Death Announcements: Why Is Social Media Infested with Them?
Beginning in the late 20th century, so much news about fake celebrity deaths hit the airwaves. One of the first stories about this was when author Mark Twain was proclaimed dead first in 1897 and then in 1907 by The New York Times; his official death was in 1910. Probably one of the most famous cases came in 1966 was when it was reported that Paul McCartney died in a car crash.
This trend carried into the 2000s. With the rise of social media, this type of announcement has increased. A key moment came on Feb. 23, 2015, when a post on the social platform X claimed that Beyoncé had died and #RIPbeyonce started trending on X. However, it seems like this year has been a catapult for fake death announcements on social media.
Since Sept. 2, I have personally seen many celebrity death jumpscare posts on Instagram. Typically, the types of posts I see have the name and photo of a celebrity with their birth year-2026. When I see them, my heart drops and I am caught off guard. Some celebrities who are subjects of this trend are Adam Sandler, Zendaya, Tom Holland, Sydney Sweeney, Danny DeVito, and Nick Jonas.
This is not the only form of fake death posts. Probably 50% of this trend comes from posts that are a gray photo of a celebrity and the highlighted headline below reads “DEAD.” Additionally, videos on TikTok and YouTube show a person pranking their family that their favorite celebrity died.
No matter what the form, these posts need to stop. Many people panic when they open socials and see a picture of a celebrity in black and white. With the algorithm, people see multiple posts like this which in turn becomes irritating. Furthermore, if a celebrity dies for real, people will have a hard time believing it. The only gain is that the accounts posting them will get likes, clicks, views, and maybe a follow.
Death is a very serious and sad thing; because of this it should never be joked about or thrown around like it’s nothing. In the end, this whole trend is just a big crying wolf situation.
