George Clooney. Jeff Goldblum. Natalie Portman. And the latest: Rick Astley — of all people. These, along with thousands of other major and minor celebrities, are all firmly among the living, despite what you might read on various disreputable and despicable websites. As far as Internet memes go, these are the latest and by far the most odious, and I’m hoping this trend is going to swiftly run its course.
Seriously, do you think that people can’t see right through this crap? I’ll grant you, having a rash of celebrities die within a short duration of time does strain the expectations of statistics a bit, but that’s about as far as it goes. And even if you do fool someone into panicking and hastily Googling news sites, how the hell does that benefit you? You don’t get traffic from it, you can’t see the affected person’s expression, you have no way of knowing if your stupid little prank has even succeeded, so why do it?
This is akin to the continuing practice of setting up April Fools‘ jokes; can there really be credulous people out there who still fall for tricks on that day who are any older than 9 years old? There are better ways to get attention; ways that are infinitely less likely to result in your site permanently falling off your visitors’ must-read list. But you know what? I’ve changed my mind. Go ahead and keep at it. I’m a huge fan of social Darwinism. We here at Manolith will just keep writing up actual news, and you can continue doing what you do best. See you at the Webbys.
Comments
anonymous
June 30th, 2009 - 10:42:28 AM
You, are the reason. People like you who go wild with blog entries and create a fuss about it. If it wasn't for your kind, it wouldn't be fun at all. So congratulations, you put the fun in this. So if you want to blame and point fingers, go take a good old long hard look in the mirror.
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