[browningstreet]

Did none of the deaths of the last decade or two have an impact? Honest Q.

I found that the deaths of Hunter S Thompson, David Bowie, and Sinead O'Conner put me a bit on my heels. Some of the others had some kind of impact. And many of the others.. nothing. But at least those three, and maybe a couple of others, definitely threw me a bit.

So that's the Q. Anything..? Nothing? If nothing, I'd personally find that possibly worth investigating. And I'm not big on para-social celebrity/artist relationships. But a few landed for me.

[checkyoursudo]

I have had teenage classmates, beloved pets, sibling, parent, all my grandparents, and close friends die. These have been varying degrees of devastating for me, for a while at least. Some for a long time (my sibling dying young was so, so hard).

Celebrities/artists/all-around-famous-people dying rarely affects me. Prince, maybe? But that was possibly because I like his music so much and probably grieved the loss of more music than the person whom I never met.

Knowing about kids dying in war and from gun violence and domestic abuse and such probably hits me harder than hearing about any random celebrity dying.

[flkiwi]

Oh MANY deaths were hard. Justice Ginsburg absolutely obliterated me (and, respectfully, others may have a different reaction and I understand that). But I haven't really experienced the "I'm old now and watching my heroes die" reaction. Does that make sense?

Limited just to entertainment industry celebrities, I will admit I don't have a strong emotional reaction to ... most of them (other than the general empathetic sadness on behalf of a vibrant human's friends and family) ... but I don't think it's indicative of anything worrying.

[jcul]

I agree, I find it hard to get too emotional about celebrities, even though I may have had great respect and admiration for them. For example, David Bowie, I was a little sad and disappointed to lose a great figure, but we all have to die.

For some reason Sinead O'Connor was an exception to this, and I did feel quite emotional at her passing.

[sshine]

It sounds like the phenomenon of getting affected by the death of some particular celebrity is very subjective.

For me there was a small “but he was young…” with Matthew Perry, but also an “oh well…”.

I frequently talk with my 84-year old neighbours. One lost her husband a year ago, the other one’s wife has dementia. They themselves are sharp as ever, but their whole world is a museum of memories. They have grand children, but everyone they knew is dead. They like company, but one said there’s something special about same-aged people, they share things with.

I don’t know when the death of a celebrity will hit me, but it’s probably when someone younger than me dies of non-accidental causes.

[flkiwi]

One more thing: I lost a parent and a very close friend when I was young, so death has been part of life for me for perhaps an unusually long time.