Quote: (06-20-2016 03:09 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:
Quote: (06-20-2016 02:25 AM)LeoneVolpe Wrote:
The number of high-profile celebrities to die unexpectedly in 2016 has been astounding. It seems to be part of a larger trend, seemingly kicked off (no pun intended) by Heath Ledger's death in 2008. They've really been dropping like flies since then.
This could in part be attributed the the sheer amount of entertainment material there is out there in the world now.
Go back far enough and there used to a few free to air television channels and a smattering of movie releases each year.
Now it seems like content is being released so quickly that it would take a team of a thousand people working 12 hour shifts seven days a week just to keep up with it all, and that adds up to a lot of so called celebrities.
I agree that as the entertainment industry continues to grow, it will need more artists to support it. Since these individuals are in the public eye, it's big news when they die. In death, just as in life, the spotlight shines brighter on these folks than everyday people. I'm not trying to don a tin-foil hat here and suggest all these deaths are the work of some elaborate conspiracy or anything like that. All I'm saying, and I'm willing to admit it could be my own confirmation bias at work here, is that a lot of celebrities have died unexpectedly and often in shocking ways during the past eight years, but especially in 2016.
A far from exhaustive list:
Heath Ledger (January 22, 2008, age 28)
Michael Jackson (June 25, 2009, age 50)
Brittany Murphy (December 20, 2009, age 32)
Whitney Houston (February 11, 2012, age 48)
Paul Walker (November 30, 2013, age 40)
Phillip Seymour Hoffman (February 2, 2014, age 46)
Robin Williams (August 11, 2014, age 63)
David Bowie (January 10, 2016, age 69)
Alan Rickman (January 14, 2016, age 69)
Prince (April 21, 2016, age 57)
The list goes on...
Again, not trying to deny the possibility of my own confirmation bias, but in years past when I'd catch the Academy Awards, the "In Memoriam" segment would feature mostly very elderly entertainers. This has certainly become less of the case in recent years. Though some of the people mentioned above weren't "young" necessarily, their deaths were still considered untimely.