Don’t blame the calendar for spate of celebrity deaths

Dec 30, 2016 | 4:00 AM

KAMLOOPS — When George Michael, Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds died this week, it all got to be a little much.

This agonizing, this exaggerated lamentation that has reached a fever pitch, with one target in the crosshairs – 2016.

The year, 2016, anthropomorphized as the serial killer taking all of our most beloved celebrities.

Social media users directed all manner of insults and profanity toward their calendars.

They noticed a seemingly unending list of celebrity deaths, and sought to place blame where no blame is warranted.

The fact is, 2016 will quickly become the new normal when it comes to the mortality of our favourite musicians and movie stars.

When it’s your time, it’s your time.

Think of it: if popular culture exploded in the 1960s and ’70s, and if those artists hit the peaks of their careers in their 20s and 30s, it’s simple statistical probability that a lot of them would be dying right about now.

Celebs get old and die, just like the rest of us.

For those, like Michael and Fisher, who died relatively young, it’s not out of the question to put the blame on lifestyle choices that led to compromised long term health.

It may be somehow a comforting way to comprehend mortality by imagining a grim reaper who stepped up his game this year.

But each one of the people who died had a very individualized reason for knocking off.

In truth, it won’t be long until we look back at 2016 and chuckle at the amount of caterwauling we did about the celebrity death rate.

We may do it as soon as a few months from now, because there’s no doubt in my mind the news will be just as thick with obituaries in 2017 as it was this year.