To think 2016 doesn't have satanic celebrity-slaying powers? And people need to stop talking as though it does?

[Manumission]

It's true that the obituary list for 2016 is grim and sobering reading and we've lost some great talents this year, many of them way too young.

However, the magical-thinking type comments ("2016 needs to hurry up and fuck off" etc) take that a step further and ascribe special significance to the year that isn't there.

It's not in great taste IMO.

There was an article on BBC a few weeks ago that said statistically we haven't lost many more celebs than average this year, just that there was a higher than usual concentration of them in the first quarter of the year.

Fact is, the first generation of truly global celebs (musicians, tv stars, etc) are now in their late-60s/70s so more and more are going to leave us as the years tick by.

Since 'celebrity' was invented, more people have become celebrities and now via media we couldn't have conceived of 60 years ago. As the world changes to allow people to be stars of anything from the big screen to a YouTube channel, from Nobel Prize winners to self-published cult writers, more people we have heard of will die. 2017 will not be better. And by 2027, we will be in permanent mourning.

I don't know, I agree with you 100% about 2016 having celebrity slaying powers bollocks.

There just seems to be so many this year. I'm mid twenties so it might just be me noticing more iyswim.

Complete sympathy for their families and friends of course.

Admittedly, a lot of icons have passed away this year - David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Prince, Victoria Wood, Caroline Aherne, Rick Parfitt, George Michael to name a few! And yes there were deaths that were unexpected but at the same time, they were expected because of their age.

Celebrity culture has become an obsession, so I don't think it'll disappear anytime soon.

Carrie Fisher has just been confirmed as the latest celeb on BBC website

Link: www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38446753

YANBU. I lost my DM, aged 60 in February and for some reason, false grief over famous people that most people don't actually know feels slightly mawkish.

I agree about the false, conspicuous grief, like The Princess of Hearts stuff.

I realised that I didn't say that earlier and so may sound a tad odd

I thought it was just shorthand for brexit, trump, prince, Bowie, etc. Not actually meaning 'curse of 2016' just for some people it's not been a great news year?

Social media plays a massive role in this out pouring, before the internet, facebook, twitter even forums like this people would just talk to their friends they didn't have a public space to say how they felt. The world is so much smaller today.

People are allowed to feel sad when someone they have admired dies, I think there is different levels of grief you can experience even from a celeb you may have never met. I felt sad George Michael died I listened to the ladies & gentlemen so much when I was a teenager it got me through some depressing times and happy ones. It is not comparable to the grief I felt when my nan died but I don't see anything wrong with posting a RIP message online. It's a form of empathy and it's probably a comfort to their families too.

Princess Leia is now gone, too.

What were you saying OP?

I'm sure some posters are wiling away the hours with Wiki's 'Deaths in 2016' open in another window. Refreshing the page madly just so they can hotfoot it back here to woo us all into a frenzy...

People die. It's sad. It has nothing to do with 2016. II wonder if some are passing this nonsense onto their children as well?

Unfortunately they do imo. Shoving them to the front to lay their flowers when the cameras are rolling.

Yanbu, op!

YANBU it's really getting on my nerves all the people going on about #sodoff2016 more famous people will die in 2017..18 etc. Bloody ridiculous.

Surely it must also depend if you 'liked' the artists or they were 'young'

I am not grief stricken but i am sad that Carrie Fisher is dead in an 'oh what a shame way'

I suppose so... but surely anyone reading about Debbie Reynolds death would experience an empathetic pang!

Definitely blanche

sad news

*I think 2016 has been reading this thread and is making a point by killing as many as possible before it fucks off.

*i obviously don't actually think this. Years can't read.

Totally sick of it myself. The first thing I did this morning was to add the word Debbie to my facebook filter so my feed isn't full of the shallow outpourings of grief.

Unfortunately as the "stars" of the 50s, 60s and 70s are now of an age when death is not unexpected it isn't likely to be any better in 2017.

Hopefully empathy and logic can coexist Blanche.

It is very sad news.

I think it's probably the apparent young ages at which they died. We have been fed the whole living longer thing, average person lives to 80's yada, yada. This is to excuse pushing back the state retirement age, and probably not as average as the Govt are having us believe.

This is interesting

[[https://www.facebook.com/MicMedia/videos/1345860685436718/ ]]

I'd hope so Manumission

As I said, I dislike the Conspicuous Grief we see so much, on facebook, sides of roads, in the twittering outpouring of wailing and hair pulling. I find it all very odd, more about the person making the noise than the person who has died.

But I do feel more than just a passing 'Oh dear' about some of the deaths of famous people I have never met, for the reasons I gave earlier. I suspect we all do, for some deaths of famous people - even those who are 'sick of it'.

It is fairly simple, to me. For many people, probably about my age, this year has seen the death of many people who have been household names, creative inspiration, sadness and joy for the whole of our lives. And that has raised uncomfortable feelings of my own mortality, and that of my loved ones.