https://medium.com/@jasoncrease/was-2016-especially-dangerous-for-celebrities-79d79b9fae02#.m3tjxjkrq

Addendum: I think at some point the widespread grieving will drop off because I think our culture is more fractured and new household names aren't being added like maybe they have been for most of my life.

Her mother has now followed. -_-

Fuck you, 2016. Fuck you.

So many times this.

In addition to the celebrity deaths you know about, 2016 also took:

My wife's cousin.
My wife's student.
An ex of mine who was still a friend.
My great-aunt's last surviving child (my great aunt is 97; she outlived all three kids).

and 2016 gave both my father-in-law and my dog cancer.

<3

Thanks :)

I hope 2017 is a fresh start and not an encore.

Hell yes!

Fingers, toes, and eyes crossed. I apologise if you see me driving like this.

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.

Maybe.

But there does seem to be something special about 2016.

If you look at 'celebrity deaths' compilations over the past few years, the numbers have been relatively steady for this decade so far (2010-2015), with a 75-100% increase for 2016. That's significant, no matter WHAT set of criteria you decide to use for judging.

Maybe we can start an "airing of grievances" in the Festivus tradition.

Arnold Palmer was a big one. For better or worse I don't follow golf that closely but I still knew of him and it was really something to go back and read more about him and the things he had done in life.

My big one for this year would probably be Jerry Doyle. Later in life he was known as a conservative talk radio host, but I will always know him as MISTER Garibaldi on Babylon 5. I don't know that he was a super great (or bad) guy off screen. It's fairly well known he had a problem with alcohol and it was ultimately a factor in his death. Certainly not the biggest named star to pass this year. Probably not one who did the most or championed the most causes. But he was the one that I most felt sad for this year.

Somehow, it seems that a lot of B5 characters have left us. Michael O'Hare, Andreas Katsulas, Richard Biggs, Jeff Conaway, and Jerry Doyle. Not all this year, of course, but B5 is one of my favorite shows of all time and the thing that got me into sci-fi and storytelling so it's always a bit more saddening to me personally when we lose one of the main cast.

"I'm sorry you're hurting. Can I help?"

For the record, this is what I did as a pastor. But I'm not a pastor anymore and yes, one of those reasons is the sheer quantity of empathy required for the job. I'm easily half Vulcan (yes, a joke, but still the simplest way to describe myself). People aren't really that interested in logic & reason even when they are in a good place. That, too, is part of the culture we are in.

No apologies needed, but thanks. Good analogy - I am very much Bones McCoy right now, boxing you about the ears for your green-blooded ways. ;)

As far as 2016 is concerned, my biggest grievance would too easily lead to bar rule violations (no politics or religion). All I'll say is 2016 was an impossible year for my politics.

Ron Glass hurts. A lot. I used to be Christian, and he (very brilliantly) played an example of religiosity I can still respect, if not agree with. At least there's still "Preacher" to keep me company.

"I'm sorry you're hurting. Can I help?"

For the record, this is what I did as a pastor. But I'm not a pastor anymore and yes, one of those reasons is the sheer quantity of empathy required for the job. I'm easily half Vulcan (yes, a joke, but still the simplest way to describe myself). People aren't really that interested in logic & reason even when they are in a good place. That, too, is part of the culture we are in.

I still maintain, I haven't told you what to feel or think, I have posited that there's a logical reason 2016 was shittier than most and have suggested that understanding why it was shittier may be of some comfort to some people. As with most comforts, they are only helpful to some. Perhaps in this case, the kind of people who would be comforted by understanding this situation would also be the people who would not need to be comforted by it. This is something I'm only considering right now, so my apologies for not calculating that beforehand.

SonofMacPhisto, who or what in particular have you been hurt by the most this year? For me, I was touched by the loss of Arnold Palmer. He transformed a game I loved, thought I might play professionally at one point in my life, and did it with charisma and style. I never met the man, but his accomplishments elevated golf, and any modern golfer is in his debt. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Maybe we can start an "airing of grievances" in the Festivus tradition.

I'm interested in helping people see a bigger picture than the pain directly in front of them.

Fair enough.

No where did I say that the many deaths of household names in 2016 shouldn't upset you. I suggested that the correlation between the rise of household names and the increase of those people dying is a symptom of mathematics. It is not a reason to label 2016 as the worst. 2016 is not the culprit, it is an arbitrary measure of time. The limits of human aging, mortality, and culture are who to get upset at. And I suggested that if you're going to be mad at 2016, it's only going to get worse.

It's not just that all people die, it's also that as a species, we die at a relatively standard rate. Assuming you outlived infancy (which was a real problem for much of human history), human beings have been living to their 70s for most of human existence (src. Dr. Christopher Ryan, Sex at Dawn, p.200-201). Even biblically, Psalm 90 describes the average lifespan as 70-80 years old. The best known icons, celebrities, heroes, etc, are all getting into the range where death is more/most likely. In order to have fewer icons die, we'll need a demographic trough of icons "created" and then wait the 30-40 years for the lack of deaths to occur. Right now we're living through the demographic boom of the Baby Boomers and the icons created in that time. It's going to be rough.

Any tact involving "mathematics" isn't that great when you're trying to help people deal with pain; especially pain involving death. I hope you never did this when you were a pastor.

Once again, let me reiterate. I really am sorry I upset you. I wasn't specifically targeting you (or any of you). I wasn't going on the attack, I was trying to add a conversation in parallel.

Starting a parallel conversation? Then why did you fly in fully expecting flak? I'm pulling the trigger on the guns because I think you're missing a huge point here: don't tell people how to deal with death in the midst of their grieving. Ever. Help them deal with it in their own way as ridiculous as it may be to you or anyone else. Next time, try this:

"I'm sorry you're hurting. Can I help?"

No where did I say that the many deaths of household names in 2016 shouldn't upset you. I suggested that the correlation between the rise of household names and the increase of those people dying is a symptom of mathematics. It is not a reason to label 2016 as the worst. 2016 is not the culprit, it is an arbitrary measure of time. The limits of human aging, mortality, and culture are who to get upset at. And I suggested that if you're going to be mad at 2016, it's only going to get worse.

It's not just that all people die, it's also that as a species, we die at a relatively standard rate. Assuming you outlived infancy (which was a real problem for much of human history), human beings have been living to their 70s for most of human existence (src. Dr. Christopher Ryan, Sex at Dawn, p.200-201). Even biblically, Psalm 90 describes the average lifespan as 70-80 years old. The best known icons, celebrities, heroes, etc, are all getting into the range where death is more/most likely. In order to have fewer icons die, we'll need a demographic trough of icons "created" and then wait the 30-40 years for the lack of deaths to occur. Right now we're living through the demographic boom of the Baby Boomers and the icons created in that time. It's going to be rough.

Once again, let me reiterate. I really am sorry I upset you. I wasn't specifically targeting you (or any of you). I wasn't going on the attack, I was trying to add a conversation in parallel.

I also take issue that we're upset over "celebrities." Many people that died this year are cultural icons. Bowie. Cohen. Ron Glass (in certain circles; I still miss him dearly).

To say "there's more celebrities so of course more will die" is just fucking ignorant.