Peep was, during his short time in the spotlight, repeatedly crying out for help in an extraordinarily public manner. The nature of Lil Peep's demise and death, and its documentation, points to a new development in the nation's collective consciousness.

But who can we blame or point the finger at now that the images are offered up willingly by the people in them? While the world is conscious that Peep's generation is the first to truly live online, no one really expects them to die there as well.īefore now, the emergence of these kinds of images have prompted a specific kind of public hand-wringing one that asks how we as a nation can get a hold of a morally corrupt tabloid media that is invasive and money-grubbing. These videos and images were taken and shared by Lil Peep himself, and his friends, on their own volition. This was not grainy footage taken from a distance in a public place. They were not taken by paparazzi, or paid for by tabloids, or acquired because of a hack. The thing that's new about Lil Peep is that these videos and photos were not taken in secret. Other, more respected publications aren't above such actions- ET Online was the first to publish a photo of paramedics trying to save a dying Michael Jackson in 2009. The paper re-used that photo once again in 2015, juxtaposed with a photo of Whitney's dying daughter, Bobbi Kristina, lying in her hospital bed. In 2012, the paper splashed an obviously-surreptitiously-taken picture of Whitney Houston in her casket across the cover. In 1993, it paid $5000 for a photo of River Phoenix that had been acquired by a photographer who had broken into a funeral home. The publication put a photo of Elvis in his casket on its front page in 1977. The National Enquirer has been at the forefront of this for decades.

It is not new for media vultures to circle after a famous person dies. Bexey, under fire from fans who were horrified by the clip, has since stated that Peep 'just fell asleep' and was 'snoring.' (Lil Peep appears to be making no sound in the video.)

The video was captured by Peep's close friend, Bexey, and originally shared on Snapchat. Within hours of his death, a disturbing video started circulating online of Peep, obviously unconscious, sitting upright but limp, head slung backwards, mouth wide open. While, on the surface, his death seems typical-ultra-creative, troubled young musician overwhelmed, too soon, by substance abuse-like Lil Peep himself, this particular tragic death is actually something the world has never seen before. Here was a young man who could look positively feral one moment and wow crowds at Paris Fashion Week the next. Here was a young man with a naturally beautiful face that was marked up by heavy tattoos, the largest of which was a scrawl over his right eyebrow that read 'Cry Baby' (the title of one of his 2016 mixtapes). His music was an emo-infused take on hip hop-a new and oxymoronic combination that actually made sense in his hands. In life, Lil Peep stood out precisely because of how few places he fit in. On November 15, 2017, at the age of 21, one of the most exciting and charismatic young artists in the country died of an as-yet unspecified drug overdose in the back of his tour bus.

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