More Celebrities, More Celebrity Deaths

In the last week or so, Steve McNair, Karl Malden, Billy Mays, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, and Michael Jackson have all died. Is this a series of freak occurances or a signal of an increasing trend? After the coverage of the death of Billy Mays, it occured to me that this increase in celebrity deaths is due to an increase in celebrities. We live in a time where information is so free flowing that a man known only for selling cleaning products becomes the top searched item on Google. There are even websites dedicated to keeping you up to date on famous deaths (www.celebritydeaths.net and www.hollywoodmemoir.com). With movies, music, TV (reality TV), YouTube, blogs, etc, there are so many ways to have your name known. I imagine the list of "famous people" was much smaller even just a generation ago.