
The Rock has been the victim of a social media hoax
This year started with the announcements of many deaths and social media spreads the news: even Dwayne Johnson died this week or not…
This year kicked off in a rather gloomy way as news of many celebrities deaths have made us all sad. Among the ones who passed away are Glenn Frey from The Eagles, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Natalie Cole and others.
The news, although spread by mass-media, reaches people all over the world a lot faster through social media pages such as Facebook or Twitter. There are many fan pages on Facebook that follow different artists and post news about them. So, it was only natural that these past few days Facebook and Twitter pages were filled with R.I.P messages and condolences.
But some people take this over the edge by pranking other social media fellows into thinking that some of their favorite celebrities are dead. One such hoax happened recently when a Facebook fan page called “R.I.P. Dwayne Johnson” has tricked people into believing the actor is dead and asked for comments and likes. They immediately attracted attention and fans started pouring likes and comments in which they expressed their sadness about the news. Of course from Facebook, the sad news transferred to Twitter where a long list of condolences started.
On the other hand, there have been some skeptical fans who did not believe the news pointing out that mass-media has not made the news public and therefore this must be a fake report. Of course, the news has reached the actor himself and his representatives have officially confirmed that he is alive and well.
He hasn’t been the only victim of the hoax. Other celebrities were reported to be dead by people on social media. Although the first pranks might have been funny, fans are starting to get angry, saying that these fake reports need to stop as they are very hurtful to people who care about a certain celebrity.
On the other hand, this type of “advertising” can also show how popular a certain person is by following the numbers of likes and comments about his or her death. However, the practice is quite creepy to say the least and we hope the hoaxes will soon stop as hearing about so many deaths is getting very depressing.