RIP Bandwagon

Noun. Pronounced "R-I-P Bandwagon," although it's permissible to just say "Rip."

A phenomenon that occurs when a person, usually a teenager or young adult, kicks the bucket, and suddenly the amount of friends they have and/or people who ever gave a shit about them skyrockets and far exceeds the amount of friends they ever had when their heart was actually beating. Usually happens among middle school, high school or college crowds, but especially in high school due to the tendency of suicide with high schoolers, alcohol/drug related deaths and other similar reasons.

Activity that screams RIP Bandwagoning includes but is not limited to incidents of RIP Bandwagoners putting "RIP (Dead person's name)" on their MySpace display name or status message regardless of whether or not they actually knew said dead person, posting bulletins/passages in their "About Me" reminiscing the life of this person entitled "RIP" or something similar, and generally just participating in the grieving over the recent death even though the majority of the people mourning never actually knew the guy/girl in person. Many who have actually experienced a devastating loss know that real people in grieving tend to put the MySpace and social networking nonsense aside for awhile and keep to themselves or to close family and friends –– Not so the RIP Bandwagoner. Suddenly, talking to the dead person for five minutes two years ago at the Food Court in the local shopping mall has become a life-changing moment for the RIP Bandwagoner that they will apparently never forget, and the entire existing friendship between the dead person and the RIP Bandwagoner is chronicled in a MySpace comment for all to see that is so long it exceeds the character limit and spans an extra three comments. Although it should be remembered that half of these reflective events are just made up because the dead person is no longer around to verify the truth of such statements.

RIP Bandwagoners won't admit it to you, but they're really just trying to be a part of something because everyone else is, to "fit in" with what the crowd is doing more or less, hence the origin of the term. RIP Bandwagoners are all part of that ridiculous mindset today that "It's Cool To Be Tragic" even though they themselves have probably never experienced any real tragedy. Many RIP Bandwagoners don't consider that the true friends of the dead person know who that person associated with and who they didn't even know, and they are usually the ones who can best tell who is truly grieving and who is a RIP Bandwagoner. So the RIP Bandwagoners themselves tend to end up fooling... Well, nobody.

So take this advice: Don't be an RIP Bandwagoner. If you didn't know the person, IT'S OKAY TO BE SAD, but if you take it too far you'll almost certainly be pointed out as a Fraud sooner or later. You might not even know it when it happens –– it could just occur behind your back.

Long-story-short lesson learned: DON'T BE FAKE