The “27 Club” refers to the widespread legend that notable people, particularly musicians, are unusually likely to die at age 27. A 2011 inquiry in The BMJ showed this is not the case, dismissing the 27 Club as a myth. We expand on this discourse by demonstrating that although the existence of the phenomenon cannot be empirically validated, it is real in its consequences. Using Wikipedia data, we show that while age 27 does not hold greater risk of mortality for notable persons, those who died at 27 are as a group exceptionally notable compared to those who died at other young ages. The 27 Club legend originated from a statistically improbable event circa 1970, wherein four superstar musicians died within the span of 2 y all at age 27. This coincidence captured the public imagination such that our fascination with the 27 Club brought itself into being, producing greater interest in those who died at age 27 than would have been otherwise. This demonstrates path dependence in cultural evolution, whereby an effectively random event evolves into a narrative that shapes otherwise unrelated events and thus the way we make and interpret history.

中文翻译：

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路径依赖、污名化和模因具体化在 27 Club 神话的形成中


“27 俱乐部”指的是一个广为流传的传说，即名人，尤其是音乐家，极有可能在 27 岁时去世。2011 年《英国医学杂志》的一项调查表明情况并非如此，并将 27 俱乐部视为神话。我们通过证明尽管这种现象的存在无法通过经验验证，但它的后果是真实的，从而扩展了这一论述。使用维基百科的数据，我们表明，虽然 27 岁对知名人士的死亡风险并不大，但与其他年轻时去世的人相比，27 岁去世的人作为一个群体格外引人注目。27 Club 的传奇起源于 1970 年左右的一个统计上不可能的事件，当时有四位超级明星音乐家在 2 年内去世，年仅 27 岁。这个巧合吸引了公众的想象力，以至于我们对 27 俱乐部的迷恋由此诞生，对那些在 27 岁时去世的人产生了比原本更大的兴趣。这证明了文化进化中的路径依赖性，即一个有效的随机事件演变成一种叙事，塑造了原本不相关的事件，从而塑造了我们创造和解释历史的方式。