The Betty White Award goes to people who die at the end of the year--- too late to be on those articles with titles like
people we lost this year.
The point of the award is that news outlets and blogs should WAIT until Jan before having any articles that look back on the prior year. (I tell Lance we should have our end-of-the-year post in January just in case someone solves P vs NP the last week of December. [Lance: I'm not worried])
I made up the award in 2023. More recently, I looked at the web to see who would have won it in past years. My chart is here. As I was writing this post I wondered if there already was a Betty White Award for something else. The response is here. Short version: ChatGPT says that there is an informal award called that for reading cue cards really well on Saturday Night Live. As opposed to my award which is formal(?).
This year's list of winners so far has only one person:
Brigitte Bardot who died on Dec. 28, 2025, at the age of 91. She was an actress, singer, model, and activist (she was for animal rights and against interracial marriage---see her Wikipedia page for other views she had). Like most celebrities who die when they are over 90, I suspect many people either don't know who she was or thought she was already dead. For more on her see her Wikipedia page here. Or type her name into chatty, though be warned that you may get some false statements.
1) This year I am taking NOMINATIONS for additions to the list. The number of winners can be more than 1. The max in a year has been 4 so far. SO
If you know of someone who
a) died between Dec. 20 and Dec. 31
b) is famous
then leave a comment. DEADLINE: Jan. 8 at noon East Coast time. On Jan. 8 I will update this blog post with more winners if need be.
I've already looked at Wikipedia's list of who died in 2025, here. If there is either (1) someone on there who is more famous than I thought (that happened last year with Manmohan Singh) or (2) there is someone not on the Wikipedia list who is famous to our community, let me know.
2) As noted above, the point of the award is to point out that publications should WAIT until Jan to have those lists. I am happy to say that Entertainment Tonight has found a good way to handle this---they had an article title Celebrity deaths 2025: Remembering those who've died this year but they are updating it (at least their online version). The updated version includes Bardot! See here. Paper publications won't be able to do that. This may not matter---will there still be paper publications at the end of 2026? I blogged on paper free stuff here.
I think your warning about "be warned that you may get some false statements" applies to Wikipedia just as well as to chatty. Unfortunately, at this age, the only way to get some assurance about the quality of information is to compare multiple independent sources.
ReplyDeleteIf you check Wikipedia AND ChatGPT is that better? Might not be as ChatGPT may be using Wikipedia.
DeleteWikipedia is certainly not perfect. I once spent too much time trying to get a math page fixed. I was unable to convince the maintainers of the page that I was right. I could have edited the page, but they would have just changed it back.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NPKe8YEgeM
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should come to terms with the fact that you are getting old.
ReplyDeleteThe dead person doesn't care much that you remember them. I doubt most readers care either about these, for most of us these are just random people.
I have no clue who this person is. If it is a mathematician or computer scientists or at least a scientist, sure, but a random "perviously famous" person from the times I wan't when born, meh, you should find yourself a better hobby than tracking which previously famous old person died.
Aren't you the ray of sunlight.
Delete1) I don't spend that much time on this hobby, (2) This hobby has taught be stuff over the years. Last year I learned that India once had a Sikh prime minister. IF you want to complain that I shouldn't blog about the award since nobody cares then you may have a point, but (a) I only blog about his award once a year and (b) to quote Ricky Nelson (who you probably never heard of) `you can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself. Google the song GARDEN PARTY on You Tube for his song which is awesome.
DeleteChris Rea (singer of "Driving Home for Christmas") died on Dec 22. Famous enough to make it to the "Who passed away this year" list on Dutch national TV. (Which was broadcast on Dec 28, just late enough to include Birgit Bardot who passed away earlier that day)
ReplyDeleteLou Gerstner, 83, American technology executive, CEO of IBM (1993–2002).
ReplyDeleteBen Nighthorse Campbell, 92, American politician, member of the U.S. Senate (1993–2005) and House of Representatives (1987–1993).
ReplyDeleteTatiana Schlossberg, 35, American journalist (The New York Times), acute myeloid leukemia.
ReplyDeleteDaughter of Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and granddaughter of US President John F. Kennedy. Her New Yorker article contemplating her imminent death, had appeared not long before.
Khaleda Zia, 79, Bangladeshi politician, prime minister (1991–1996, 2001–2006), first lady (1977–1981), and three-time MP.
ReplyDeleteFrancis Hallé, a quite well-known French botanist, died on December 31. He was famous for inventing a raft to navigate the rainforests canopy.
ReplyDelete