Popularity of Famous Musicians in Social Media
Rapleaf, a company that specializes in analyzing trends in social media, has an interesting study on the popularity of four artists, namely The Beatles, Elvis, Madonna, and Michael Jackson, across major social networks. They randomly sampled 1.1 million fans, and found some surprising results (the study was done 2 weeks before Michael Jackson’s death, which explains some things):
* The Beatles’ dominating popularity online — The Beatles’ online celebrity may be bolstered by both their music’s enduring appeal and the success of their recent compilation album 1 released in 2000, which has become one of the best-selling albums of this decade with over 31 million in worldwide sales. While all the artists in this study are period icons, The Beatles’ prominence on social media may suggest their ability to better transcend generations, which is in part evidenced by them having the second-youngest fans.
* Michael Jackson’s lack of internet prominence — This is particularly bewildering given Michael Jackson’s younger – and presumably more tech- and social media-savvy – fans and his status as one of the most influential entertainers and musicians to ever take center stage. His 1982 album Thriller remains the best-selling album of all time with over 100 million sales worldwide (more than twice the second best-selling album).
Link – Thanks Michael Hsu!
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Five Shocking Celebrity Deaths
Love or hate Michael Jackson, the entire world was stunned by his death yesterday. Although there have been plenty of celebrity deaths, there aren’t that many that have sent shockwaves of this magnitude across the globe. The deaths of Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix were all tragic, but with their heavy drug use and hard-living lifestyles, they maybe weren’t so shocking. And we’ve lost a lot of wonderful people to cancer, but since we have generally been aware that those people had potentially terminal illnesses, they weren’t so surprising either. The five deaths below were totally unexpected (to most, anyway) and surprised the world much like Michael Jackson’s death has.
Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly’s death in 1982 was a big surprise. The Princess of Monaco, who was only 52 and seemingly in perfect health, suffered a stroke while driving with her daughter Princess Stephanie. The timing couldn’t have been worse – it was just as she was driving on the edge of a mountainside, and the stroke left her incapacitated and unable to control the car. It careened off the edge of the mountain and rolled down, flipping over multiple times. Stephanie suffered a cervical fracture and some bruising, but Princess Grace didn’t recover from her injuries. The world was stunned because the reports from Monaco originally said that she had broken her collarbone, a leg and some ribs, but was in stable condition.
Photo from CoverBrowser.com.
Elvis
We know now that Elvis was on more drugs than Anna Nicole Smith, but at the time, it wasn’t widely known that he had a veritable pharmacy in his system. In fact, he had gone to Richard Nixon to complain about the prevalence of drugs in the entertainment industry. Despite a series of kind of crappy concerts – he was out of shape and self-conscious about his appearance, and it showed – he was getting ready to embark on a new tour on August 17, 1977. He didn’t make it. The day before, his fiancee Ginger Alden found him dead on the floor of his bathroom at Graceland.
At first the public was told his death was due to cardiac arrhythmia, which wouldn’t have been too unbelievable giving the amount of weight he had gained; he had also been having some obvious breathing troubles onstage. But it didn’t take long before the truth emerged: his very own Dr. Feelgood, Dr. Nick, had been prescribing massive amounts of pills for a very long time. His autopsy revealed that he had 14 drugs in his system when he died; 10 were in large quantities. They included Morphine, Demerol, the antihistamine Chloropheniramine, Valium, Placidyl, Codeine, Ethinamate, Quaaludes and an unidentified barbituate. It’s rumored that he also had Diazepam, Amytal, Nembutal, Carbrital, Sinutab, Elavil, Avental, and Valmid in his system. It’s a wonder that he didn’t die sooner, really.
Photo from FrancesEllenSpeaks.
John Lennon
When Mark David Chapman killed John Lennon by shooting him four times at close range, the entire world immediately went into mourning. On December 8, 1980, John and Yoko were coming back to their apartment at the Dakota in New York after an evening recording session. Waiting in the shadows of the building’s archway was Chapman, an obsessed fan who had approached Lennon earlier in the day for an autograph and a photo. Of the five hollow-point bullets Chapman fired, four of them hit Lennon and inflicted severe injuries. At least one of them punctured his aorta.
Lennon managed to get six stairs up to the doorman before he collapsed; the doorman took the gun from Chapman’s hand and covered Lennon with his jacket. Police loaded Lennon in the backseat of the police car and drove him to the hospital immediately and said that acknowledged that he knew who he was and fell unconscious shortly after. He was pronounced dead upon arrival at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center where the cause was determined to be hypovolemic shock caused by more then 80 percent blood loss.
Crowds gathered in Central Park outside of the Dakota singing and chanting and apparently keeping Yoko Ono awake. She asked them to give her a little peace, but please come back the following Sunday to help her observe 10 minutes of silence for her slain husband. Not only did they come back, the whole world decided to get in on the tribute. More than 100,000 people gathered in Central Park on Sunday, December 14, and 30,000 people in Liverpool followed suit.
Photo from the BBC.
Princess Diana
Princess Diana is the first shocking death I really remember. On August 31, 1997, the Princess and her boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed were being driven in Paris just after midnight. Their driver was trying to evade paparazzi and was driving at speeds much higher than the recommended 30 mph – some reports estimate that he was going at least 65 and others say 90. He lost control of the car in the tunnel and plunged into a support pillar. Al Fayed died at the scene, as did the driver. The other passenger survived.
Diana died of her internal injuries a few hours later at the hospital – the crash had jolted her body so severely that her heart reportedly was displaced to the right side of her chest. Her death was announced at 5:30 a.m. People worldwide were horrified and saddened and more than three million people showed up to mourn her during her Westminster Abbey funeral on September 6. So many flowers and gifts were left outside of Kensington Palace that the public was asked to refrain from bringing any more items because they were becoming safety hazards.
Photo from BiographyAndBiographies.
Dale Earnhardt
While not exactly in the same vein as Princess Diana or Elvis, Dale Earnhardt’s death certainly stunned the sports world. He was just completing the last lap of the Daytona 500 on February 18, 2001, when the left rear corner of his car hit driver Sterling Marlin’s front bumper. This made Earnhardt veer sharply left, then sharply right toward the concrete retaining wall. Just as his car was hitting the wall, Ken Schrader’s car ran into the #3 black Goodwrench car.
To most people, this didn’t seem like such a huge deal – for NASCAR, this was a relatively common accident and they had seen Dale come out unscathed after much worse crashes. The two cars slid down toward the infield grass and Schrader got out of his car, appearing to be completely fine. He walked to the #3 car and looked inside to check on Dale, then immediately signaled for help.
It turned out that Earnhardt died instantly, but wasn’t officially pronounced dead until he was examined at Halifax Medical Center. His injuries included a fatal skull fracture, eight broken ribs, a broken ankle, a fractured breast bone, and collarbone and hip injuries that indicated his seat belts did not fail. Sterling Marlin started receiving hate mail and death threats, Earnhardt’s #3 car was retired, and fans paid tribute to Earnhardt by holding up three fingers for the third lap of every Winston Cup race for the next year (I’m sure some people still do it). Even television announcers stopped commentating for the third lap.
Photo from USA Today.
What celebrity deaths totally floored you? Share your reactions in the comments.
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Six Mama's Boys
Elvis
Elvis, of course, loved his mama Gladys. In fact, his love for his mom may be the reason he first set foot in a recording studio – the story goes that he wanted to record a very belated birthday present for Gladys and went to Sun Records’ Memphis Recording Service to lay down a couple of songs for her – “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin.” Gladys was obsessed with her son, probably with good reason – as most people know, his twin brother was stillborn and Gladys was unable to have children after that, so Elvis was all she had. She walked him to school and he rubbed her feet; she later lived with him at Graceland until her death in 1958. Rumor even has it that they slept in the same bed until he was in his teens, which really would be no surprise – Elvis grew up in a two-room shack.
Photo from Random House
Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur was the youngest of three sons and apparently his mom didn’t want to deal with empty nest syndrome when he left for the United States Military Academy at West Point: she camped out in a hotel room overlooking the Academy grounds for two years. Supposedly she even bought a telescope so she could make sure he was studying instead of getting up to shenanigans, but that smells like an urban legend to me. But one book does say that he met with his mother for at least half an hour every night after dinner, and if he couldn’t get away, she would meet him so they could walk and talk on school grounds instead.
Photo from the Smithsonian
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
You’d have to be a pretty formidable women to intimidate Eleanor Roosevelt, and FDR’s mom Sara was just that. Franklin was her only child (I’m sensing a trend here) and she was quite protective of him. She even homeschooled him until he went to boarding school, and when he was admitted to Harvard she followed him there. She was upset when Franklin got engaged to Eleanor, but when he got married against her wishes, she committed herself to controlling both of them. Sara picked out the newly-married couple’s first house, had it decorated, and bought herself a house just three blocks away. In 1908 she gave them a townhouse in Manhattan which conveniently connected to her own townhouse – it had adjoining doors on every single floor. Franklin later admitted he had been terrified of his mother his whole life.
Photo from the National Park Service
Liberace
Liberace, like Elvis, had a twin who died at birth. He was devoted to his mother, and it showed: one newspaper described him as “a deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavored, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love.” He talked about her so much in his act that she became “Mother” to his fans as well; when she had a heart attack his fans flooded her hospital room and house with flowers and cards and well wishes. But like Franklin, it turns out that Liberace was actually quite scared of mommy dearest: when she died in 1980, he confessed, “I’m finally free.” He was well into his 60s at the time.
Photo from the Sacramento Bee
Sigmund Freud
Surprise, surprise. As his mother’s firstborn, he was her “Golden Siggie” and she very obviously played favorites, even giving him his own room and making her other children share. She doted on him to the point that he started to experience sexual desire for her (hey, he documented it!) and wished he could get rid of his father and have his mother entirely to himself. According to Freud, a wise old woman had told his mother that her firstborn son was going to do great things, so her adoration of him may have had something to do with that.
Robert E. Howard
Perhaps the biggest mama’s boy of all, for quite disturbing reasons. Robert Howard was a playwright and an author who created the character of Conan the Barbarian. His mother, Hester, was a particularly selfless woman who was passionate about instilling a love for literature and the arts in her children. She was known for caring for sick friends and relatives to fault – it was because of this compassion that she caught tuberculosis and fell extremely ill. She was in poor health for the rest of his life. Howard himself suffered from bouts of extreme depression; he was talking about suicide as early as his teens. He told friends the only thing keeping him from killing himself was his obligation to his poor mother, who wouldn’t be able to cope with such an ending. Despite his writing success, when his mother slipped into a coma in 1936 and her nurse told him she would never open her eyes again, he saw his chance. He went immediately to his car, took a gun from the glove compartment and shot himself in the head. He died eight hours later and his mother died the next day.
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Elvis: Watercooler Ammo
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Are you lonesome tonight? If Elvis is your hunk of burning love and he's got you all shook up, here are some neat tender lovin' facts about The King. But if you don't like this article, then don't be cruel because you're so square and baby, I don't care. Tiny ElvisWhen Elvis left the building permanently in 1977, he was considerably overweight. (Some estimates had him tipping the scales at 250 lbs.) But at birth, the 20-inch Tiny E was significantly underweight, at 5 lbs. Today, research has linked low birth weight to an increased risk of cardiosvascular disease and obesity - both problems for Elvis later in life. In fact, his official cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia, which could have been brought on by heart disease. Of course, it was more likely brought on by the 14 prescription drugs Elvis had in his system at the time. A Word on the NameContrary to popular belief, the name Elvis is not unique to Elvis Presley. Well before the King ever shook things up, many men in the South shared the name. In fact, it dates to at least the 6th century C.E., to an Irish-born bishop named St. Elvis. The Liberace ConnectionYou wouldn't think it, but Elvis and Liberace were great friends with plenty in common. Both came from poverty; both had a twin who died at birth; and both blossomed into ostentatiously dressed, sideburn-sporting Las Vegas performers. And although Elvis got a little jealous when Liberace scored a "celebrity-customized" Cadillac in 1962, the two always remained close. Elvis sent the flamboyant piano player guitar-shaped flower arrangements before every Vegas opening, and Liberace returned the favor by sending a similar arrangement to Graceland upon Elvis' death. Under One CountryLooking to expand his fan base, a young Elvis Presley landed a month-long gig at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. Unfortunately, the booking didn't last. After just one performance (on October 2, 1954), the management threw Elvis out onto the street because he wasn't singing country "correctly." Born in the NRA
Elvis was known to shoot out his TV set anytime Robert Goulet or Mel Torme came on the screen. (At least one such-damaged set was later sold as a collectible.) That isn't all he pointed his gun at, though. He also shot his car when it refused to start. (Photo: Elvis Presley News) Presley by the Numbers
The Legend of Undercover Elvis
The Photo: While most people recognize the iconic photo of Elvis meeting Nixon in 1970, many don't know the exact reason for the visit. Elvis desperately wanted to become an undercover agent. Concerned about the increased drug use in America, he petitioned Nixon in a handwritten letter proposing he be named "Federal Agent at Large." Elvis wrote, "I have done an in-depth study of drug abuse and Communist brainwashing techniques and I am right in the middle of the whole thing, where I can and will do the most good." The Visit: Elvis then showed up at the White House unannounced, packing two handguns - one for protection, the other as a gift for the president. After some thinking, officials let him inside with both guns in tote. At the extensively photographed meeting, Elvis showed Nixon his family photos and a collection of law enforcement badges. Later, Nixon awarded him a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge, which listed Elvis' position as "Special Assistant." The Conspiracy?: Soon after Elvis' White House visit, the FBI gave him permits to carry firearms in every state so that he could take care of business whenever the mood struck. Pretty remarkable, considering that earlier in Elvis' career, J. Edgar Hoover had the FBI track the singer extensively. In fact, his FBI file ran more than 600 pages. A popular conspiracy theory suggest that Elvis finally got his Federal Agent wish in 1977, faking his own death in order to go undercover. The Rock Star Takes a Licking
In 1992, the U.S. Postal Service announced its plans for a 29-cent Elvis stamp and invited the nation to vote on which portrait to use. The choice was between a 1950s Elvis wearing a tie and gripping an old-fashioned mic, or a 1970s Elvis in a sequined jumpsuit. on June 4, 1992, the results were announced, and Young Elvis won in a landslide. Of course, after the stamp was released, thousands of fans put them on envelopes marked with fictitious addresses, hoping to get their mail back stamped "Return to Sender." |
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The article above appeared in the Scatterbrained section of the May - June 2007 issue of mental_floss magazine. It is reprinted here with permission. Don't forget to feed your brain by subscribing to the magazine and visiting mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog today!
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The
King had a thing for the Second Amendment. One day in 1970, after a concert
where fans had gotten a bit too close, Elvis went out and bought several
thousand dollars worth of guns from a Beverly Hills sporting goods store
- troubling, because he also had a temper. 
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