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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be really fed up of people who claim 2016 to have been a 'horrific' year....

253 replies

Whatsername17 · 25/12/2016 23:46

Because, sadly, some famous people that they have never met have died? Once again social media is awash with 'fuck off, 2016', 'you'd better not take x, you or z from us' and 'this year is truly testing me now it has taken.....'
It gives me the rage. Firstly, I think the grief belongs to the families who have lost a person, not a celebrity ideal. But, secondly, I just think that, if the worst thing that has happened to you personally is that someone in the public eye has died, then you've been pretty lucky. Thirdly, so many other awful things have happened in the world; terror attacks, plane crashes, Syria, Aleppo, Donald Trump. Yet people don't seem to feel the same outrage. I will admit, I've had an awful year, starting with the loss of our baby at 13 weeks pregnant in January, followed by a huge crisis in my marriage and the loss of a loved one. I guess that could all be clouding my judgement. I dunno. I just hate social media inspired competitive grief I guess. Feel free to flame but I'd be really interested to know if others feel the same.

OP posts:
OohMavis · 25/12/2016 23:47

I agree but you'll probably be told to wind your neck in.

Chippednailvarnishing · 25/12/2016 23:48

Happy Christmas.

SarahLinden · 25/12/2016 23:48

Everything's relative. I'm one of those raging at what a terrible year it's been. I'm sorry for your troubles but everyone's entitled to their own opinion.

rewardformissingmojo · 25/12/2016 23:48

Agree. Flowers for your losses OP.

Reality16 · 25/12/2016 23:49

It HAS been a terrible year. You don't have to know a celeb to feel sad that they have died - just as you don't have to know them to appreciate them in their field ffs

NotStoppedAllDay · 25/12/2016 23:50

It's Christmas Day. If people want to express grief it's up to them.... your 'rage' at them does not matter one little bit.

Essexgirlupnorth · 25/12/2016 23:50

My mum died of cancer in April so 2016 has been pretty rubbish for me personally

CinderellaRockefeller · 25/12/2016 23:51

Yep completely agree with you. It's utterly self indulgent posturing while trying to be cool.

SovietKitsch · 25/12/2016 23:51

Brexit, Trump, the war raging on in Syria, the refugee crisis, the Bastille Day attack, the Berlin attack...do you need me to go on?!

MrsderPunkt · 25/12/2016 23:52

Yep, and 2017 will be the same. More 'celebrities' with a greater presence on social media coupled with the great rush to break the news to others means it will continue to escalate.

Original poster
Whatsername17 · 25/12/2016 23:53

I don't mind if people disagree - everyone is entitled to their opinion. Sometimes my social media leaves me feeling like I'm a complete weirdo as I seem to have a different opinion to others on a few different things. I'm not one to really post much to social media though. I feel safe in asking an anonymous forum if I'm alone in my opinion. Good to know I'm not completely alone though!

OP posts:
PickAChew · 25/12/2016 23:54

Thirdly, so many other awful things have happened in the world; terror attacks, plane crashes, Syria, Aleppo, Donald Trump. Yet people don't seem to feel the same outrage.

Yes people do. All of this, plus Brexit plus so many familiar figures and sources of escapism dying is exactly why so many people feel it's such a shit year. You are only listening to half the story, then choosing to be all outraged based on half the information, so YABU.

neffi · 25/12/2016 23:54

I'm sad that George Michael has died. Not because I knew him or anything but because he is part of my history, in particular my youth. Music forms a large part of many people's shared experience with others and in this case George (and Bowie and Prince et al) loomed pretty large in his time.

It's not really grief that people are sharing, it's a shared sense of the passing of time I think. And being sad about it doesn't mean that people don't care about the very serious bad things that have happened this year, from the personal to world events.

MrsderPunkt · 25/12/2016 23:54

Soviet I think you missed the point - it's the celebrity grieving that overtakes the actual problems in life/the world that the o p has tried of.

Bluntness100 · 25/12/2016 23:55

I think it's all relative, and the people who post it's been a bad year , well it doesn't mean nothing bad happened in their personal lives. Nor does it mean as there is worse things happening that true talents passing can't be mourned. A lot of very talented people died this year.

I think uoure being unreasonable. I'm sorry for your losses, but they don't invalidate everything else💐

Original poster
Whatsername17 · 25/12/2016 23:55

Soviet - I agree with you. But those atrocities do not seem to have accrued the same public outrage as the sad deaths of people who happen to be famous. I think that is wrong. Some of those things we could actually do something about.

OP posts:
DodoRevival · 25/12/2016 23:56

Your own losses are more than likely lessening your tolerance to people's reaction to celebrity deaths. 2016 got a 'name' for itself because there was a cluster of big names who died in 2016's beginning.

I personally don't think that 2017 will be much different. There are a cluster of celebrities that are at an age where death isn't too surprising (it's the age where a person gets to and start losing their peers).

George Micheal has been ill for a while, his death is sad because he's young, it's sad but not shocking. Still it comes after a seemingly large number of big name deaths .

Sorry for your losses - I lost a baby at Christmas time 5 years ago and was just thinking about that.

ellanutella8 · 25/12/2016 23:57

It has been a terrible year. People are genuinely moved by celebrity deaths as they often feel a connection to them. I've never met Victoria Wood but I was upset when she died as I enjoy her work and feel she had much more to give.

There's been so many celebrity deaths it is unlikely that your average person has remained unaffected.

This is before the unpredictable change of Brexit, Trump or the atrocities of Aleppo, Nice, Orlando, Berlin etc

Plus personal tragedies that we all have.

So unfortunately YABU although I do understand your point.

Let's all hope for a peaceful and uneventful 2017.

bluesbaby · 25/12/2016 23:58

What? 2016 has been a shit year precisely because of everything that has happened politically and economically.

I've also had a pretty shit year personally, and look forward to a fresh start in 2017.

Celebrities dying factors extremely low on reasons why 2016 sucks...

CinderellaRockefeller · 25/12/2016 23:58

I think it's the mixing of celebrity death with genuine human disasters which is the distasteful bit. They're all given the same weighting "David Bowie, Syria, the attack in Berlin, and now George Michael has died! Oh 2016 is so terrible!"

There has been horrible human tragedy this year. Celebrities dying aren't in the "tragedy" box. We trivialise the actual horrors by giving them the same weighting on Facebook and twitter.

FranticalFidget · 25/12/2016 23:59

Thank fuck you said it!

I keep thinking 'Really, 2016 is just awful, cos some celebrities kicked the bucket?!'

How many thousands of people have died this year. Young mothers taken from their Childers by cancer, murdered children, suicides, war.

Oh but that guy whose song that time you liked died peacefully, and so did a few others in his age range.

Yeah your so right. It's just the worst!

(As an aside idols have been dying for a very long time. I'm going to blame this new phenomenon on sm and the internet in general. Probably didn't even occur for our grandparents to check in the health status of celebrities that have been out of the public eye for some time.

SovietKitsch · 25/12/2016 23:59

I don't agree, it's all part of why it fells like the world is falling apart at the seams.

Cherrysoup · 25/12/2016 23:59

DodoRevival Flowers

Totally depends on if you experienced personal losses, OP. I couldn't give a rat's ass about famous people dying (sorry for their love ones, of course) but I don't get the whole weeping and wailing over famous people dying.

PickAChew · 26/12/2016 00:01

And Neffi has it spot on.

As I mentioned in one ot the million Geirge Michael Threads, I'm listening to some ELP, tonight. It's a given that any 70s performers are reaching a certain vulnerable age, but still sad when they go because that's one of the little creative sparks that helps to keep us, as a society, happy and ticking over, has stopped firing.

George Michael is only a few years older than me, thought. Same age as Calorine Ahern (would have been her 53rd birthday, last week), so always going to be a bit of an "oh shit" reaction from me.

PNGirl · 26/12/2016 00:01

I think most people view the high number of celebrity deaths as one element of a shit year, not the whole of it. For a lot of people it's gone death, death, terror attack, stupid vote, death, death, plane crash, stupid vote, terror attack and another death today. It feels like we get about three days without a a downer.