The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => History => Topic started by: pmcd9 on April 09, 2013, 07:31:14 am
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They say that celebrity deaths come in 3s, but in my reckoning we've had 5 celebrity deaths in the past week.
Carmine Infantino and Roger Ebert have been noted here already. Today I learned that Annette Funicello and Margaret Thatcher have died. Also, filmmaker Les Blank passed away yesterday. So that comes to only 5. Either the celebrity death meter has been broken or someone else is about to die.
Edit: Nevermind, this just in, famed record producer Andy Johns has died. So that's two sets of 3.
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Does the rule of threes have anything to say about who counts as a "celebrity?" I have never heard of several of those people.
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Does the rule of threes have anything to say about who counts as a "celebrity?" I have never heard of several of those people.
word to that.
also, from yo is this racist:
Can you still be racist once you're dead? If not, congrats to Margaret Thatcher for the recent improvements to her personality and morality.
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Does the rule of threes have anything to say about who counts as a "celebrity?" I have never heard of several of those people.
One has no excuse for being ignorant in the age of Google.
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but my point is: over a hundred thousand people die every day. Every one of those people was important to somebody. I'll bet more than 6 died this week who you could Google.
Who counts for the rule of three? Why is Carmine Infantino a "celebrity?" Was he regarded highly by the general culture at some point? Was he a household name?
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His death was reported in the news. Isn't that basically what makes it count for this purpose?
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"Rule of 3" explained: Link (http://www.fallacyfiles.org/texsharp.html)
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but my point is: over a hundred thousand people die every day. Every one of those people was important to somebody. I'll bet more than 6 died this week who you could Google.
Who counts for the rule of three? Why is Carmine Infantino a "celebrity?" Was he regarded highly by the general culture at some point? Was he a household name?
He produced a ton of art that had a major impact on my life and that of a large number of other people? The rule of 3 is just overzealous human pattern recognition at work but if you're saying his death isn't worth making note of because you haven't heard of him personally, you can go sit on it and spin for a while.
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no, I'm asking what makes someone a "celebrity." A celebrity is someone widely recognized. Most people who make good stuff aren't "celebrities." Celebrity is not just another word for "person of importance."
I have at least heard of the stuff Infantino did, if not his name. I have never heard or heard of any of the songs that Funicello made. There are certainly many artists who I admire who the general public has never heard of. This means they are not celebrities.
why do I care about this. I think when I posted that I had been reading philosophy articles on wikipedia for 2 hours and felt like arguing about something nearly meaningless.
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no, I'm asking what makes someone a "celebrity." A celebrity is someone widely recognized. Most people who make good stuff aren't "celebrities." Celebrity is not just another word for "person of importance."
I have at least heard of the stuff Infantino did, if not his name. I have never heard or heard of any of the songs that Funicello made. There are certainly many artists who I admire who the general public has never heard of. This means they are not celebrities.
why do I care about this. I think when I posted that I had been reading philosophy articles on wikipedia for 2 hours and felt like arguing.
Funicello was huge in the 60s. She is exactly the kind of person you're talking about being a celebrity, just before your time - she was a teen/pop idol who had a huge following among her target audience, and then her period of fame ended and people born after that time don't give a crap unless they're into retro pop culture. I couldn't name any of her songs or movies, but she's the kind of figure who was all over punch lines and pop references at the time, basically like Justin Bieber or whoever today.
I mean I agree that the rule of 3 is bullshit, but these are all noteworthy deaths for one reason or another, whether it's due to the person's "celebrity" or political significance or artistic significance.
This (http://i.imgur.com/XseQlcP.gif) is actually my first mental association with Annette Funicello though.
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Annette Funicello is probably the most famous person on this list and best fits your definition of celebrity.
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I think when I posted that I had been reading philosophy articles on wikipedia for 2 hours and felt like arguing about something nearly meaningless.
This certainly qualifies.
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This certainly qualifies.
And how!
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A thread about what it means for someone to be a celebrity could be interesting, it's just that post came off kind of like "well I haven't heard of him, how important can he be?"
My "celebrity story" that I'm most pleased about is the time I had lunch with Hal Clement. He was the fifth person inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, he had a couple Hugo awards and there's an award for YA science fiction named after him. He's a legend in the field, and I would guess that at least 9 out of 10 people in the street have never heard of him - unless you're at a science fiction convention, where everyone will know who he was. Does that mean he wasn't a celebrity? Certainly he was within his field.
Also, Paul, I agree that Funicello was more of a "celebrity" but I question calling her the most famous on the list when Thatcher's there alongside.
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Also, Paul, I agree that Funicello was more of a "celebrity" but I question calling her the most famous on the list when Thatcher's there alongside.
I considered that, but maybe Thatcher is more famous worldwide, but not so in America. In her day Funicello was a huge star.
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Sadly Paul is probably right that more Americans care about TV stars than prime ministers of foreign countries.
Of course my favorite celebrity story is the time Chris Onstad signed my arm. But as I am sure I have mentioned before, I once let Robert DeNiro touch a naked mole rat.
My other possible stories bring us back to the question of what counts as a celebrity: Supreme Court justices, anyone? I guess so, because if one died, people would start waiting for two more deaths?
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Yeah, I could handle about three of those prunes dying off. Replace 'em with more people Wombat went to HS with.
I see two main classes of celebrity, big giraffe/little pond and the reflection thereof.
Playing within that classification I'd rank our contenders thus:
Andy Johns: a striper in California's inland delta (near Stockton, preferably).
Carmine Infantino: a large mouth bass in the Delaware river.
Hal Clement: a steelhead in the Columbia river.
Annette Funicello: a walleye in Lake Michigan.
Margaret Thatcher: fuck*ng Shamu, a killer whale roaming the seas eternal.
Honestly I don't know enough about giraffe or bodies of water to evaluate this metaphor but I still like it because it makes me imagine a big ol' trout who loves to talk about planets.
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Andy Johns: a striper in California's inland delta (near Stockton, preferably).
I do tend to conflate Andy Johns with his much more well known brother Glyn. But c'mon, Andy engineered the lion share of Led Zeppelin's albums as well as Exile on Main Street. That's big in my opinion.
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I think there's different levels of celebrity: local celebrity, genre/subculture celebrity, B grade celebrity, A list and universal celebrity. I think politics runs sort of parallel to celebrities, which can but doesn't always intersect. Then there's infamy, which is also parallel and which can but doesn't always intersect.
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That's some pretty awesome thinking there Ash.
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[Gratuitous Northern California snark about SoCal diversion of Delta's waters omitted]
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My "celebrity story" that I'm most pleased about is the time I had lunch with Hal Clement.
That's cool as SHIT!
I think the term "celebrity" implies an associated community or culture. I would define a celebrity as a person who is known of our about by a significant (majority?) portion of the given community.