Artists—Want To Improve Your Sales? Here's How!

Commit suicide. That's according to the Washington Post which briefly reports in its Unconventional Wisdom feature an intriguing new study, "Artists' Suicides as a Public Good" by Samuel Cameron, Bijou Yang and David Lester in Archives of Suicide Research, Vol. 9 No. 4.

The Post summarizes the study's results: "A British and U.S. research team argues that artist and celebrity suicides may benefit society by increasing the emotional benefits fans derive from the dead star as well as boost 'sales of the artist's products and associated merchandise.'"

So that explains the popularity of artists like Vincent van Gogh and Kurt Cobain?