Dynamics of Celebrities

I’m more broken up that his daughter died with him.

He didn’t impress me OTHER than he played great basketball: it was his purpose and ge did it well. Other than that, I wasn’t impressed, but I am sorry for the loss others feel.

“Our JFK moment?”

No. I had the real JFK moment and this doesn’t come close (for me)

Dave, I agree.  I still remember exactly where I was sitting and in which classroom at Fremont Junior High when the principal announced over the P.A. system that JFK had been shot.  Within a week, I probably will have forgotten what I was doing yesterday when I heard about Kobe Bryant.  It's horrible and tragic that Kobe and his daughter were killed at such a young age, and I can't imagine the grief his wife and three remaining daughters must be feeling.  But JFK was the hope of a generation.  Kobe was really good at throwing a piece of rubber through a piece of iron.  It says something about where we are as a society to compare the two.  Unfortunately, if Paris Hilton had died in that helicopter, there are some who would compare it to the death of Martin Luther King.

I agree.

I mean it's not something I'm happy about, but I don't follow sports "hero's" - generally think they're useless rich people that generally haven't enough sense to pour piss out of a boot before putting it on.

Many OTHER great people all over the country, and the world, were killed in unfortunate ways over the last few days.

We hear nothing of them. Yes, it's sad these people snuffed out in a helicopter accident/malfunction ?

.... people die in all kinds of dumb accidents all the time.

We ALL need to thank God for every day we have on earth. As we were just shown, our life can end in the most unexpected even dumb way.

Count your blessings, your time here is a gift... that's something to take from it.

I've been thinking about that too, Bick. I was pretty saddened when I heard  the news yesterday, more than I would have expected. But my 22-year-old son seems to have been much affected. He told me that he was at an Indiana University basketball game when he heard and was distraught enough that he just left. He told me that growing up Kobe Bryant had been his idol and inspiration for him. And my son is far from an emotional or sentimental kid



So why is it, I also wondered. I think sometimes when you see these people's picture so much and are so aware of them that they almost become like friends even though they're strangers. Their loss affects us almost to the degree that it would with the loss of an actual friend. Psychologically, maybe they're not really strangers at all.. It's like losing a distant friend. It affects me a lot when one of my high school acquaintances dies even if I haven't seen them in 40+ years.



Or maybe it's because we identify with a celebrity and certain personality characteristics we like, and then have a sense of loss ourselves when they pass away.



Or maybe it's because it reminds us our own mortality. A perfectly healthy 41-year-old guy whom you have followed for 15 years is suddenly gone and it strikes you that there's nothing special about you that guarantees you're going to keep going. Maybe subconsciously it reminds you of the ugly truth that life is nothing more than a crap shoot...................................Luca

RSM - I think I can top your psychopathic claim. My first sense of loss was more about ME, and not all the families that closely impacted, or the helplessness those fathers must have felt trying to protect their little girls moments before impact.

But to Luca's point, these celebrities do become part of our lives. Not so much in an idol worshipping way, but how they connect us. In Kobe's case, being a key part of winning championships meant WE were vicariously champions too. The more engaged as a Laker fan, the more deeply you felt the joy of his passion. Getting to watch his entire career as "our guy", drove it home like very few others.

I'm not really much of a basketball fan any more, but I think there is a greater connection to athletes you can clearly see the emotion on their faces.

I also believe that when you get a glimpse of the private life of the celebrities, it enhances or detracts from the entertainment value they provide. In his case, watching him be humiliated with the rape charge, and then seemingly get on the other side of it to become a good husband and father, was a big plus for me.

I didn't see a notable deaths thread, so I thought I'd use this one. Bob Shane, co-founder and last surviving original member of the influential folk group the Kingston Trio, died Sunday at the age of 85. The Kingston Trio was a huge influence on me.

I (and a few of my friends), performed many of their songs.




The members of the Kingston Trio — Shane, Nick Reynolds, and Dave Guard — formed the singing group as college students in the Bay Area in the first half of the Fifties; by the end of the decade, the Kingston Trio would become one of the nation’s most popular bands, releasing five Number One albums, including a span in 1959 when four of the albums in the Top 10 belonged to the Kingston Trio.



Shane served as vocalist and guitarist on their biggest hits, including “Scotch and Soda,” “M.T.A.,” a rendition of the murder ballad “Tom Dooley,” and the traditional song “The Wreck of the John B.,” the latter of which directly inspired the Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B.” The trio also helped popularize Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” and recorded “It Was a Very Good Year” before that song became a Frank Sinatra staple.

www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/bob-shane-kingston-trio-obit-945134/

If Trump took greatness out of a political playbook, it's too bad he didn't take the magnanimity part as well.