#fuck2016 etc...

When artists express personal feelings (it's what artists do, although there are, of course, many who appropriate the term without really having a legitimate claim to it), they may be felt by others to become closer to them than they really are. In the ideal scenario, great art also expresses more or less universal truths and goodness, which makes it even more likely that people will feel very connected to it and see it as of great personal significance. It's natural for people to feel grateful to the artist who produced the work, even if an artist's intention may be for it to stand on its own merits.

You're missing the point again and this thread may as well be called:

'The If My Aunty Had Bollocks Thread'

That is a bizzare distinction you're making. "This stranger" isn't some bloke they didn't know existed until this morning. This stranger, whether George Michael, Bowie, Prince etc is the human they have been listening to on their radios for decades, singing along to in the car/shower/pub, dancing to at weddings, listening to at the funerals of loved ones, paying to see perform at concerts, buying their albums and watching on TV.

Building memories and a connection with another human through the music or art they've created, and tangling it up with our own lives is hardly a difficult concept to grasp.

Don't get me wrong, I understand feeling discomfort at the value we as a society attribute to public figures over everyone else, and the outpouring of grief on social media is often over the top. But to me, if after years of seeing a person in popular culture, who you've made a direct connection with to your own life and memories, and you felt nothing, that would be weird as fuck.

If rapha dies I'll mourn for a month.

Then buy le col obvs