The death of “Jackass” star Ryan Dunn has sparked an unusual war of words on the Internet. There seem to be three dissenting camps in the wake of Dunn’s fiery death by exploding Porsche: (1) Roger Ebert and other people unsympathetic to Dunn’s death because his reckless (and possibly drunk) driving killed himself and his passenger, and endangered others on the road; (2) desensitized Internet jokesters happy to make his death a meme (“I’m Ryan Dunn, and this is Drunken Porsche Inferno“); and (3) “Jackass” fans so hurt by the tragedy that they can’t or won’t acknowledge that someone who made a living doing stupid, dangerous stunts died doing something stupid and dangerous.
For what it’s worth, I’m more aligned with those first two camps than the third, but I certainly enjoyed Dunn’s work as an entertainer, and I echo everything that Spencer Hall wrote in his short but touching tribute for SB Nation. What follows are GIFs and still images of some of Dunn’s most memorable “Jackass” moments — along with, yes, some of the more light-hearted memes that have sprung up over the last day. Death may be sad, but it doesn’t have to be serious.
[banner image via thefrogman/finalellipsis]
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This and the following images all via sarahxmay.
