It’s only been four months since the beginning of the year, but he already showed his dark side.
It seems that not a week goes by without news about the death of a famous person. Singer and songwriter David Bowie was not at the beginning of January. Then a week later we said goodbye to actor Alan Rickman, and this week the satirist Victoria wood, pop star Prince and an American actress Doris Roberts, best known for the TV series “everybody loves Raymond”.
“May suffice, 2016!” or something in this spirit murmuring of many, reacting to the news. There is even the question: what now famous people will be dying more often?
Predictions come true
Apparently, Yes, says the editor, obituaries bi-Bi-si Nick Serpell. His responsibilities include to prepare obituaries in advance for publishing on websites and broadcast on television and radio immediately after confirmation of the death of a famous person.
According to him, the number of deaths of celebrities this year is phenomenally high.
If you look at the numbers over the past few years, we can notice a tendency to increase.
For the period from January to March 2012 had to use only five harvested the Nickname of obituaries. During the same period this year has played and has published 24 obituary.
In this statistics, however, are prepared in advance of publication. What if the stocks of such materials at bi-Bi-si during this time were larger and more frequent?
This trend is also present: for example, we now have bi-Bi-si in stock about 1500 and prepared yet unpublished obituary, and every week Nick Serpell adds several new.
British newspaper the Daily Telegraph publishes a selection of images of recently deceased celebrities and updates it during the year. In 2014, the collection consisted of 38 pictures, last year during the same period – from 30, this year there has already gained 75.
Every year in January the website with the gloomy title deathlist.net (the death list) publishes the names of 50 famous people who may die this year. Over the past 10 years by the end of April in six cases, half or even less of their predictions came true, but now we see that has already killed 5 people from their list.
Itself begs the question: why?
More celebrities
There are several reasons, says Nick Serpell.
“People who became famous in the 1960s years, now reaches 70-year milestone and start to die. Besides, now more famous than before, he explains. – In my father’s or grandfather’s celebrities were movie stars, then there was no television”.
Many of those who die belong to the generation born in the period 1946-64, i.e. the so-called “baby boom”, when the population growth in developed countries was considerable. In the U.S., for example, according to the census Bureau, in 2014, 76 million people belong to this generation, representing 23% of the population.
In Britain, people over 65 years account for approximately 18% of the population, which is 47% higher than it was 40 years ago.
Because people in the postwar years the rise, and the number of those who became famous, too, has increased, and now these celebrities in age from 52 to 70 years begin to die.
In Britain, for example, more likely to die were people aged 65 to 69: in 2014, 1,000 men died of 14.2 men of this age and 9.4 of men aged 60-64 years.
Among the most high-profile deaths this year, David Bowie (69), Alan Rickman (69 years), Prince (57 years) and Victoria wood (62 years) – all belong to the generation of “baby boom”.
In addition, we now know more celebrities than before.
“Over the past 10 years, social networks have played a major role,” says Nick Serpell.
At the speed of tweet
In just a few hours before the announcement of the death of the Prince became aware of the care to the age of 45 American kulturistki, wrestler and former porn stars Chainy, whose real name is Joan Marie Laurer.
Moreover, reports of her death were not limited to only the United States, there were about 400 thousand tweets around the world, including countries such as Nigeria and Peru.
In our day to learn of the death of someone is easier than ever.
Will you continue this trend? Probably Yes.
“In the next 10 years this generation will be closer to 80, so that the trend will continue. And that’s not counting the surprises when people die who shouldn’t,” says the editor of obituaries.
While regular half-hour review of the obituaries that Nick Serpell makes for news bi-Bi-si at the end of the year, will be extended until the hour of the program.
