4 ms·
I think it's the stature of the celebrities that died, not their quantity. While many celebrities are noteworthy, most known only to a niche audience or didn't
by pbiggar 10y ago
I think it's the stature of the celebrities that died, not their quantity. While many celebrities are noteworthy, most known only to a niche audience or didn't significantly affect people's lives.
In 2014, the only legend was Robin Williams.
In 2015, BB King, Leonard Nimoy and Terry Pratchett died, but all had niche audiences.
In 2016, a lot of legends died: Bowie, Prince, Fidel Castro, Muhammed Ali. Each of those was truly transformative for their audiences and society as a whole. And that's leaving out Leonard Cohen, Alan Rickman, Harper Lee and Nancy Reagan, each of whom had about the stature of 2015's most noteworthy deaths.
- coldtea 10y ago>In 2014, the only legend was Robin Williams. If you don't count Shirley Temple, Joe Cocker, Mickey Rooney, Jack Bruce, Richard Attenborough, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and others.
- berdario 10y agoI never heard of Joe Cocker, Mickey Rooney, Jack Bruce and I heard of Shirley Temple just a couple weeks ago (in a discussion about how she's not as well known outside the US) These people are definitely not as POP as Bowie, Prince, George Michael, Muhammad Ali OTOH, also saying that Nancy Reagan has the same stature as Robin Williams seems utterly wrong I was born when Reagan was closing in to the end of his mandate, so that's probably why Nancy for me doesn't ring any bell. Likewise, Shimon Peres is much more noticeable, probably due to both timing and geographical proximity (I live in Europe) I guess that the "legendary stature" of such figures is qualified by lasting several decades and being well known across borders, attributes shared by only few On topic: there might indeed be an increase behind this trend, but if deaths are a poisson process, I'm not surprised at all that this year has seen a clustering of them
- saghm 10y agoIn my experience, Shirley Temple is much more well-known than Prince, but I guess this might not be representative of the wider population
- adrianN 10y agoPratchett was the UK's best selling author of the 90s. He sold many million copies. Star Trek is also really popular. I wouldn't say that these were niche audiences.
- agumonkey 10y agoAgreed about stature, I'd add a social historical element to it. These people represented the cream of some sort of golden age of occidental post war cultural wave. There can only be one Micheal Jackson because you need to be a child prodigy turned to adulthood when the music industry shifts to mass market through CD, and music videos. All these people leaving feel like cultural parents.
- ulrikrasmussen 10y agoAnd Philip Seymour Hoffman in 2014
- jrnichols 10y agoi think some of it is also Facebook echo chamber related. At the end of 2015, a lot of my metalhead friends were sharing the news of the death of Lemmy from Motorhead. A couple weeks later, it was an entirely different group of friends that were mourning David Bowie.