[mmmmmbop]

It is not stated explicitly in the article, but the implication seems to be that fame causes a higher mortality risk.

Whereas my intuition is that there are traits that help you become famous (competitiveness, savant syndrome, prioritization of success over happiness, etc.) that also raise your mortality risk.

[conductr]

That’s probably a factor in some way but my intuition is it’s the lifestyle itself that’s the dominant risk.

The control point is comparing to less famous musicians. I’d assume many of which have similar personality traits and desire for fame. But when it doesn’t materialize, their personality traits arent causing them to die early.

The lifestyle of constantly partying, drugs, sex, little consequences, money, excess, etc. Versus the less famous musician who has to function like an adult, stresses over their mortgage, etc. Is sure to have a variance with respect to mortality.

[wavemode]

Interestingly, some months ago there was a frontpage HN post, written by Charli xcx of all people: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46016613

Goes into a lot of the realities of the surreal lifestyle

[thijson]

I agree with this. Tony Hsieh (founder of Zappos) also ended up dead because of the lifestyle enabled by his wealth, and he wasn't a famous musician. The wealth also led to lots of hangers on around him that didn't care about his well being, just personally benefiting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW87nhKZ8A0

[reactordev]

Proof that money doesn’t solve your problems. Only business problems ;)

If you have personal problems, it will follow you no matter where you go or how much money you have. It’s attached to you.

[GuB-42]

> The lifestyle of constantly partying, drugs, sex, little consequences, money, excess, etc.

I don't know how much truth there is to it, some musicians are famous for that, but touring is far from easy, musicians move a lot and have to give their best every time when they are on stage. Especially singers, as their body is their instrument, they can't really afford to be out of shape. I am sure that after big public events like concerts, the thing musicians really want is to get done with it and go to sleep, not party all night. There may be drugs involved, but I'd expect it to be more about enhancing performance than recreation.

And that would apply to all professional musicians, famous or not. For most, I'd say what is excessive is their job, not the life of partying famous people are said to have.

[cortesoft]

> The control point is comparing to less famous musicians.

Maybe, although an alternative explanation would be that those musicians with the strongest traits are the ones that succeed, and that same strength of those traits also leads to early mortality.

[tvnap]

On the other other hand, success in music is at least partly luck.[1] So there should be some not-quite-successful musicians who are similar in most respects but actual success.

[1] https://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/salganik_dodds_watts06_full....

[conductr]

Anything is possible. But wouldn’t that kind of also mean those traits are necessary for talent? For recognition? For art that is appreciated?

I don’t know if I buy it myself as being a big contributing factor. The lifestyles of famous people are well known to be indulgent. So that seems like a more direct explanation. But anything is possible

[CloseChoice]

I think this is a very valid hypothesis but it's hard to control for in experiments, since if these traits are necessary to become (or stay) famous, we don't really have a control group.

[potato3732842]

Even if you don't do all the drugs and have an agent running around slapping McDoubles out of everyone's hands the health effects of simply living on the road and touring are not great.

[alistairSH]

I wonder how these results would stack up against something like pro baseball players or pro cyclists - both have a very long season (6 month season for baseball, even longer for cyclists). Maybe a bit like touring bands.

Three main differences that come to mind... - athletes repeat this annually (famous touring musicians might take a year or two off to record new material). - athletes likely live a healthier overall lifestyle because being extremely fit is part of the job. Plus the teams have embedded MDs and other health support staff (some musicians will, some won't). - athletes usually retire from their primary sport in their 30s, so only ~20 years of touring on the high end, where musicians can tour into their 50s or 60s (or beyond for a few).

[pizza234]

It cuts both ways - in those environments, very unhealthy lifestyles (high stress, drug abuse…) are quite common, if not the norm, so even people starting with healthy lifestyles are under significant pressure.

[bitshiftfaced]

I was the under the impression that this had to do with drug related deaths more than anything.

[RickJWagner]

I’d guess it’s not just fame, but also money.

[_cs2017_]

It is stated almost implicitly in the article.

1) It's in the title: "The Price of Fame" implies that there are downsides to becoming famous, rather than there are downsides to having traits that might make you famous.

2) While the abstract merely claims "associated with" (which is correlation not causation), the phrase "beyond occupational factors" implies that the authors felt they removed important non-causal factors, hinting at likely causal relationship.

And yes, any causality implications are completely unfounded, and so this paper is of low quality.