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| “The Sarah Silverman Program” writer Harris Wittels, Sarah Silverman, executive producer Dan Sterling and actress Laura Silverman in 2008 |
Harris Wittels, a 30-year-old writer and producer of “Parks and Recreation,” is dead at 30.
TMZ broke the news, reporting Wittels died of a “possible drug overdose” in his home, where he was pronounced dead on Thursday afternoon. Drug paraphernalia was also discovered in the house. The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed Wittels’s death to KPCC.
Wittels, who completed a stint in rehab last fall and said he was clean and sober in a recent stand-up performance, was open about his history with heroin.
“I just really stopped caring about my life,” Wittels said on the podcast “You Made It Weird” in November. “I just really started to think, well, if I’m only here for 80 years, then who cares if I spend it high or not?”
Wittels, a Houston native, first rose to prominence as a writer for “The Sarah Silverman Show.” He appeared on “Parks and Rec” as an all-thumbs animal control officer with a unexpected name: Harris.
Tributes to Wittels quickly appeared from his collaborators and peers.
“Today, I lost a friend,” “Parks and Rec” star Amy Poehler said at a charity event sponsored by Variety. “I lost a dear, young friend in my life who was struggling with addiction. … I’m sharing it with you because life and death live so close together, and we walk that fine line everyday.”
“You should know that Harris was brilliant beyond compare,” Silverman wrote. “That his imagination was without limit. That he loved comedy more than anything.”
“I don’t want dead friends’ numbers on my phone and dead friends’ faces in my feed,” comedian Patton Oswalt wrote. “But you rarely get what you want. #RIPHarrisWittels.”
“RIP and thank you, Harris Wittels,” Comedy Central wrote.
As a writer on “Parks and Rec,” Wittels helped guide the NBC hit through its seven-season run — the last episode of the show airs next week. But arguably his greatest contribution to American culture was coining the term “humblebrag” to describe the false modesty he thought endemic on social media.
“A Humblebrag is basically a specific type of bragging which masks the brag in a faux-humble guise,” Wittels explained in a 2011 column for Grantland. “The false humility allows the offender to boast their ‘achievements’ without any sense of shame or guilt.”
Wittels created a Twitter handle, @humblebrag, devoted to retweeting the self-promotional self-deprecation of those in the entertainment business. Some examples from his book “Humblebrag“:
Late-night talk show host Craig Ferguson: “I just got nominated for a damn Grammy. Take that low self-esteem.”
Producer Judd Apatow: “Geek moment. Was introduced to Bono at a party. I said my name clearly when introduced. Praying for any hint of Judd awareness. NOTHING.”
Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren: “Ugh. I just pocket dialed spokesperson for Pentagon.”
For Wittels, humblebragging was a 21st century plague. And he tracked it by the tweet.
“Every time I would read one, I would think, ‘Why would that person say that? What is the point?’ ” he wrote. “It can only serve to make people jealous of you and/or a hate you. No one ever hears one and actually thinks you are cooler.”
Indeed, he thought humblebragging illustrative of a nationwide crisis of confidence.
“People do it because it’s in their nature to prove to others how great their life is, or maybe they’re actually just trying to prove it … to themselves,” he wrote.
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Cr.Washington Post
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