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

[Whatsername17]

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.

Sometimes you do feel a personal connection to a celebrity though, even if you don't know them, and for singers who have been around as long as GM and DB there will be many people that connect.

2005 was a shitty year for me - I lost my mum and split with my husband. In the middle if that I discovered an album that helped me. I listened to it on the daily 90 minute post work journey to the hospice. That singer has released many albums since, ds is named from a song! His music has comforted me when I've been low, helped me in dark times, been the soundtrack to my escape and career break and everything bad and good in the years since. The singer is exactly one month younger than me so if I were to learn if his death I would grieve and be shocked, without a doubt.

You don't have to know someone to rely on them.

I'm finding it really distaceful that a criminal drug addict has died and is given hero status. It's sad for relatives when anyone die.

Neffi summed up what I was thinking.

PickaChew - Can you turn ELP up please - Reminds me of a time when I was studying for exams and which ultimately made me the person I am 😀

I don't have strong opinions one way or the other about people's reactions to celebrity deaths, but I find the casual listing of Brexit alongside terrorist attacks, Syria, Allepo etc leaves a nasty taste.

Of course, the narrative is that 2016 is a terrible year, and that Brexit is one of the reasons, but let's not forget that more people voted to leave the EU than to remain, so not everyone believes that.

(I know some posters have acknowledged that Brexit has been tumultous whatever way you voted, and quite agree with this - for me it has revealed a disdain for working class people by some that has horrified me - I am taking issue with those who are likening a democratic decision by the majority who voted to a war or terrorist act, it isn't).

Professionally this year has been amazing, but personally pretty damn shit and culminated in my mother being diagnosed with terminal cancer a couple of months ago. My parents are sort of local celebs in the area of the country where they live and when she was in hospital and now she's in a care home there were certain people who visited her and checked in on Facebook along with sad faces and vague comments. These were then picked up by other people that they were friends with - the usual "ahh, poor you Hun, going to visit a sick friend" or "thinking of you Hun" type of bollocks.

That's what I hate about social media. Your own grief, that you carefully keep off Facebook because it's complicated and private, gets hijacked by people looking for validation and praise and commented on by other people who you don't even know.

I guess that's how the families of the dead celebrities may feel.

ivy that's a despicable thing to say about someone who's only been dead for 12 hours. His 'crimes' didn't hurt anyone and were mostly to do with being gay. Yes, he was flawed (as most of us are) but seemed to be a pretty decent person.He gave a huge amount of money to charity- Richard Osman tweeted earlier that there was a contestant on a quiz show who wanted to win £15,000 so she could have IVF. She didn't get it but GM just sent her the money. There were loads of other similar stories.
When I die, I would like to think that the good that I did outweighed the bad. GM wasn't a saint but the good things he did and the pleasure he gave millions of people massively outweighs his failings which he has never attempted to deny.

Many of the celebrities that have died have been younger than average life expectancy and recently or actively working and had a multi-generational appeal. There's also been older people who had retired from the limelight that are a less surprising demographic.

Most people have the emotional intelligence to process different levels of events of political/ world importance, personal tragedy and can feel sad or shocked that a person whose works touched their lives has died at an unexpected stage of life.

Fame and money don't guarantee a happy life (although misery in wealth is less worrying than misery in poverty) and some of the deaths will have been accelerated by drug abuse. Fame and money also haven't protected them from ill health and given magic cures.

2016 has been an average year. Lots of "famouses" have died, but lots of them die every year. I remember in about 1999, Rod Hull kicked off a weekly spate of "famous" people dying than ran for months. It's nothing strange, indeed we will have to get used to it. More people are "famous" now than ever, therefore more "famous" people will die, and we are more aware of it than ever due to the ever-present availability of information.

It's a side-effect of news being "always on". Thirty years ago obituaries were consigned to the designated section of newspapers or shown on the evening news bulletins if there was time. Only a small number of "famous" people's deaths were guaranteed headline news, a senior politician or member of royalty for example. These days there is persistent news coverage which has plenty of time and space to fill, so deaths make easy and cheap filler - just need to get a few images of the person in their prime and get a stream of other "famous" people to give glowing reviews of their life.

2016 has been nothing unusual. Trump got in, the UK voted to leave the EU. Disastrous or fantastic developments - it all depends on your point of view. The world hasn't been destroyed, the global economy hasn't entirely collapsed. Lots of famous people have died. But controversial political decisions happen every year, famous people die every year.

Get used to it. In a year's time people will be saying "2017 has been an awful year, can't wait for it to end."

Well, in 2017 even more uk children will be unjustly removed and traumatised. Does this interest anyone?

Maybe start a new thread about it serena sounds v tough.

Here people are focussing more on facebook responses to celebrity deaths/international turmoil.

Snatched I kind of agree but there are degrees of famous. There are thousands of pop stars but David Bowie, Prince and George Michael are up there as greats. You can't compare them to someone who had 3 hits in the early 80's.
Similarly, Terry Wogan, Ronnie Corbett, Victoria Wood and Alan Rickman would probably all be regarded as National Treasures and they all died within a few weeks of each other. You can't compare them to a CBeebies presenter or someone who won Big Brother in 2002.

a criminal drug addict has died
He wasn't an armed robber FGS!
Drug use and addiction are common human experiences, I include alcohol of course

"Today 10:51 ivykaty44

I'm finding it really distaceful that a criminal drug addict has died and is given hero status. It's sad for relatives when anyone die."

Are you taking the fucking piss?

I was a bit shocked at that comment too Wolverbampton. Maybe that one should have been kept as just a thought.

Those disgruntled Andrew ridgeley fans get everywhere.

Do and I have spent half an hour mulling over this FB photo. Lots of faces who we'd forgotten/hadn't realised had died. Sorry to add to the 'what a year' angst.

Do = Dp...

I agree with the posters who have said art reflects the human condition and is what endures.

Love of certain artists is about shared times and connections with people in your own life that you love.

totally agree with you op

I think people love jumping on the bandwagon with all the "fuck off 2016", it gets a bit tiresome

It does strike me very much as people saying this like it really matters to them, have never lost anyone significant in their lives....

Thank you Rufus, and to everyone sharing their personal troubles past and present.

Is called popular culture. If you're not part of it, to a greater or lesser extent, you're massively missing out.

ssd, my post was about the celebrity deaths of course, not personnel ones

2016 has been nothing unusual. Trump got in, the UK voted to leave the EU

What? The English-speaking world goes mad and you think this is nothing unusual? This, and women in danger of losing their name and identity plus me turning 60 and starting a new job have made this a year to remember. (For me)

It is kind of explained by this:

Ah, I see what's going on with the terrorism, Syria, Brexit stuff (having looked at that FB montage).

It's just more of that attempt to link remain = education, rational thought, inclusivity, culture, youth, outward lookingness, forward lookingness

and leave = lack of education, bigotry, xenophobia, lack of culture, old age, insularity, hankering after the past, violence and now, indeed, death.

Which is just stoking up the division in this country which is to my mind one of the worst outcomes of 2016.