I know I’m sick, but why does social media and the internet have such a sick fascination with death? Especially celebrities. Does the internet also have family roots in Norway?
Oscar-winning actor Alan Arkin died on June 29. But not before a death scam was circulated across the internet claiming it had given up the ghost in June 2022. When he actually died in 2023 at the age of 89, some of my friends on social media reported I thought the rumor mill was brewing again and that I had fallen victim to it.
I have deleted my post about Arkin’s death, which I first learned about on Facebook through a message from stalwart Rob Morrow (“Northern Exposure”) actor. An hour later, industry news source Variety published an obituary for Arkin. It was official. Seriously this time.
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Even one of this nation’s best actors (“The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Argo”) wasn’t immune to misinformation and the teenage pranks found on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. How many times does a man have to die?
My goodness.
Dead and don’t know
Dying celebs are constantly being used as bait for scams or viruses on Facebook. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been invited to click a link to watch broadcaster Simon Cowell’s last words on his deathbed. Is the grumpy curmudgeon so unpopular that people want to see his final moments on Earth? Even I’m not that sick. It’s obviously a data mining system or worse.
I also don’t want to click on it and see Angelina Jolie’s body. Mainly because she’s not dead.
Her ex-husband, movie star Brad Pitt, became the target of a murder scam in 2016 when the internet claimed the actor had been shot. The rumors were so widespread that Pitt released a press statement in which he basically said, “Sorry guys, but I’m still alive.”
A website published an obituary for country singer Alan Jackson in December 2022 – only the musician was still breathing air. The obituary came after Jackson canceled tour dates and announced that he suffers from a degenerative non-fatal nervous condition that runs in his family. The internet killed him for his medical honesty.
Ah, who can forget Fish?
Character actor Abe Vigoda (“Barney Miller,” “The Godfather”) entered the afterlife when People magazine dubbed him “the late Abe Vigoda” in 1982. He responded to Variety’s pages with a photo of himself reading a copy of People stretching out in a coffin. He actually died in 2016 when he was 94, but he was dogged by death rumors online until he lay in his grave.
The internet also killed Tony Danza (“Taxi”, “Going Ape!”), claiming he died after falling off a cliff. INCORRECT. Guitarist Carlos Santana died in his car in 2015. Only he didn’t die.
According to a Twitter blurb, writer Cormac McCarthy (“Blood Meridian,” “No Country for Old Men”), who also died in late June 2023, had been dead since 2016. The scammer had a fake Alfred P. Knopf publishing account that looked like the original . USA Today fell for it in 2016. Ditto for author Joyce Carol Oates.
Internet prankster Tomasso De Benedetti, who also publicly commemorated Fidel Castro and the Pope before their time, said of his 2016 McCarthy stunt, “Social media is the world’s most unified source of information, but the news media believes it out of necessity.” .”
As if it were necessary to point it out.
“I buried Paul”
Of course, death rumors have proliferated in the social media age, but they’re not new.
Allegedly, Beatles member Paul McCartney died in a car accident in 1966. To keep the public from mourning, the three Beatles colleagues replaced McCartney with a double. Apparently the fake McCartney was a talented double who wrote songs and appeared on records like “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), Magical Mystery Tour (1967) and The White Album (1968). The song “Strawberry Fields Forever” contained a short spoken word outro that read “Ibury Paul”. See proof.
Of course, the voice could have said, “I’m very bored.”
The death rumor kind of revived when Sir Poodle Eyes appeared barefoot on the cover of Abbey Road (1969). According to American myth, McCartney was the shoeless corpse, George Harrison the jeans-clad gravedigger, John Lennon the white-suited minister, and Ringo Starr the black-clad undertaker. The Beatles members formed a funeral procession as they strolled across the zebra crossing.
The “Paul is dead” theory is as crazy as it sounds, but if true, it explains why McCartney’s album Back to the Egg (1979) was so lame.
Exaggerations abound
But the Queen Mother began issuing a death certificate ahead of schedule to a celebrity in 1897. Mark Twain took center stage. The witty writer was on a speaking tour across the pond. His cousin fell ill in London and went to the hospital. The visit was mistaken for Twain’s death, and the newspapers approved. In his famous one-liner, Twain said of the incident, “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
In fact, Twain wrote in a letter to a reporter, “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”
Ah, but death frauds aren’t known for being precise.
In the age of clickbait, cheating only gets worse and more distasteful. Always be suspicious. Check sources before posting anything.
Now, if I can get Facebook trolls to bombard me with cloned accounts or fake friend requests, that’s going to be another annoying thorn in my side. Not long ago I received a request from a friend who passed away the week before. As if that wasn’t bad enough, a Facebook friend recently received a request from herself.
“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me,” she said.
Former senior writer for Tallahassee Democrats, Mark Hinson, can be reached at [email protected].
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