The other night, I was scrolling through Facebook as usual when all of the sudden I saw it. I couldn’t believe it. Was it true? Of course it was—everything on the internet is real.
Morgan Freeman was dead.
This came to me as a complete shock as I hadn’t seen anything on the news earlier that day or heard the people in the streets wailing and mourning the loss of the great voice. But alas, Facebook said it all. That is, until I really checked it out.
Turns out, Mr. Freeman was alive and well, to my relief. It was all a hoax. However, in my queries, I did discover something a little more disturbing.
Apparently, there is a trend appearing now on Facebook and Twitter where idiots with a lot of followers say a famous celebrity has passed away. With a simple hash tag that says “#ripmorganfreeman” or the like, a rumor that huge can spread like wild fire.
And Morgan Freeman isn’t the only celebrity to meet his untimely death by social media. In the past month, Bill Cosby, Tony Danza, Eddie Murphy, and Adam Sandler have all bitten the cyber-space dust. As soon as their reps hear of it, they rush to the scene of the crime for some major damage control.
It bewilders me why people would even start this crap. Have we really run out of things to do on the internet? It’s sick to even lie about somebody’s death, but when millions of people know them, you just look like a jerk.
We’ve already established that celebrities aren’t real people—eh, hem—but it doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings. Granted, if I were one of them, I would take the opportunity to pull the biggest practical joke on the world and show back up in a year or so. If that doesn’t make you a legend, I don’t know what will.
This whole stunt just goes to show you that Facebook or Twitter can say anything, and more than likely, people will believe you. How else do you think the Kony 2012 fiasco blew up?
Faking your death is never funny. Unless you’re Andy Kaufman, in which case the joke is still on us.
Taylor Griffin
Managing Editor
