many suicide

prevention programs that set out to make sure this tragedy would not cause more deaths.
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Due to the concern that suicidoligists had about this ripple effect, many prevention

programs started intense intervention among at-risk youth. Many predicted that a “copy-cat”

suicides would take place among the youth, but the Seattle Crisis Center went to work on

prevention programs in schools and in media coverage. The grunge era was influential especially

in the Seattle area, and Kurt Cobain was the center of that movement. His death brought sadness

and heartbreak throughout the community of grunge fans, but because of the intense preventive

programs, suicide rates actually decreased after his death.

There is no doubt that Kurt Cobain and Nirvana were at the forefront of the grunge music

movement, and Cobain’s death truly came as an awful shock to many of Nirvana’s fans. His

suicide brought about more awareness for drug abuse and mental health issues in the 1990’s,

which directly helped the suicide rates drastically decrease.

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Bridget M. Kuehn . Preventing Suicide’s Ripple Effects Takes Coordinated Effort. JAMA:

Journal of the American Medical Association, Volume 310, Number 6 (August 2013), pp.

570-571,

http://ejournals.ebsco.com.ezproxy.gvsu.edu/direct.asp?ArticleID=4BE285A375118C3BBAA

Rama, Arjune. "Here We Are Now: The Lasting Impact of Kurt Cobain." Psychiatric Times, June

2014, p. 24B. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A375699179/AONE?u

=lom_gvalleysu&sid=AONE&xid=91dd7f32. Accessed 17 June 2018.

Catholic University of America, Department of Psychology, Washington, DC 20064, USA.