We are just four months in, yet it's now been a dull, dim 2016.
"Enough, 2016" and a more obscene option are expressions individuals are articulating increasingly frequently. So it is safe to say that this is wave of VIP passings the new ordinary?
The answer is yes, as per the BBC's eulogy supervisor Nick Serpell, who should think about such things.
He said that the quantity of noteworthy passings this year has been "amazing".
Taking a gander at the essential measurements, there's an unmistakable upward pattern. Scratch gets ready tribute for BBC TV, radio and on the web, that run once a remarkable individual's passing is affirmed.
The quantity of his tribute utilized crosswise over BBC outlets as a part of late years has jumped extensively.
It's a hop from just five amongst January and late March 2012 to a stunning 24 in the same period this year - a right around five-fold increment, as indicated by examination by the BBC Radio 4's More or Less program.
Furthermore, that is before tallying a portion of the outstanding passings in April, including American artist Merle Haggard, the previous medication dealer Howard Marks and the current week's two prominent flights.
In any case, may it simply be that the BBC has expanded its store of eulogies to such a degree it implies bounty more are being utilized?
There are surely more eulogies in the BBC's records - around 1,500 altogether - than when Nick began 10 years prior, he says. He includes a couple of all the more consistently.
Be that as it may, look somewhere else and the photo confirms.
ere in the UK, the Daily Telegraph keeps up a display of acclaimed individuals who have kicked the bucket, and overhauls it consistently. Up to this time in 2014, the quantity of those in the exhibition was 38. Around this time a year ago, the quantity of individuals in the display was 30. This year, the number is now 75.
Toward the start of consistently, the (somewhat dismal) site deathlist.net records 50 superstars it accepts may pass away that year. In six of the most recent 10 years, two or less of its forecasts had materialized at this point - this year, five names have passed on as such.
This all welcomes the inquiry: why?
There are a couple reasons, Nick Serpell says.
"Individuals who began getting to be acclaimed in the 1960s are presently entering their 70s and are beginning to bite the dust," he says.
"There are likewise more renowned individuals than there used to be," he says. "In my dad or granddad's era, the main well known individuals truly were from silver screen - there was no TV.
"At that point, on the off chance that anyone wasn't on TV, they weren't renowned."
The time of increased birth rates element
A hefty portion of those now biting the dust had a place with the alleged time of increased birth rates era, conceived somewhere around 1946 and 1964, that saw a colossal development in populace. In the US for instance, the statistics agency said that 76m individuals in 2014 had a place with the child of post war America era - somewhere in the range of 23% of the populace.
Here in the UK, individuals matured 65 or more seasoned make up right around 18% of the populace - a 47% expansion on forty years back.
With more children naturally introduced to the time of increased birth rates era, it implied more went ahead to in the long run get to be well known.
Presently, those celebrated previous children, matured somewhere around 70 and 52, are biting the dust.
The age-section 65 to 69 is the one, in England and Wales for instance, where demise rates truly begin to increment - somewhere in the range of 14.2 for each 1,000 men in that age section passed on in 2014, contrasted and 9.4 for every 1,000 in the 60 to 64 age section.
Among the real passings this year, numerous - including Prince (57), Alan Rickman (69), David Bowie (69) and Victoria Wood (62) - were people born after WW2.
Tribute: David Bowie
What makes a big name?
Another component that may play into the feeling that more famous people are kicking the bucket is that we have known about a larger number of big names than some time recently.
"In the course of recent years, online networking has had enormous impact," Nick Serpell says.
Hours before Prince's demise was declared, tributes were paid to the American previous wrestler and porn star Chyna, who kicked the bucket matured 45.
Be that as it may, the news of her demise was not kept to the US - near 400,000 tweets utilizing the word Chyna were sent worldwide on Thursday, and interest crested in urban areas, for example, Lagos in Nigeria and Lima in Peru.
Nowadays, it is far simpler to hear news of whether anybody has kicked the bucket than whenever before.
Will this go ahead?
The terrible news? Yes, presumably. "Throughout the following 10 years, these individuals will get into their 80s and it will proceed at this level," Nick Serpell says.
"Also, that doesn't check the shock passings, when individuals pass on that shouldn't."
For the present, the regularly half-hour assemblage of tribute Nick produces for BBC News toward the end of consistently will be expanded: for the current year, he says he has as of now been offered consent to make it a hour long.