Celebrity Death Wave
Peter, Nick and Fraser discuss the 2016 spike in celebrity deaths, how the scientific method applies to analysing it, and some of the fundamental constraints of fame.
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Transcript
So, yeah, I think it really is. We're quite well covered in comment sections of papers and websites about why this is the case. And I think generally it boils down to the fact that there are just many more celebrities out there reaching the age that they're going to start dropping off the perch. So, think of it this way. 50 years ago we had two, maybe two and a half channels on TV and that was the main celebrity outlet. Now we have many more channels of media and celebrities popping up and availability of information and media that we've never had before. So, the chance of having heard about somebody is much greater these days than it was 50 years ago. So, there are generally more people that you would class as a celebrity. And now as they're all getting older, the death rate will just appear to go up.
Speaker A: tarted becoming famous is the: Speaker C:Yeah, he is. Okay. I missed that one. Did you miss that one? I did, I'm afraid. Yeah. Shame. Shame on you. Apologies to his family. But yeah, I suppose here, first thing I want to ask is, what's the question? We're kind of saying that what's going on? There's all these celebrities dying. What is the question?
Speaker A:Oh, sorry. You were looking at me saying, what is the question? Sorry.
Speaker C:What's the question about when we're trying to say, well, this kind of seems weird, but what question are we trying to answer?
Speaker A:Okay. I guess the way what we're saying is, it's at the forefront of people's minds because every other day there's a celebrity dying. We're not used to it. Okay. So, I guess the question is, people are just asking, why are more celebrities dying? So, maybe that's the first question. People saying, why are so many celebrities dying?
Speaker C: f celebrities coming from the: Speaker A:Yeah. So, okay, hold on. So, leveling off, that means in the future we can expect the same amount of or similar amounts of celebrity deaths. We should get used to this kind of rich environment of obituaries and so on. And the BBC should sort of now, you know, it should be one year broadcast every year, right? The obituary program.
Speaker B:Assuming that the sort of rate of growth or proportion of the overall population of celebrities continues to increase, then yes, there will be ever more celebrity deaths.
Speaker A:Okay, so it will increase, because you were mentioning leveling off. How are we talking about increasing?
Speaker B:Well, yeah, but I suspect there's probably a kind of a cognitive maxima of the number of people that any one person can consider a celebrity. It's sort of related to the number of people you can say that are your best friends, that you know reasonably well, that are acquaintances. So there'll be a point at which it will probably just sort of level off because there's a maximum capacity for everyone watching television all the time to get a feel for who are celebrities and who are not.
Speaker C: t, and we're essentially, the: Speaker A:So I mean, so this is celebrity as a limited commodity, let's say, let's call it that for a moment. So that means in 50 years time when poor Peter Andres shuffles off his mortal coil, is that it might not be as widely reported, but that kind of reflects the environment, by which I mean, when Frank Sinatra dies, or died rather, everyone knows Frank Sinatra all around the world. And so he gets, you know, columns and columns of obituary. Whereas 50 years from now, we've got all these minor celebrities. And also you'll have the news fees that it goes out to are more fragmented as well. So it's just a reflection. I mean, I don't know, am I on to something here? Am I right? It's a reflection of the fragmented sense, the fragmentation of the media.
Speaker C:I feel like that's mirrored in the way that's the amount, if you think of the demand for music, which when music was expensive to produce, meant that you could sustain these huge media companies who would spend lots of money developing bands and identifying them. And because they could make lots of money, because there was effectively a constriction on the amount of music you could produce. Now, music is more or less free, and the music industry is sort of in crisis. And I think perhaps it's the same with celebrities now, you know, being a celebrity is very, very cheap. So there's a lot more of it, but it's perhaps of lower quality.
Speaker A:It's inflation, right? That's what it is.
Speaker C:Well, I think, although I'd say it's driven by a much lower cost in the production of celebrity. So everyone's doing it.
Speaker B:I think there are drivers for production of celebrity, but ultimately a celebrity is defined by somebody who lots of people have heard of, right? Yeah. That's sort of kind of what defines a celebrity. If you go ask one in 10 people, and they've heard of a person, then you can probably say that person is a celebrity. It's sort of a defining thing. So I think what will be the eventual limit on this commodity, as you put it, Fraser, the eventual limit will be this sort of overall cognitive capacity and spare time that people have got devoted to learning about other people. Yeah, yeah. So that'll be all these limits that are coming off, like the availability of media. That was a limiting factor that meant that before the 70s, 80s, 90s, there were just fewer celebrities you could hear about. Now that's not the case. Now it's going to be how much time have people got to spend using their brains, reading, watching TV, and learning about people.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely. But this is also, I think my point is a good one, about inflation.
Speaker C:We all be the judge of that.
Speaker A:Because we've got, you know, you're an economist. This is classic economics, where you've got more and more of a certain commodity, or whatever it might be. And so just by nature of having more and more of it, it becomes devalued, right? Necessarily, because you've got oversupply, right? But also this makes me think back to, you know, we're all kids of the 70s and 80s. You know, we all knew when we were eight, nine years old, what was number one that week, right? In the hit parade, you know, on top of that. Yeah. We're not quite that old, not a hit parade. But you always knew what number one was, right? Whereas now, no one, I don't think anyone does. I don't think even young kids do. Do they still have number ones? I think so.
Speaker C:I guess they do. I don't know how they work it out.
Speaker B:I mean, they have lots of multiple number ones. So Spotify has its own number one, and different channels have their own.
Speaker C: some music that was from the: Speaker B:That relates very, the interesting, relates to the sort of the interesting fact that the part of the, the concept of popular culture, popular music, it's a genre in its own right. But the only defining factor is that lots of people are currently listening to it. It has no sort of common qualities to it. So pop music could be, will eventually sort of, if it survives history and people still care about it, will eventually get sort of re-categorized into different types of music.
Speaker C:Yeah, Peter Andre will be considered to be classical music at some point. And it will sound very old fashioned.
Speaker A:What do you mean at some point? I mean, brilliant already anyway. Okay, look, just one thing before we wrap up. And just to sort of slightly lower the tone. Who is the most famous person you've ever met? Who's the biggest celebrity you've ever met?
Speaker C:I suppose. Oh, well, it depends what you mean by met. If you, if you mean Studnir, then it would have to be the Queen. Okay, that's good. If it was actually someone who I actually touched, I don't know, maybe Peter can. I was beaten in a poker tournament by Sir Clive Sinclair.
Speaker A:Okay, that's a good, we'll leave it there. That's a good one. I've met Tracey Emin quite a few times, the famous artist. That's right, because I know you've got a connection. I once saw the Queen go by in a car. But probably my closest brush is I demonstrated against Bill Clinton when I was at university. I didn't really, I actually had, I just finished my finals and there was not much to do that day. And someone told me Clinton was in town.
Speaker C:What was he supposed to have done wrong?
Speaker A: protests going on. One was in: Speaker B:Perfect shoppers day for everyone. I was a protest. Don't really know. Don't really care what my my cause is. Yeah, lots of options.
Speaker A:Exactly. And I was at the front of the protest and the person next to me got who was quite a rabble rise, got grabbed by the police and chucked into a van.
Speaker C:Well, I actually, you know, just to relate it to what we're talking about. There's the question of whether protest is easy now and whether or not in future we can expect to see there being more protesting, but of a less, less, less high quality than it was back in your day.
Speaker A:OK, that's good. I like that. That's related. And let's keep our powder dry on that for another one. Chaps, thank you very much. So we'll wrap up there. And so thanks, as always, for joining us on the Cognitive Engineering podcast with Aleph Insights. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Peter Coghill and Nick Hare. Thank you very much. And until next time. Bye bye.
