Why does it hurt so much when a celebrity dies?

The sense of loss is very real even if it is for someone we've never met. Photos: Reuters

When icons die, the outpouring of public grief can easily be written off as mass hysteria.

There are snide terms for it. "Mourning sickness" describes supposedly ostentatious group grieving, while "grief porn" is used to describe the voyeuristic media coverage of that collective angst.