Grammy award-winning songstress Amy Winehouse was found dead inside her north London home on Saturday. Toxicology reports will take up to four weeks to verify; official cause of death is set to release October, according to the BBC.

In a public statement, Winehouse’s father thanks fans for their support during the family’s loss. The makeshift memorial outside her home “really is making this a lot easier,” states Mitch Winehouse.

Microsoft sends “crass” tweet

But not all are simply paying homage. In the world of the web, many retailers took cues from the previous passing of beloved media icons.

Within one week of pop-king Michael Jackson’s untimely death on June 25, 2009, 440,000 album units were sold worldwide. Clearly, when fans wished to remember MJ, they reached for “Thriller” and other chart-toppers.

Microsoft hoped that Winehouse fans would also pay homage to the artist by purchasing her album. One of the company’s UK-based PR Twitter accounts asked fans to remember the British pop-icon by downloading her album from their media network, Zune.

Immediately, fans responded, deeming the tweet as “crass,” “in appalling taste,” and letting Microsoft know they are “failing at social media.” After that striking rebuttal from the Twittersphere, a follow up tweet from Microsoft claimed that if their reaction seemed purely motivated for a sale, it was “far from the case.”

Winehouse’s popularity grows post-mortem

Marketing instincts proved keen, however, as Winehouse’s sales increased by 37 percent after news of her passing.

What do we have to learn from tragic deaths of public figures? Such news reports tend to elicit varying degrees of an emotional reaction from the general public, but why? Most of us, presumably, never have met MJ or Winehouse, but we hear of their deaths and feel sadness, or pity, or indignation. But these feelings may, at times, be more about the performance than they are the performer.

Our culture is one that idolizes status and celebrity. Run rampant, the objects of our affluent affection become more than human. We see them, whether by stage or by screen, and imagine theirs the perfect life. Money, success, notoriety: everything our society aspires towards. We begin to disconnect with them as people, and instead revere them as icons.

Realizing the normality behind celebrity

Winehouse fashioned for herself a larger-than-life persona as a rehab rebel. We enjoyed, consumed, and sang along. But on this side of last Tuesday’s funeral, the caricatures of addiction, depression, the long road to recovery and the frailty of life lines up with reality in a way that should remind us of the real lives lived offstage.

Is it okay to rush out and buy an album to remember fallen icons by their hits? Sure. But if there is any takeaway for us when icons like Jackson or Winehouse die too young, may we learn to see the pain of the person behind the poise of their persona.