Sep 01 - Why 2016 Is Quite Possibly The Worst Year On Record
By Stefano Blanca Sciacaluga
The year is 2016, a handful of months short of four years from when the Mayans predicted the earth was gonna end and a bunch of years from the time we stood on the sand at Eastern Beach waiting for the tidal wave that was going to end it all according to sixteenth century French psychopath Michel de Nostredame (Nostradamus to you and me); but people are convinced now is the time, 2016 is the one.
It's been a pretty rough couple of years. Between 2015 and 2016 we've seen everybody attack Syria, millions of refugees literally walk from the Middle East to Europe, countless terrorist attacks all over the world, including big European cities (where it apparently hurts more, as evident by the reaction of the Internet), absolute psychos rise to power and possibly the biggest political instability or uncertainty in the US and the UK, the dumbest thing the English could ever do (considering how much they love spending time in Europe), planes have disappeared or been shot down or crashed, El Chapo escaped and was caught and we even saw the first tripping over of the new Pope. But although all these things are scary, from the prospect of an orange man ruling the world to having to get a visa to go to Marbs, nothing makes us humans poop ourselves more than the reminder than even celebrities are mortal; not even having the best doctors will save you (especially Dr. Murray).
So let's have a look at what else has happened between January 1st, 2015 and 31st of August 2016 (when I'm writing this, not necessarily when you're reading, so ya know) that drove a Facebook friend of mine to exclaim a couple of days ago, and I quote, "fu*#^ng hell, 2016 is quite possible the worst year on record!"
Celebrities who have died since 2015
February 27th - Leonard Nimoy (dat Spock)
August 30th - Wes Craven, spooky film director
September 28th - Log Lady from Twin Peaks
December 3rd 2015 - Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots
December 28th 2015 - Lemmy from Motörhead (yah, it sucks, but the guy lived)
January 10th 2016 - David Bowie, musical genius
January 14th 2016 - Alan Rickman from Harry Potter and Die Hard
March 8th 2016 - George Martin, Beatles producer
April 20th 2016 - Chyna, strong fighting woman
April 21st 2016 - Prince, another musical genius (wish I could type out that symbol)
June 3rd 2016 - Muhammad Ali, the greatest (but not 'the world's greatest' because that's R. Kelly)
June 6th 2016 - Kimbo Slice, strong fighting man
June 25th 2016 - Bill Cunningham, New York Times street fashion photographer
August 13th 2016 - Kenny Baker, R2D2
August 29th 2016 - Gene 'Willy Wonka' Wilder
And of course many others including other musicians, actors, politicians etc., these are just the ones I remember clearest. Think about it, apart from a couple of months here and there there have been big deaths throughout both 2015 and 2016. But why?
It's pretty predictable, a celebrity dies - and especially a celebrity like say Prince - and everybody's shocked, people take to the Internet and share articles, videos, songs. I say predictable but I'm not knocking it, it's normal, and it also keeps reminding people (because it's publicly on the Internet) of how many people we love and admire are dying.
But why are so many celebrities dying, all of a sudden?
A while ago, maybe a year ago or more, I'm not really sure, I wrote about the death of musical standards, how music from the 1950s will be remembered forever but we can't remember half of the music from the first decade of the 2000s. The idea being that there was more talent and less opportunity to 'make it', meaning that those who 'make it' are truly talented, and that's why they are remembered.
In compiling the list above I used memory (and the Internet for dates) and once I had a rough list and put in the dates I skim-red articles about celebrity deaths in 2015 and 2016, and of course there were loads, but a lot of them were perhaps local to the US, or small time musicians (founding members of bands that quit before they were big, for instance), or people like Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Egyptian politician and diplomat who was the sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1992 to December 1996; in other words, people that (sadly) not a lot of people are gonna be upset by. But within those lists I also saw some other people that I recognised where they were from but had no clue who they were, so like one guy from the band 3 Doors Down, or a couple of actors from films I might have seen but definitely didn't recognise. And much like my theory about the future of music, I really believe this is a similar case.
I mean, I don't mean to sound heartless or anything but I doubt in fifty years time anybody will be saying "wow, I can't believe we've lost Stifler from American Pie, one of the world's truly greatest actors of all time". Or, "DJ Snake, one of the most legendary musicians of all time, a true revolutionary". It's an unfortunate reality, nowadays there are way more musicians and actors and other people who are famous for nothing in particular, and in ten, twenty, thirty or forty years time nobody will remember them. It's the reality of mediocrity. There's too much "OK", not enough "great" and certainly not enough "amazing".
So for a few years we'll feel like it's the end of the world, we'll see all our favourites from the past fifty years disappear, leaving with them a great legacy, the world will go crazy, they'll make the front pages of every magazine and newspaper and website, people will flock to cities to hold vigils and play songs and act out scripts and make all sorts of tributes; and then we'll go back to the regular programming, we'll have maybe one or two deaths a year that really shock us and we'll look back at 2015 and 2016 as quite possibly the worst year on record.
For the record: I hope nobody forgets R. Kelly.
Stefano Blanca is a writer, artist, photographer and musician living and working in Gibraltar
Email me at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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