Are More Celebrities Dying? A Statistical Analysis
Are more famous figures dying, and if so, why?
Intro: 2016 Was a Bad Year for Celebrity
2016 saw the passing of many widely-known cultural figures, including David Bowie, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Carrie Fisher, Gene Wilder, and George Michael. Layered atop a tumultuous U.S. presidential election, these losses prompted social media commentators to label 2016 "the worst year ever"—though I imagine they would later change their answer to 2020.
News outlets ran stories attempting to explain this cluster of celebrity passings, with some performing (questionable) actuarial analyses to assess the likelihood of such events. Here's a fun little sample of this media coverage:
Have more famous people died in 2016? (BBC)
2016 Was a Bad Year for Celebrity Deaths, by These Measures" (NY Times)
No, 2016 wasn't the worst year for celebrity deaths (CNN)
Memes began circulating about which beloved figure would be "next," with internetgoers growing concerned for the welfare of comedic actress Betty White. One fan even went so far as to start a GoFundMe to "Help protect Betty White from 2016" with the goal of raising $2,000. The fundraiser ultimately collected $9,245—though I have no idea where this money went.
News of recently departed figures has become a staple of our everyday experience as media platforms inundate us with push notifications, obituaries, and long-form profiles. Anyone consuming this tragedy-forward content may inevitably wonder whether more celebrities are dying or if other factors are driving this perception. So today, we'll explore the media's preoccupation with celebrity deaths, the changing nature of celebrity, and the population dynamics that inform this phenomenon.
Are More Famous People Dying?
In the internet age, "New York Times push notification famous" has emerged as a benchmark of notoriety—and a long sought-after goal for narcissists. To be "NYT push notification famous" is to be so noteworthy that your death warrants a breaking news alert from The New York Times. Such an honor means your passing will cause everyone to stop what they're doing, look at their phone, and acknowledge your death. What an achievement.
When someone clicks on this push notification, they'll find a brief obituary that follows a well-worn formula. The title of these articles is something along the lines of "This person, who accomplished an important thing, is dead at 89." The corresponding story usually features a few paragraphs explaining this person's significance and the circumstances surrounding their passing.
Using MediaCloud, an open-source news analysis platform, we’ll analyze how often major media outlets use phrases unique to this story archetype. When we search for the prevalence of terms like "dead at," "has died," and "dies at," we see that major news outlets like The New York Times, Fox News, and The Washington Post are using these phrases more frequently in their content.
Sure, news outlets are dedicating more real estate to obituaries (since these push notifications effectively drive clicks and readership), but does this mean more celebrities are dying? And what does it mean to be a celebrity?
To verify this phenomenon, I referenced the not-so-concisely-named "A cross-verified database of notable people, 3500BC-2018AD," a dataset of every "notable" individual in human history. Curated by a global team of six economists, this database covers millions of historical figures, using factors like Wikipedia page views, number of Wikipedia editions, and Wikipedia word counts to quantify renown.
Using this repository, we see a dramatic rise in deaths from our "notable" population starting in the 1700s, with an acceleration of this trend in the latter half of the 20th century.
If we accept that more notable figures are passing away, then the inevitable next question is "Why?" Are more people—both celebrities and everyday individuals—dying? Has the sheer number of public figures simply increased? Or are we witnessing some biblical-level scourge afflicting cultural icons?
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What's Driving The Increase in Celebrity Deaths?
What does it mean to be well-known? What elevates someone to the level of "New York Times push notification famous?" Fortunately, "A cross-verified database of notable people, 3500BC-2018AD" provides ample data to answer these questions, including information regarding a notable figure's profession.
Looking at this occupation data, it's clear that the advent of film and television fundamentally reshaped the nature of fame (which is not surprising). In the latter half of the 20th century, sports stardom and entertainment celebrity surged, while painters, lawyers, and journalists slipped from the spotlight.
The widespread broadcasting of sports and entertainment content opened up new avenues for fame while providing media producers with a steady stream of figures to spotlight (and later eulogize).
Unsurprisingly, the advent of mass media (such as nationally distributed newspapers, television, and movies) spurred an abrupt increase in well-known individuals. Our dataset shows an uptick of "notable figures" starting in the mid-19th century, with celebrity births vastly outpacing deaths from this population.
Said differently, with each passing year, there are more “famous” people. But are there more famous people because a greater portion of the population is well-known, or because there are more people (in the world)?
When we look at “notable” figures as a percentage of global population, we see this proportion grow in the 18th and 19th centuries, followed by a steep decline in the latter half of the 20th century.
If the number of living celebrities is increasing, but their prevalence is decreasing, then the global population must be growing faster than our group of renowned figures. Indeed, when we look at worldwide population over the last 300 years, we see a massive uptick in births following WWII (one could even call this a "baby boom").
So, to recap our findings thus far:
More celebrities are dying than in previous years.
With each passing year, there are also more living celebrities.
The introduction of mass media fostered an increase in widely-known individuals renowned for their athletic and artistic achievements.
There are also more humans on planet Earth, which likely contributes to the growing count of well-known individuals.
However, it's not just the sheer number of departed celebrities that sparks Betty White fundraisers or articles like “2016 Was a Bad Year for Celebrity Deaths”—it's also the profound significance we ascribe to these mortals.
Sociologists Donald Horton and Richard Wohl first coined the term "parasocial relationship" in the 1950s to describe the one-sided bonds audiences develop with media figures, including actors, musicians, and athletes. Unlike typical friendships, parasocial relationships are unreciprocated; an individual feels a sense of intimacy with Nicolas Cage or Olivia Rodrigo, even though these figures are unaware of their existence.
There is a sizable market for information and gossip that capitalizes on these parasocial connections, with media companies eagerly documenting Taylor Swift's dating life, Johnny Depp’s marital affairs, or Elon Musk's shenanigans. In fact, fans often bond over their one-sided attachment to the same celebrity or their mutual interest in following a group of public figures.
Take Reddit, a site that allows users to form subreddit communities out of collective interest. Millions of Reddit users (real people) have cultivated community from their shared passion for cultural icons, such as r/ElonMusk, r/TaylorSwift, and r/Kanye. To understand the scale of these fandoms, we can look at the subscriber counts for a sampling of these communities.
r/Entertainment (industry and celebrity gossip): 5,700,000 subscribers
r/PopCultureChat (celebrity gossip): 4,700,000 subscribers
r/Fauxmoi (celebrity gossip): 4,300,000 subscribers
r/TaylorSwift: 3,600,000 subscribers
r/ElonMusk: 2,000,000 subscribers
r/Kanye: 890,000 subscribers
r/Beyonce: 799,000 subscribers
r/JordanPeterson: 304,000 subscribers
These communities dwarf subscriber counts for subreddits of greater cosmic importance, like r/Climate (234k subscribers) and r/Racism (47k subscribers).
Does documenting the internet's preoccupation with celebrity gossip fully explain our despair over David Bowie or Prince's passing? No. Do these groups serve as tangible examples of our overzealous fascination with well-known actors and musicians (who will one day pass away)? Yes.
Final Thoughts: How Much Should We Mourn the Passing of a Famous Figure?
When a prominent figure passes away and social media feeds overflow with expressions of grief, it raises moral questions about the nature of these reactions: should we really mourn celebrities to such an extent?
Some take a critical view of this grieving, arguing that our obsession with celebrity culture is an unhealthy distraction. Parasocial bonds with renowned figures, especially in the extreme, represent shallow means for building community and identity. From this view, society's fixation on famous deaths preoccupies us with spectacle, paradoxically distracting us from thinking about our own lives and mortality. This critique may be harsh (and flat-out mean).
A more sympathetic interpretation of this phenomenon centers on the accomplishments of recently departed figures. If someone did something amazing during their lifetime and people connect with that amazing thing, then maybe we should take a moment to honor that person’s achievements—via Tweet (or Bluesky “Skeet”) or a private moment of reflection.
A while back, I received this push notification from The New York Times:
I scanned the notification and thought, "Why the hell am I reading this?" I knew nothing of Ian Wilmut before today; why do I have to stop what I'm doing to learn about this person?
But, indeed, I stopped what I was doing, and I read Ian Wilmut's NYT obituary. And guess what? It turns out that Ian Wilmut was an incredible person, conjuring animal life from nothing. As usual, my knee-jerk cynicism was misplaced.
When a well-known person dies, it reminds us to appreciate life's brevity while acknowledging remarkable human achievements. These moments—facilitated by a push notification and front page headlines—provide an opportunity to honor the careers of David Lynch, David Bowie, Betty White, Muhammad Ali, Prince, and a British scientist who created Sheep from a petri dish. People accomplish extraordinary things, and there's nothing wrong with celebrating that.
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