I wanted to say something, from both sides, about the viewpoints of this year. This post is going to be different from the expected format, as I lost a VERY long list of "celebrity" deaths I had been compiling... so let's make it a bit more FAQ-ish.... 2016 sucks! It's the worst year ever for deaths! Hmm... well, let's see who died: People of Worldwide recognition Sir Ken Adam Richard Adams Joe Alaskey Edward Albee Muhammad Ali Alexis Arquette Kenny Baker Boutros Boutros-Ghali David Bowie Fidel Castro Chyna Leonard Cohen Johan Cruyff Phife Dawg Larry Drake Patty Duke Ronnie Claire Edwards Keith Emerson Carrie Fisher Glenn Frey Zsa Zsa Gabor George Gaynes John Glenn Vivian Gray Reg Grundy Merle Haggard Dan Haggerty Guy Hamilton Earl Hamner Jr. Henry Heimlich Florence Henderson Arthur Hiller Robert Horton David Huddleston Paul Kantner George Kennedy Burt Kwouk Greg Lake Harper Lee Garry Marshall Sir George Martin George Michael Edgar Mitchell Scotty Moore Arnold Palmer Billy Paul Prince Nancy Reagan Janet Reno Debbie Reynolds Alan Rickman Doris Roberts Frank Sinatra Jr. Robert Stigwood Peter Vaughan Robert Vaughn Bobby Vee Abe Vigoda Maurice White Gene Wilder Van Williams Anton Yelchin Alan Young Wow, big list indeed! 63 people. How many did you say "who?!" to, though? You may well know their face if you look them up... but they're not people you know from their name alone. How many are REALLY household names around the World? Maybe 20-25? People known primarily in Britain Caroline Aherne Jean Alexander Sylvia Anderson Ken Barrie Black Pete Burns Dave Cash Ronnie Corbett Paul Daniels Sir Peter Maxwell Davies Alan Devereux Hazel Douglas Ann Emery David Gest Craig Gill Dale Griffin Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, Duke of Westminster Barry Howard Sir Antony Jay Frank Kelly Carla Lane Valerie Lush Ian McCaskill Cliff Michelmore Gordon Murray Andy "Thunderclap" Newman Rick Parfitt Jimmy Perry Andrew Sachs Sir Peter Shaffer Sheila Sim Douglas Slocombe Liz Smith Ed "Stewpot" Stewart Robert Banks Stewart Dave Swarbrick David Swift Gareth Thomas Tony Warren Terry Wogan Victoria Wood Sir Jimmy Young 42 people. I'd say 15 of those were names you'd know instantly, with most of the rest being people you'd known when it is explained what they were best known for. I've not included an American list, but I'm sure there are some who'd be known only in America - television personalities, people from the world of sport etc. In fact, I've left out most sporty people unless true legends in their field. People we should probably know Martin Aitchison - produced drawings for the bouncing bomb (Dambusters raid), illustrator for Eagle comic and Ladybird books Lord Briggs - codebreaker at Bletchley Park, worked on decoding Enigma messages; historian (wrote history of the BBC) Denton Cooley - surgeon, performed the first implantation of a totally artificial heart Michael "Jim" Delligatti - entrepreneur, created the Big Mac Tony Dyson - special effects designer, built R2-D2 Rose Evansky - hairdresser, created the blow wave Valerie Hunter Gordon - invented the disposable nappy (diaper) and modern sanitary towel W Dudley Johnson - surgeon, pioneered coronary artery bypass surgery Vijay Kakkar - surgeon, pioneered research into preventing blod clots during surgery Madeleine Lebeau - actress, last surviving cast member of Casablanca Noel Neill - actress, first screen portrayal of Lois Lane Joe Sutter - engineer, led the design team for the Boeing 747 Rod Temperton - songwriter, Boogie Nights, Thriller Ray Tomlinson - computer programmer, created email (he prefers it without the hyphen) Michael White - producer, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Monty Python and the Holy Grail That's another 15 for you, that probably didn't show up on your local news broadcasts or social media trends! There are too many RIP threads! Make one big RIP thread Nope. Not going to happen. Here's why: The off topic section is exactly that - it's for OFF TOPIC talk. You come here primarily for talk relating to video games and programming. If you don't like what's in the off topic section, you don't have to visit it. I really don't care for inane crap like fish appreciation threads, but it's off topic so whatever. I also hope that you can see, from the above list of 120 people and the 38 RIP threads posted that it's really a small proportion of posts. By the way, when I started writing this at 11pm, Wikipedia listed 6,595 deaths of noteworthy people. Two and a half years later, that's gone up to 6,599. RIP Christopher William, who portrayed Father Mulachy in M*A*S*H. Now, I was rather harsh saying that about crap threads. They are, in all honesty, probably something that one of you felt was a subject worth sharing, and I respect that. Hey, I can even appreciate a nice fish supper. Likewise, I hope you all can respect that I, and others, post threads to bring awareness of celebrities who touched us in some way to raise awareness of their life, their passing and leave a small tribute. In many cases (see the British list), we have expats who won't have heard from their local news. Real people die too. Where are their tributes? Let me make something clear - celebrities are people, just like you or I. They just happen to be known by more people. It doesn't mean that they themselves necessarily know more people, but it is possible that they touched more people's lives than your average person. We need to reiterate this - CELEBRITIES ARE JUST PEOPLE. One of my best friends died in a motorcycle accident in November. I haven't made a big deal out of it, because nobody here is likely to care. Just as people don't click on RIP threads if they don't recognize the name (check the post count, you'll see) and others bitch that there are too many mentions of death on the forum. It doesn't mean his death is any less significant - it's still a big deal to me, and his family and friends. 200 people attended the church service and the wake was packed out. He touched many lives... but a celebrity touches so many more. Whilst his death is, for me, the saddest thing that happened in the year, I am still saddened that celebrities who had various impacts on my life are no longer with us. People die in wars all the time - innocent people die. What about them? I completely agree. We can, of course, remember this and pay respect to them, too. A news broadcast is only so long and they can't report everything. As with the RIP threads, people would tire of hearing the death count in the Middle East has gone up by x hundred today, sadly. Thinking about those 6,599 celebrities who died in 2016 - that's 0.00009% of the World population. That makes it look quite an insignificant number, doesn't it? Don't forget the population is ever-increasing, too. Let's quantify that against other known deaths in previous years.... World War I deaths: around 18 million (average 4.5 million per year) - 1.5% of the World population at the time World War II deaths: between 70-85 million (average approx. 10 million per year) - 3% of the World population at the time Vietnam War deaths: approx. 1.45-3.59 million (average approx 100,000 per year) September 11 deaths: 2,996 (plus over 6,000 wounded) Bataclan shooting: 130 (plus 368 wounded) I didn't count other deaths - just celebrities! It's been the worst year for celebrities! Really? How many of the names above did you REALLY know and had a huge impact on your life? There were definitely a lot of people who died that were very well known. Quite a few of them had lived a reasonably long life. The average life expectancy now is around 80. Muhammad Ali was 74 and had been ill for a long time. Kenny Baker was 81. Leonard Cohen was 82. Debbie Reynolds was 84 and her daughter had just died. Fidel Castro was 90. Zsa Zsa Gabor was 99! People get old. People die - and are more likely to in old age. These people are legends because they've been doing what they do for a long time - that makes them old. Anyway, I took a look back at another year with an unexpected death... a year that people certainly remember as the year John Lennon was shot - 1980. An unexceptional year otherwise, right? WRONG! John Mauchly (physicist, invented ENIAC, EDVAC, BINAC and UNIVAC I) Barbara Britton (actress, several western films) Sir Cecil Beaton (photographer) David Janssen (actor, The Fugitive) Jerry Fielding (composer, The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs) Graham Sutherland (artist) Bon Scott (singer, AC/DC) Alice Roosevelt Longworth (daughter of Theodore Roosevelt) George Tobias (actor, Bewitched) Jay Silverheels (actor, The Lone Ranger) John Barrie (actor, Sergeant Cork, Z-Cars) James Wright (poet, Pulitzer Prize winner) Jesse Owens (athlete, won 4 gold medals at the 1936 Summer Olympics) Kay Medford (actress, nominated for Tony and Academy Awards for playing the same supporting character in Funny Girl on stage and screen) Marshall Reed (actor, The Lineup, The Cisco Kid) Jean-Paul Sartre (philosopher, Nobel laureate - refused prize) Raymond Bailey (actor, The Beverley Hillbillies) Tony Beckley (actor, The Italian Job) John Culshaw OBE (record producer, Decca; head of music programmes, BBC) Alfred Hitchcock (director) George Pal (animator, When Worlds Collide, The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine) Billy Butlin (founder of Butlins Holiday Camps) Milburn Stone (actor, Gunsmoke) Bert Kaempfert (band leader & composer, Strangers in the Night) John Laurie (actor, Dad's Army) Sanjay Gandhi (politician, son of Indira Gandhi) Gail Patrick (actress, Stage Door; executive producer, Perry Mason) Reginald Gardiner (actor, The Lodger, The Great Dictator, The Man Who Came to Dinner) Keith Godchaux (musician, The Grateful Dead) Peter Sellers (comedian & actor, The Pink Panther films) Bobby Van (actor, Kiss Me, Kate, Battlestar Galactica; game show host, Showoffs, Make Me Laugh) Patrick Depailler (Formula One racing driver) Strother Martin (actor, Cool Hand Luke, True Grit, The Wild Bunch) Donald Ogden Stewart (author & screenwriter, The Philadelphia Story, An Affair to Remember) Norman Shelley (radio actor, Children's Hour, Toytown) Yootha Joyce (actress, Man About the House) Tex Avery (cartoonist, creator of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Droopy and Screwy Squirrel; developed Porky Pig) Barbara O'Neil (actress, Gone With the Wind) Duncan Renaldo (actor, The Cisco Kid) Willard Libby (chemist, developed radiocarbon dating, Nobel laureate) Lillian Randolph (actress, It's a Wonderful Life, Tom and Jerry) John Bonham (drummer, Led Zeppelin) Lewis Milestone (director, All Quiet on the Western Front, Of Mice and Men, Ocean's 11) Hattie Jacques (actress, Carry On films) Lady Isobel Barnett (television and radio personality, What's My Line) Hans Asperger (pediatrician, Asperger Syndrome named after him) Steve Peregrin Took (musician, T. Rex) Steve McQueen (actor) Mae West (actress) George Raft (actor, Scarface, Some Like it Hot, Ocean's 11) Rachel Roberts (actress, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Murder on the Orient Expres) Sir Oswald Mosley (politician, founder of British Union of Facists) John Lennon (musician, singer & songwriter, The Beatles) Colonel Sanders (fast-food entrepreneur) Peter Collinson (director, Up the Junction, The Italian Job) That's 55 people, and there were a whole lot more. Wikipedia's record is not as comprehensive because... well, Wikipedia wasn't around to note all the deaths! OK, but 2016 is the worst year in recent history for celebrity deaths! Hmm... is it really, though? 6,599 celebrities died in 2016 (according to Wikipedia). 6,327 celebrities died in 2015 (272 less than 2016). 6,498 celebrities died in 2014 (171 MORE than 2015). 5,891 celebrities died in 2013 (607 less than 2014). 5,311 celebrities died in 2012 (580 less than 2013). So... the real big spike in celebrity deaths was in 2014... not 2016! That said, 2011 only had 4,166 celebrity deaths according to Wikipedia... which might just suggest that reporting of deaths has got better in recent years. Anyway, as it is already here in the UK.... Happy New Year! May it be a better year for all of you... and please remember, people die so try not to complain about how bad a year it is based on perceptions from celebrities dying! And for every celebrity death you've heard of, there are probably 60 more that you have no idea died!
Still going to call you out as the "Site Coroner" and still going to suggest that a subforum would be a better place for these.
Castro died what a shame. Sarcasm is to be implied on the previous statement unless a worse dictator comes into power due to a vacuum kinda like the Middle East.
It would probably (hopefully!) end up with less posts than the PS4 dev forum Sorry to hear. I think a fair few people hear have suffered losses of loved ones this year. That, or they were rock stars in the age of substance abuse. We had a few suicides over the past few years, sadly... and several accidents. Despite the relatively high life expectancy nowadays, it would seem if you're over 60 or so, it's still not all that unexpected if you die. The young getting ill or having accidents is always sad, when you think of how much more they had left to give. The older people, we're sad about because of the amount they gave us. It is nice to have been able to say quite a few lived to a good age, though. I do try and limit any mention of the deaths of those not so worthy of tribute, which is why I don't believe I made a post on him. Still, he was well-known around the World, so got a mention in this post.
Retro I wasn't meaning to sound disrespectful, I'm just legitimately worried about it since Cuba is so close to Georgia. For what ever reason when a dictator dies the people will elect a person who makes the previous one look like Mother Teresa. It may be hyperbole but it's accurate enough.
I completely forgot... Harambe, of course, and Scooter, who was the oldest living cat at 30... but died before the Guinness Book of Records confirmed the title. Didn't think you were being disrespectful It's a tricky call, but I try to limit my RIP tributes to those who have done something worthwhile. Going through the Wikipedia list, there were a fair few murderers and terrorists, who really don't deserve mention.
Is there at least an option to hide the whole Offtopic forum? I know it's possible with other forum softwares.
I hate to say it, but all these celebrities we've come to love over the years are getting older, and they're getting ever closer to leaving us and going into that great beyond. It's only ever going to get worse. More and more household names are going to die over the coming years, and we just need to accept that. 2016 had a lot of recognisable names, but I can guarantee you that there is a year more prolific than this still yet to come. Make the most of them whilst they're still here; go to a convention and meet them, write to them or just enjoy their content now whilst they're still alive, because it will never be the same once they've passed away.
2016 was still a shitty year. Shittier than most since 2001. I think when people say "f*ck you 2016", they know the number isn't to blame, it's just a way to vent for a year that had been more and more depressing as it unfolded, with international conflicts, terrorism treats and acts, political "surprises", and, to top it all, a lot of high visibility deaths. IMHO, the demography is to blame for the celebrities deaths. New celebrities tend to be disposable flavours of the week, it's only when they are still known at an advanced age that they are truly legends/monuments. Combine that with the baby boom, and demographics will explain the high number of high visibility deaths in the next few years.
Read the guide that is linked on the home page, if you didn't dismiss it Watch the forums you care about and bookmark your watched list. Absolutely.... but also, the digital age made it easy to share anyone's death. Those names who don't get shared on the news (the second Stormtrooper on the right...) get more recognition. And it's easier to find out that the guy who invented such-and-such died in some remote country.
