With the current passing of so many participants in the shared experience; Neda Soltan, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson & Billy Mays, one can’t help but have an interest in how the population is reacting. Below are two graphs created by utilizing search statistics from Google Trends. The first graph plots the keywords; “neda soltan”, “ed mcmahon”, “farrah fawcett” & “michael jackson” from June 20th (Neda’s murder in Iran) to July 3rd (today).  The second graph adds the keyword “billy mays” for the same time frame.

Neda’s death on June 20th starts the cycle but is interrupted by Ed McMahon’s death on June 23rd.  Even though Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson both died on June 25th, Farrah Fawcett’s search queries were over three-times Mr. Jackson’s.

Billy Mays scored a 6700 for a peak search on Google vs. 655 for Mrs. Fawcett, 139 for Mr. Jackson, 132 for Mr. McMahon and finally 184 for Neda Soltan.  Billy Mays scored over five-times the search query scoring of the others.  With the weekend approaching and the July 4th holiday now upon us, one can clearly see the attention of the population shift elsewhere. Timing is everything. May they all rest in peace.