Well, there is something to be said for the notion that adulthood consists of caring only about what affects you (especially insofar as that means not caring about the personal opinions of total strangers who cannot affect you). Some people are simply not affected in any way by what happens to strangers. But those tend to be unempathic and grasping people, and the vast majority of the cold and grasping gravitate toward amassing wealth and wielding power from concealment. I certainly don't model my psyche after theirs. So, yeah, I care even when an obscure stranger dies or, in the words of a recent news story around here, suffers "life-altering injuries." Celebrities fall under the same rubric of people I care about from simple human empathy, except that I have more familiarity with them because a few of the details of their personal lives are part of the public record, to which I have access.
But arguing that it's somehow worse for a celebrity to die than for Jane Nobody to die is wrongheaded. Human lives are not rankable in value. The Pat Buchanan Catholic view that not all lives are created equal is something I strongly reject.
