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It Wasn't Your Imagination: Celeb Deaths Felt Personal Because They Were

Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Fans around the world are mourning the death of pop singer George Michael.

It’s safe to say that 2016 has taken a toll on pop culture. It began in January with the loss of singer David Bowie to cancer, and ended this week – hopefully -- with the deaths of ‘Star Wars’ actress Carrie Fisher and her mother, Debbie Reynolds.

Now a persistent theme has cropped up on social media - the call to dump this ‘dumpster fire’ of a year that has claimed some of our most beloved icons. University of Colorado Associate Professor of Media Studies Rick Stevens spoke with KUNC about why so many of us are taking these losses personally.

“David Bowie is a huge loss for people who love music or who grew up listening to certain messages within that music,” Stevens said. “That kind of loss affects people very personally.”

Stevens, whose research focused on one of the first “mass-mediated” grieving events - the 1963 televising of the funeral procession for President John F. Kennedy, said the impact of these cultural moments has been amplified by the reach of social media.

Interview Highlights

On why celebrity deaths impact us the way they do

Stevens: I think it’s similar to losing a family member in the sense that the feeling of loss is connected to how our own internal identity is shifting as well as the missing of the person themselves, but the feeling is amplified across different groups who shared those experiences. The community loses something when someone commonly appreciated departs, and the impulse to honor them and mourn is related to that perceived loss of connection among the surviving members of the community.

On mass grieving on Facebook

Stevens: I think it’s very positive. I mean, when I have friends to share it with and all of the sudden we’re all listening to George Michael songs this week, there’s something cathartic. There’s a way we’re moving some of these icons from a sense of loss into the legacies that they’re going to have. Now, whether it’s healthy culturally that we’re obsessing about these things… I think we’re just going to have to wait and see.

On the eventual ‘give it a rest’ reaction

Stevens: If all of the sudden all of this content that doesn’t affect me the way that it affects other people gets pushed into the network, I think it causes a backlash - kind of a knee-jerk backlash of ‘This is my space,’ but also, ‘Can we please get some perspective?’And I think that’s a very natural thing to happen, and that’s also part of the cultural grieving process.

Stacy was KUNC's arts and culture reporter from 2015 to 2021.
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