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A Page One Death
With the death of Prince, Friday’s London Telegraph echoes our own James Lileks in asking about the plethora of celebrity deaths in 2016. Are people really dying off at a faster rate? Or has the bar for celebrity status been so lowered that more people are written about, Tweeted about and generally gossiped about than ever before?
I favor the latter theory above everything else. With the rise of the Internet and social media, we have given birth to new classifications of “stars.” Forbes now runs a list of the richest YouTube Stars. People whose passing may not have even merited much more than filler on the agate type pages 20 years ago now get links on Drudge Report and hundreds of comments on TMZ.
David Gest, whose primary claim to fame seems to be that he was Liza Minnelli’s abused fourth husband generated 600 comments on TMZ when he passed on April 12.
Beyond the business celebrity of The Donald, there’s “reality” television. At one time the aforementioned Mr. Gest had, not one, not two, but three programs on prime-time British TV at once. Here in the States all one has to do is look at the current lineup on “Dancing with the Stars” to understand just how much luster the word “star” has lost.
Finally, a word or two on the subject of our perceptions. Once you get north of 50 one becomes achingly (and I mean achingly) aware of one’s own mortality. We become a little bit more cognizant of the passing of others.
Then there is the nature of the era of those now passing. Fame, fortune, and temptation took its toll on the stars of mass media throughout the 20th Century but the rock ‘n’ roll era brought a level of self abuse never before seen. These people were abusing their bodies way before they were famous. A little help to get you up in the morning (Okay, afternoon), a little help to bring you back down at night, and maybe a little something to round off the edges during the day. Even when they found sobriety in their 40s the damage had been done. Now, as they reach their 60s and 70s, they’re dropping like flies.
Most of us, of course, will die in anonymity. There will be no AP wire copy. (“Mr. X, who Photoshopped under the name EJ Hill, passed this morning after a brief illness. Hundreds that camped out in a quiet vigil on his front lawn sobbed openly and rended their garments when news of his passing was announced,” will not be running on any front page anywhere near you — ever.) But may we all be remembered for how we lived and what we created in this life than for how we died or what we destroyed.
Published in General
Speaking as a guy turning 66 in a few months – Jeez, you’re being kind of brutal to us old geezers!!
I’ll be 41 on Monday. What does that make me?
39b.
It s all chance. Poisson’s rule. Random events occur in clusters. Four birds have flown into my office window this month.
My first thought was…Give me one good reason why I should care about another celebrity drug-overdose death.
The Telegraph headline is one of the dumbest ever. That’s the sort of thing one says to a colleague at the water cooler, but it’s not a serious question. As a matter of fact, it would be odd if celebrity deaths were always evenly distributed over time. Inevitably, they will be bunched up from time to time. For the Telegraph to ask why is to mistake randomness for non-randomness.
A tiny baby.
Mr. X?
Grukh the caveman is dead? Oh, no!
It’s not about them. It’s about us.
Maybe they are markers of our youth. Or sign posts of our own passage through this vale of tears. Regardless, it’s our relationship to them. I miss my parents. I will never miss some public figure the same way.
Is this one name or two?
Cretin. What about “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars?”
SVO.
I remember the Great Royal War when Prince Nelson had to defend the castle from the army of the younger Prince Fielder. Guitar and baseball bats were flying everywhere. They were pouring boiling hair conditioner from the parapets.
It was all so sad too since Fielder’s mother had named him Prince in honor of the musician.
That’s no way to treat animals.
In case anyone was wondering (and even if you weren’t), there were 748 baby boys given the first name of Prince in the US in 2014. That’s the most recent year available on the Social Security database.
No word on how many pitbulls and rottweilers got the same treatment.
You ever try to get that stuff out of chain mail?
Rocky the squirrel kicked the bucket a few days ago here in my neighborhood. Didn’t think to take a pic.