Overkill

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A piece on Breakfast TV on this year's losses, earlier this week mentioned Prince, Bowie, Parfitt, Cohen BUT NOT the two thirds of ELP, nor George Martin. I know which of these I'll miss most.

So a number of pop stars and actors have died this year. It's funny how we put these people on an artificially high pedestal. What about Dr Donald Henderson, who eradicated smallpox? Someone who actually did something useful.

He died this year, but the world didn't erupt into mass hysteria over his passing.

[Lat-Literal]

A piece on Breakfast TV on this year's losses, earlier this week mentioned Prince, Bowie, Parfitt, Cohen BUT NOT the two thirds of ELP, nor George Martin. I know which of these I'll miss most.

Yes indeed but that is largely about preference and individual personal meaning.

So a number of pop stars and actors have died this year. It's funny how we put these people on an artificially high pedestal. What about Dr Donald Henderson, who eradicated smallpox? Someone who actually did something useful.

He died this year, but the world didn't erupt into mass hysteria over his passing.

I do have genuine sympathies with your line of argument.

Far better to celebrate birthdays I feel.

But:

Maybe there is some confusion between concepts of coverage and pedestals, achievement and being well known. Members of the cast of Coronation Street are probably known to more people and hence deemed more personally relevant to them than those who live in an adjoining street in their neighbourhood. Notorious mass murderers and crooks also get huge amounts of coverage when they go. One could complain about the level of coverage even if it had nothing to do with pedestals. This links in with the amount of coverage given to people when they are living or their relevance today. I am not sure I had heard about Dr Donald Henderson until you mentioned him. Nor had I heard of the father of computers who died this year. My guess is the latter's death received attention because computers are highly relevant to the British now, he was British and all of us are anticipating Brexit.

[gurnemanz]

The whole Red Army Choir perished in that air crash.

[Richard Tarleton]

The whole Red Army Choir perished in that air crash.

Indeed - hardly know where to start with that one. Other emotions also engaged - rage - Tupolev Tu-154s

Some deaths are shocking, others sad, some are reminders of one's own mortality, one's past......

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This is just one tragedy that will be forgotten by most people within a couple of days, because they aren't celebrities.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/28/several-injured-in-multiple-car-pile-up-on-a40-in-oxfordshire?client=safari

[MrGongGong]

So a number of pop stars and actors have died this year. It's funny how we put these people on an artificially high pedestal. What about Dr Donald Henderson, who eradicated smallpox? Someone who actually did something useful.

He died this year, but the world didn't erupt into mass hysteria over his passing.

Why do you have such an faux surprised reaction to people having different priorities and senses of significance to you?
You talk about "we" but you don't mean "we" you seem to mean "other people".
I don't see any "mass hysteria" at all just large numbers of people having different priorities to me.
The deaths of Jean-Claude Risset, Pierre Boulez and Pauline Oliveros (for example) have great significance and I would put them on a "high pedestal" but I'm not for one minute thinking that they are as important to others.

Maybe using other media sources would be a good thing?

[french frank]

The deaths of Jean-Claude Risset, Pierre Boulez and Pauline Oliveros (for example) have great significance and I would put them on a "high pedestal" but I'm not for one minute thinking that they are as important to others.

That's a fact: I don't think anyone disputes it. High profile celebrities in many fields of entertainment are 'more important' to a great many people than are non celebrities, whatever their achievements.

We are entitled to ponder on that, and have opinions.

[MrGongGong]

That's a fact: I don't think anyone disputes it. High profile celebrities in many fields of entertainment are 'more important' to a great many people than are non celebrities, whatever their achievements.

We are entitled to ponder on that, and have opinions.

Be my guest
have whatever opinions you like

[MrGongGong]

We are entitled to ponder on that, and have opinions.

like this you mean?

Someone who actually did something useful.

High horse of the year ?

[kernelbogey]

This is just one tragedy that will be forgotten by most people within a couple of days, because they aren't celebrities.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.t...?client=safari

I agree: I sometimes think that, as a society, we are shockingly complacent about road deaths: over thirty people are killed each week on UK roads.

[french frank]

Be my guest
have whatever opinions you like

[oddoneout]

High(and not so high) profile celebrities are now a part of peoples' lives to such an extent that when they die it feels 'personal'. If celebrity A is the wallpaper, soundtrack, clothing, lifestyle, of one's existence, then loss of that person leaves a gap, especially for those who can only function by reference to external markers rather than by personal thought and responsibility.
Attitudes to displays of emotion have also swung from one extreme to another; where once stiff upper lip and private grief were the ideal, it seems now that excessive - and perhaps more importantly, public - expressions of loss are the norm.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I was trying to highlight the gap between the unnatural tragic deaths that happen on a daily basis, these being largely ignored, deaths of celebrities by natural causes. The true tragedy of Carrie Fisher's natural death was that it almost certainly caused her mother to die most unhappily. For many others, it was the death of Princess Leia, rather than Carrie herself. I know that sounds a bit harsh.

[french frank]

If celebrity A is the wallpaper, soundtrack, clothing, lifestyle, of one's existence, then loss of that person leaves a gap [… ] it seems now that excessive - and perhaps more importantly, public - expressions of loss are the norm.

The strength of feeling, the strength of emotion, is a measure of how, in a general way, such aspects of life have become so important to most people. Normal and abnormal are now reversed, compared with fifty years ago.

[zola]

I don't really think it is such a new phenomenon, the main difference simply being that there is so much more media ( internet and 24 hour rolling news ) The media available at the time was pretty much flooded by the deaths of say Marilyn Monroe or Elvis Presley. And on a more localised level, the front pages were held for entertainers like Tony Hancock or Eric Morecambe.