Social Media ‘Killing’ Celebrities!

The internet is free and full of information but unfortunately most of it was completely inaccurate. If the news is celebrity-oriented people don’t bother to check it twice, and if the news is about the death of your favourite celebrity then it’s certain that fact-checking is not a word in the dictionary because everyone loves to be the first to RIP a celeb, no one bothers to check the facts first. What is it with the obsessive celeb RIPing?
Rowan Atkinson aka Mr. Bean is the latest member in ever-growing list of celebrities who died not because of fate or god but because someone on the internet who DON’T WANT THEM ALIVE. An internet hoax claiming actor Rowan Atkinson had died sent fans into meltdown yesterday. It was said Atkinson, famous for roles in classics including Mr Bean and Blackadder, had committed suicide. And if you think that’s bad than there’s more to the story, there was even a mocked-up image of the star’s photograph beside a BBC logo and text proclaiming “R.I.P. 1995-2016,” which would have meant he was aged 21. What!
This reminds me some of the famous celebrities, death hoaxes where people don’t give a ‘Fruit’ (+18 will Understand) to do fact-checking. Recently, someone posted a morphed image of The Rock with caption ‘Our Favorite Superstar Dwayne died in a car accident’, Hey first of all The Rock is actively present on social media more on instagram, so the news is false but even if he’s dead then I’m sure he can beat the death by giving him Rock-Bottom. Rock is not the only celeb that apparently died in a car-accident, Celebs like John Cena, Chris Brown, Celine Dion, Our favourite toy story duo Woody and Buzz i’e Tim Allen and Tom Hanks, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber (twice actually, first time it was poison attack) etc were also a victim of death hoax news.
What Hollywood does is Bollywood follows, Not so long ago, rumours circulating veteran filmmaker Mrinal Sen’s passing away were put to rest when family members of Sen said that he was absolutely fine and was, in fact, ‘having tea’, Kadar Khan death hoax, which sobbed many khan’s fans were turned out to be mere rumours. Khan, due to old age problems, finds it difficult to walk and speak, and is under constant medical care at his Mumbai residence, shame on those who started this rumour. Our ‘Thallaiva’ Rajnikant can do so many awesome things but even Rajni Kant didn’t stopped those started his death rumours, Some websites even went to the extent of posting fake pictures of his death, with the message – Born on December 12, 1950, Shivaji Rao Gaekwad, famous as Rajinikanth, died at the age of 61.
There’s a thin line between humorous and crassness, making fun of celebs mistakes (Alia Bhatt we’re looking at you) is one thing but spreading death rumours about celebrities is not something that is considered as funny. Some trends needs to stop and celebrities death hoaxes is on top of the list.