An exhibition at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture has sparked a heated conversation about the real-life use of the slang term “un-alived,” which was spotted on a MoPOP placard that says Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain “un-alived himself at 27.” Cobain died by suicide at age 27, on April 8, 1994. The Seattle museum shared this fact on an information card about the “27 Club” (a grouping of artists who all tragically passed away at the young age of 27), various patrons have reported.
But in place of “died by suicide,” MoPOP printed the internet slang “un-alived,” with the exhibition placard reading, “Kurt Cobain un-alived himself at 27.” The museum additionally put up a placard about the social context of the term’s usage in the digital age, also noting that “the Guest Curator has chosen to utilize the term as a gesture of respect towards those who have tragically lost their lives due to mental health struggles.” On Saturday (Aug.
10), Stereogum pointed out many on social media were likening saying the word “un-alived” in real-life discussions regarding mental health — rather than using it only to circumvent censorship from algorithms on internet platforms like TikTok — to the dystopian world of George Orwell’s 1984 , despite the museum’s explanation. Orwell wrote of “Newspeak,” a simplified, government-directed language intended to limit critical thinking, in the novel. One element of the fictional Newspeak grammar included tagging th.