TIL. Also...my take (or whatever.) (Off-Topic)

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Wednesday, December 28, 2016, 01:40 (2670 days ago) @ BeardFade

"Elephant in the room" refers to an obvious truth, "800 lb gorilla" refers to organizations so powerful they can disregard the law.

Sources: (sorry I use wikiwand which converts wiki urls)

Elephant In the Room
800 lb Gorilla

As Funkmon has mentioned, it has been used interchangeably. Yet I have to mention that I legitimately did not know that there were two separate meanings. Thus, TIL.

Fuck you, 2016. Fuck you.

Alright. What I'm about to say might seem insensitive, but I think the people of DBO might be the kind of people who can appreciate this. While it sucks that a lot of our heroes and idols have died in 2016, I really wish people would consider the underlying correlation and causation to the situation, so they might be able to gain perspective.

The amount of celebrity deaths in 2016 is directly tied to the growth of "celebrity" in our culture. There are more household names dying in 2016 because there are more household names than ever before in history. The advent of the TV and global movies and international rock stars all took place in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s (and continues). How old are all (or at least most) of the people dying? 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s.

This isn't to say it's not sad when we lose people. It most certainly is. But a healthy perspective on life maintains a healthy perspective on death. Death is coming for us all. None of us will survive. And that's ok. It's one of the many things that gives the life we have great meaning.

Mathematically, 2017 will likely be worse than 2016 in regards to losing our celebrities. 2018 worse than that. So on and so on. Our only hope of losing fewer household names in a given year is to reduce how many household names there are. Perhaps our angst and outcry is really more of an indication of the importance of "celebrity" in our culture and lives than it is about our personal sentiments towards people we've (likely) never met.

Once again, let me reiterate. My condolences to those grieving the many losses of 2016. I know that many of these stars had major impacts on your lives. I'm just getting exhausted with no one mentioning the elephant in the room.

CyberKN: The majority of these people deserve so much better than for their deaths to be tallied for some 'epic' "how much 2016 sucked" meme.

Oh boy... I can feel an essay bubblen' out of my noggin. Ugh. WHY NOW! My brain ya'll. I don't even know. Alright, so this is going to be a lot less polished, but what they hey. So I have seen the same sort of "everyone dies, it's going to happen next year too!" type statements around the net. Thus I start my babble.

DUH. No shit. This take is missing the point entirely. That's not to say it's not disagreeable that such amazing, well versed people are being clumped together into some sort of meme, yet, this isn't an accident. There are so many little nuances that help describe the larger scope of what is occurring. I want to cover it all, but alas that would require time, and I'm making this off the cuff. No time for spelling it all out, so here is the meat done and done.

It's a collective morning and venting mechanism that the hive mind, that we (are) upon the internet (yes even RIGHT NOW), have collectively co-oped to help soothe uncertain fears about the future, and perhaps a myriad of other topics my brain isn't pointing to right now as I type this. 2016 "Is a Monster". We are blaming the "Monster". It's a tactic as old as Homo sapiens. That is the use of monsters, and 2016 has eaten some BIG names, seemingly in larger number then collectively "we the internet hivemind yada yada" are used too, thus... the response. In time... I would expect this "celebrity death" type response to fade in the overall collective sense as we have seen this year, barring the possibility of other variables I can not know. On top of that we have the global politics of blind ambition and all around pig headed ignorance and fear of right now to spite the nose of the future, and well... 2016. It's not one thing, it is a collection of things.

So... surprised?

Don't get me wrong, it is a logical and reasonable stance to observe. Everybody dies. Yes. Yet, don't Fo-CUS on DA FIN-GA OR Yor'll miss Out On ALL DAt HEV-EN-LY GLOR-EY.