Look, I was a HUGE Michael Jackson fan when I was a kid; I bought all of his tapes as soon as they came out and wore more than a few of them completely out.

But when you look at these things in comparison:

    HeyZap (YC S09) Launches Microtransaction Platform 
    Why CouchDB doesn't scale 
    Starting Out With Comet (Orbited) Part 2 
    Why A Low Calorie Diet Extends Lifespans: Critical Enzyme Pair Identified

and

    RIP Michael Jackson

It just seems out of place. Clearly it's important to everyone here, given the sheer number of submissions it's gotten. I guess things have just changed here, that's all.

Maybe it depends on how old you are: to some of us, this guy dying is almost like Earth being hit by an asteroid. He's deep in the psyche of a lot of people on this planet, and it sortof transcends "topics".

MJ died today. The rest of the usual HN fodder will still be around tomorrow. The chances of him dying 2 days in a row are slim.

I guess there are enough pop singers to die in a row to keep HN cluttered with news about them for quite a long time.

I expect MJ's death will open the flood gates for 'copy cat' pop singer deaths...

It's just hand-wavy to say that any exception leads to a slippery slope or opens the flood gates.

I don't discount the importance of it. I am just questioning the relevance of it.