'Best Suicide Note' Ticket Giveaway Draws Fire

An entertainment blog is drawing fire for launching a “best suicide note” ticket giveaway contest for crooner Morrissey’s upcoming concert at the  Under pressure, promoters have changed their advertising.

Washington, D.C-based website Brightest Young Things last week asked Morrissey fans to pen fake suicide notes to win tickets to his Dec. 7 performance at the North Bethesda music center, according to reports from ShowList DC and the Washington City Paper.

Morrissey, formerly of The Smiths, is known for his dark lyrics, often themed around death and suicide.  

In a 2009 interview with the BBC, he described suicide as “honorable.”

The promotion, however, was changed after meeting a backlash from suicide prevention advocates, according to reports. Brightest Young Things was asked to change its contest language by I.M.P. Productions, the group presenting the concert, the City Paper reported.

Brightest Young Things managing editor Logan Donaldson explained the site’s decision to run the contest to The Washington City Paper:

“The suicide note prompt was an idea generated by a few colleagues after mulling over his body of work… the death and suicide themes that riddle his lyrics and his public admonitions of seeing suicide as honorable or even favorable. …As with many of our giveaways we wanted to be thematic, and working under the assumption that his most enthusiastic fans would be responding to a first-chance giveaway and would be well acquainted with his maudlin, macabre persona, we saw it as a tongue-in-cheek opportunity to stoke the creativity of the Morrissey fans within our readership... The reality of suicide is obviously horrifying, and in no way were we promoting or suggesting otherwise. We didn't foresee upsetting a few of our readers in our attempt at being cute with the giveaway theme.”

Should Brightest Young Things have changed the contest language? Tell us in the comments.