WASHINGTON, D.C. Dec. 29 (DPI) – With the first reports yesterday of the death of 84-year-old Debbie Reynolds – only a day after the passing of her 60-year-old daughter Carrie Fisher – the internet convulsed with commentary about the drama of it all: The tragedy, the irony, a final chapter for a famous mother-daughter tale, all coming at the end of a tumultuous 2016.

Fisher had long chronicled her difficult childhood with Reynolds, who was married many times and beset by sorrow and financial problems. Fisher too wrote in various autobiographical books about dealing as an adult with bipolar disorder and the mania that accompanies it. Their trials and conflicts were well documented, which made Reynolds’s death – of a stroke as she was planning her daughter’s funeral — all the more powerful and poignant.

Indeed, some popular comments marveled at the up-and-down relationship of the two – “Mom wanted to upstage Carrie just one last time” as one put it on Reddit – but most shared a genuine sadness over the loss of two Hollywood stars that everyone seemed to know so well. Coming on the heels of the death of another celebrity, the 53-year-old singer George Michael, this meme message circulated widely today: “Why the f— don’t you lay off the celebrities and kill all the corrupt politicians?”