The odd rumors never stop coming from the tweet mill
Another week, another Internet rumor about a dead celebrity. Are
you getting tired of the fake dead celebrity rumors yet? I know I
am.
One of the weirdest things about the web, to me, are the rumors
that get started and then take off, with a life of their own. When
they’re on the Internet, somehow these faux facts just seem more
believable.
The odd rumors never stop coming from the tweet mill
Another week, another Internet rumor about a dead celebrity. Are you getting tired of the fake dead celebrity rumors yet? I know I am.
One of the weirdest things about the web, to me, are the rumors that get started and then take off, with a life of their own. When they’re on the Internet, somehow these faux facts just seem more believable.
You know that old saying, “A lie can be halfway around the world before the truth even puts its boots on”? The Internet has made it possible for the lie to get 50 times around the world and back again before truth even makes it out of bed.
Sometimes the rumors are amusing. Sometimes they’re stupid. And sometimes they’re downright scary. More often than not, they’re ludicrous, especially if you take a minute to think about them.
This week’s rumor, brought to you by about a million Twitter accounts and other stuff: Bill Cosby is dead.
He’s not, of course. The comedian/TV dad/Jell-O pitchman is alive and well at age 73, and is in fact in excellent shape. But the rumor is making its way through the mills, and apparently Cosby himself is now attempting to quash it via his own Tweets.
Cosby also called into the Larry King show to confirm that he was alive, and to beg the person who started the rumor to knock it off.
“I just want to say to friends of that person: Just tell him to stop, because it isn’t funny,” Cosby said. “People are not amused by this.”
Who knows how much good it did. People seem to want to believe this stuff, despite all evidence to the contrary.
I find the celebrity death rumors particularly bizarre. Just about every week, there’s someone who is famous, or formerly famous, who “dies.” Sometimes the deaths are odd, as when it was “reported” that Jeff Goldblum had fallen off a cliff in New Zealand last year. But because we often discover real celebrity deaths on the Internet, it’s often far too easy for people to believe the fake ones as well.
Recent targets of the death rumors have been Justin Bieber, the 16-year-old singing sensation, as well as “Twilight” hottie Taylor Lautner and actor Johnny Depp. But Bill Cosby has to qualify for some kind of award in this area, because this week marks the fourth time in the last few years that the death rumors about him have circulated.
Why do the rumor mongers fixate on the Cos? Well, he’s 73, so I guess some people might assume the rumors are real. Other than that, who knows why. He isn’t in the news much these days, and he’s not even doing commercials for Jell-O pudding anymore.
“Bill Cosby died” was a top trending topic on Twitter for most of Monday and the second-most-searched for question on Google. The rumor was galloping along with no end in sight.
So Cosby took to Twitter and let people know he was, in fact, alive:
“Again, I’m rebuttaling rumors about my demise. But, I’m confirming I have an app —http://bit.ly/BillCosbyApp :)”
Yes, that’s right, he put a smiley face at the end. And used “rebuttaling” as though it were an actual word.
As for that Bill Cosby app for iPhone, which he took the liberty of plugging in his Tweet, the app is free, but it leads users to Cosby merchandise they can purchase.
So it just goes to show, if people are going to think you’re dead, you might as well get a plug in for your products. What the heck – it’s publicity. Of the weirdest sort.
