A rumor that UK singer Rick Astley has passed away is the latest celebrity hoax to extend from side to side the internet in the stir of Michael Jackson’s shock death.
Twitter and other social networking sites were lively with information of Astley’s death this morning, forcing the singer to corroborate on his executive website that he was alive and well.Celebrities Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Harrison Ford, Ellen DeGeneres and Jeff Goldblum are among those affirmed dead through the internet in the wake of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett’s death.
Spears were reported deceased after her Twitter account was hacked over the weekend.
“Britney has passed today,” one of the fake messages read.
“It is a sad day for everyone. More news to come.”
The Astley hoax appears to have in progress when a fake press release was posted on CNN’s iReport site, anywhere reader uploaded interesting satisfied.
According to the hoax report, Astley died in a hotel room in Berlin after paramedics were not capable to revitalize him. Responding to the rumor, Astley’s manager Tops Henderson post a statement on the singer’s website saying: “I have just spoken with Rick, who is in Copenhagen preparing for his show on Friday evening at the Tivoli Gardens.”
Internet hoaxes were an ordinary resultant effect from not just from celebrity deaths but any famed news story.
Hoaxes subsequent celebrity deaths are not just new to the internet age. According to the New York Times, the same thing happened when US President Franklin Roosevelt died in 1945.The newspaper reported callers jamming the switchboards of media outlets with rumors about the death of Frank Sinatra, Charlie Chaplin and other famous celebrities of the time.
“People have been pretty effective at passing on rumors at time well before the rise of the internet,” Mr. Bruns said.”If you think of the Kennedy assassination, there were all sorts of rum ours on the day, not just afterwards, about what happened — who did it? Did they attack anyone else?
“We shouldn’t undervalue the effect of communications like the telephone and word-of-mouth.”The internet has just sped up the process and amplified it.”