I don't have time to read the article but did they do a control? I would be interested - and this speaks to my prior beliefs - about the life expectancy of people who tried to become famous.
In other words something like compare the life expectancy of people who don't play the lottery vs. people who win and then add in people who play as much as the winners but never win.
The 27 Club is an informal list consisting mostly of popular musicians who died at age 27. Although the claim of a "statistical spike" for the death of musicians at that age has been refuted by scientific research, it remains a common cultural conception that the phenomenon exists, with many celebrities who die at 27 noted for their high-risk lifestyles.
27 is the age beyond which one can't pass for a teen icon anymore, and those who can't reinvent themselves in any other way see that they are facing the end.
It is not stated explicitly in the article, but the implication seems to be that fame causes a higher mortality risk.
Whereas my intuition is that there are traits that help you become famous (competitiveness, savant syndrome, prioritization of success over happiness, etc.) that also raise your mortality risk.
Becoming Led Zeppelin is a great documentary which chronicles the band’s rise. It has some great quotes from Plant about the milieu that fathers around a famous band, supplying drugs and sex. The substances lead to abuse, addiction and sometimes overdoses. LZ’s drummer Bonham choked in his own vomit during sleep after taking 40 shots. Page became addicted to several substances. Many famous singers if they survive are recovering from some form of addiction. Bowie, for example. There’s a culture they enter with fame and travel that is hard to escape.
My childhood best friend is a touring a member of a relatively famous singer's band. I remember a discussion I had with him once about how soul-sucking it is to constantly be on the road. He was telling me how easy it is to just fall into a bad routine. He said you'd play a banger of a show one night, go back to the bus, have a few drinks and maybe some other substances. The next night, you play another banger, go back to the bus, have a few drinks, etc.. Next think you know, this is your everyday life.
He was also telling me about how constantly being on tour comes with this unsettling feeling. You travel to a city, play a show, go to sleep, and might wake up in a completely different city, state, or country. He told me that he started to develop some kind of latent anxiety due to the bombardment of new places and experiences causing a lack of consistency and familiarity in which one often anchors their lives to.
It's somewhat interesting, but the authors' conclusions are a bit odd given their data.
They acknowledge that fame is potentially confounding:
Risk factors (impulsivity, substance use, etc.) -> Fame achievement |
Risk factors -> Early mortality
The authors also appear to conclude that fame is semi-causal of the mortality risk. If, taking a causal statistical approach, the authors conditioned on the collider:
Risk factors (substance use, personality traits, mental health vulnerabilities) -> Becoming/staying a professional singer <- Talent/drive toward fame
I do applaud them for preregistering the study, but I think this paper needed a little more rigor in peer review.
There's a conspiracy theory about this, that rappers are killed for insurance fraud because people will believe it's just gang violence. I'm just sharing this as an anthropological curiosity.
I know its kind of a conspiracy theory, and surely lifestyle dominates this statistic. But there is this plain fact that very famous artists actually generate more income for their label if they are actually dead. Makes you wonder.
Confounding factors for singers: heavy drug use, lower educational background leading to poor habits, various addictions - not sure if being "famous" itself is the right lens to look at it for proper insights here related to mortality.
From the graph in the paper, it seems that once you make it till 60, the mortality rate is actually lower if you're famous. I'm guessing it's because the ones with an extreme lifestyle don't make it that far, and the famous singers have more money to spend on healthcare than the less famous singers.
Jimmi Hendrix, Janice Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Kobain, and Bon Scott would all fit the profile. All died young of substance abuse. But then we have Keith Richards which no one can explain.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 35.4 ms ] threadIn other words something like compare the life expectancy of people who don't play the lottery vs. people who win and then add in people who play as much as the winners but never win.
Whereas my intuition is that there are traits that help you become famous (competitiveness, savant syndrome, prioritization of success over happiness, etc.) that also raise your mortality risk.
He was also telling me about how constantly being on tour comes with this unsettling feeling. You travel to a city, play a show, go to sleep, and might wake up in a completely different city, state, or country. He told me that he started to develop some kind of latent anxiety due to the bombardment of new places and experiences causing a lack of consistency and familiarity in which one often anchors their lives to.
They acknowledge that fame is potentially confounding: Risk factors (impulsivity, substance use, etc.) -> Fame achievement | Risk factors -> Early mortality
The authors also appear to conclude that fame is semi-causal of the mortality risk. If, taking a causal statistical approach, the authors conditioned on the collider:
Risk factors (substance use, personality traits, mental health vulnerabilities) -> Becoming/staying a professional singer <- Talent/drive toward fame
I do applaud them for preregistering the study, but I think this paper needed a little more rigor in peer review.