People Are Remembering a Rockefeller’s Death 47 Years Ago Today. Trust Us, It Is Worth It
People are remembering one Rockefeller’s death, and it’s weirdly comedic? On Twitter, Jovana (@TheNotoriousJOV) shared an image from a Wikipedia entry about “Death during consensual sex.” The rest is history.
In the subsection, Nelson Rockefeller’s demise is listed as the first example. The former vice president and heir to the Rockefeller family fortune would succumb to a heart attack at the age of 70. Back in 1979, Rockefeller was intimately engaged with his secretary Megan Marschack. As he reached coitus, his heart literally couldn’t take it and he passed away.
As you would expect out of the Internet, the Twitter followers gathered around to chuckle at the bizarre story. A lot of folks on social media now probably weren’t around when Rockefeller’s demise became a national news item. But, now they’re all thinking about it and the jokes are flying in the rapid succession that characterizes Twitter’s long-gone heyday. Wikipedia’s entry for “Death during consensual sex” lists the New York Magazine’s reporting on it. And, it doesn’t disappoint!
New York Mag wrote, “‘Nelson thought he was coming, but he was going.’ That was one quip following the news that Nelson Rockefeller – New York’s four term governor, former Vice President of the United States, and the most prominent scion of America’s most famous wealthy family – Had succumbed to a heart attack at the age of 70, while in his midtown townhouse with his 25 year old assistant Megan Marshack. Preferred joke: How did Nelson Rockefeller die? Low blood pressure 70 over 25.”
Nelson Rockefeller dies doing what he loved!
The fun of such a strange historical anecdote coming back into fashion after all this time is how we’ve always done this as Americans. The United States loves nothing more than a scandal, bonus points if the scandal involves an elected official or a celebrity of some kind. Comedy writers are probably kicking themselves that this kind of stuff is a little more rare than your run of the mill tabloid fare. Could you imagine if someone in the President’s cabinet or otherwise met their end this way now? More than front page news, the memes would sustain the Internet for decades in the aftershock.
When stories like this bubble back up, it also serves as an antidote to a lot of the pearl clutching that goes on online about the scandalous nature of our current political climate and social climate. To be blunt: People were wilding in the past! Goofy individuals doing all kinds of preposterous things, and it would end up in the papers, and sometimes television. The reason we react to it so stringently now is that social media beams these scandals, faux pas, and other missteps directly into our pockets, and then into our brains through cell phones. So in effect, it’s not really different, the delivery is just faster. Apt for an age where we DoorDash, Postmates, and Uber Eat ourselves through rough times.
Lee Siegel got this tremendous line off for New York Mag in 2012. It’s still funny now, and one day they’ll make scandal this grandiose and humorous again. That would be a welcome change from our hellscape. “But the image of an engorged “Rocky” launched into eternity by an orgasm worthy of America’s premier financial titan was already firmly established in the popular mind,” the magazine joked.
(featured image: Janet Fries/Getty Images)
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