Deaths of Famous People Shouldn’t Surprise Us Anymore

Phyllis Diller, Tony Scott, Gore Vidal, Sherman Hemsley, Sally Ride, Whitney Houston and many other people who are household names died this year and it’s not even September.  I fell into the trap of being surprised when I hear of such deaths and then I realized I shouldn’t. 

As in a quote I wrote a long time ago, “history keeps getting longer.”  As time progresses, more people become notable for various reasons and people tend to live longer so their exposure spans more generations. 

I don't mean to sound callous.  Of course the way some of the people died is sad and unfortunate, especially in the all-too-common cases of drug overdoses or suicides.  But when we hear every other day on the news that an older celebrity has died, we shouldn’t be at all surprised.  What’s interesting is how these death events will become a more significant portion of news coverage.  Add the death facts, investigations, and tributes all together and we’ll have to start having a half hour of national news just to cover notable deaths.  What makes it worse is all the hype that the media creates.  But we ask for the news we get.  Many of us idolize celebrities but I believe that “"idolizing another offers no value over simply admiring another."

There’s no solution really.  I guess we’ll just have to live with more deaths.

+ Atul

Comments

[Danielle D]

Well said. I agree that the death of famous people should not surprise us. I like your point of view on how history keeps getting longer. The news does cover way too much about celebrity deaths when instead we could be getting more information about what is really happening around the world. The fact that idolizing another offers no value over simply admiring another summarizes your point perfectly.

[Katrina W]

Drugs are so readily available for these celebritys,so the death toll for them is always going to be high when they indulge. It's very sad to see them leave so harshly.

[UH2L]

Danielle,

That's a good point. As history keeps getting longer, perhaps the media needs to make more of an effort to focus on important matters. Celebrities really don't impact our lives that much.

Katrina,

It is sad that drugs are easy to get and celebrities usually have a lot of money so they aren't limited in how much they use and it often leads to a harsh death.

Atul