Is grieving celebrities online narcissistic or a return to communal mourning?

This year's been tough when it comes to mourning some iconic names. David Bowie, Prince, Muhammad Ali are just a few celebrities who've passed away since the start of 2016.

There seems to be a pattern to mourning famous people online. First, the tragic news emerges and the name starts trending on social networks. This is usually followed by an outpouring of "rest in peace" posts and the sharing of personal memories associated with the deceased celebrity. Then comes the "grief police"—people with snarky comments about the mourners, criticizing their bandwagon grieving.

Journalist Megan Garber, who wrote on the topic of celebrity grieving for The Atlantic, argues that our public mourning on social media is part of a helpful return to communal mourning.

"There is something nice in this Twitter mourning that lets you say, 'We're in this together,'" Megan told CBC's Out in the Open host Piya Chattopadhyay. "This is a hard thing for everyone, everyone knows what it's like to have lost someone and we're.. reclaiming that in some ways."

Though Megan understands some of the complaints about these "RIP" messages, including why we mourn someone we never personally knew, she believes that doesn't really matter. We have been affected by their art in very intimate ways—whether we had a fond memory of dancing to a song they made or watching a movie they starred in.

"Even more than we mourn the loss of the people, we mourn the loss of their creative output and the loss of what they meant to our lives," she explained.

The celebrity factor plays an important role in this communal grieving because it is a way for multiple people to come together in their shared feeling of loss.

"Grief is so profound and so individual, you never know how you're going to react to that loss. And I think it does go back to this idea that we don't have these socially recognized mechanisms for grief," Megan said. "But what we do have are Facebook and Twitter and sometimes, those are enough."