Social Media Death Hoax

Social media sites are a fun way to connect with friends, market your business, and apparently create a social media death hoax for your favorite or maybe most despised celebrity.  In the past few months many death hoaxes have occurred including Jon Bon Jovi in December, Cher earlier this month, and most recently country music superstar, Reba McEntire.  Its funny how the celebrities chosen aren’t necessarily in the limelight anymore, so its almost plausible that it could have happened.  Lets take a look at each social media death hoax and exactly what crazy story was behind each one.

Social Media Death Hoax | Reba McEntire

Fans were in tears Monday when rumors of Reba McEntire death began circulating the internet, even becoming a Google trend for the day.  So just how did the social media death hoax come about?  Daily Gossip reports:

The news regarding Reba McEntire’s death came from a joke website. The alleged death report reads that “actress Reba McEntire died while filming a movie in Kitzbuhel, Austrya early this morning – January 30, 2012”. According to the website, “preliminary reports from Austrian Police officials indicate that the actress fell more than 100 feet to her death in a remote area of the Hahnenkamm mountains” and that “specific details are not yet available”.

Wow, hilarious.  The rumors were quickly put to rest after fans began noticing that Reba was keeping her Twitter account active during the course of the event.  Check your facts everybody!

Social Media Death Hoax | Jon Bon Jovi

“Rockstar Jon Bon Jovi (John Francis Bongiovi, Jr) was pronounced dead today after paramedics found him in a coma at his Empress Hotel, city and law enforcement of Asbury Park, NJ sources told The Times after World Christmas Tour concert on The Bamboozle Festival,North Beach Asbury Park.”

http://digitaljournal.com/article/316397#ixzz1lA6V7NeG

This is the story that appeared in the Dailynewbloginternational, before becoming a social media death hoax across all of the networks.  So just how did this go viral?  Well thousands of Twitter users reposted the death hoax and it received thousands of “likes” on Facebook, thus moving to the top of users’ news feeds.

Social Media Death Hoax | Cher

Tweets including “RIP Cher” began trending on Twitter on Jan. 27th and the responses to the social media death hoax ranged from jokes to genuine concern and sadness.  All of the fuss started with just a single tweet, The Digital Journal reports in their story on the social media death hoax:

Purportedly the rumor was started by Twitter user Lorraine_Star, who tweeted, “RT @CNN: American recording artist Cher dies at 65 years old. Found dead in Malibu home.”