Louie Anderson's Death Latest Internet Hoax

It may seem like this article is about Louie Anderson and to a point it is. Louie Anderson is the most recent fake internet fatality. Or as common-day jargon has it, Louie Anderson is the most recent urban myth. However Louie Anderson simply gives me a basis to introduce an important topic.

Charisse Van Horn of Chicago's Examiner.com has posted an article titled "Louie Anderson dead and other internet hoaxes." She shares with us the false dead that have accompanied the shock of really losing Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.

It seems when there is a major occurrence like two icons dying at one time people take the opportunity to add to the disbelief by putting up erroneous information with respect to other deaths or shocking information.

The same syndrome that comes into play when people drive by an auto accident comes into play as they want to get the shocking news moving forward via e-mail. It takes no time at all for the internet to be flooded with the "news."

The deaths of Fawcett and Jackson were first followed by the hoax of the deaths of Jeff Goldblum and Harrison Ford.

That they were picked together may have had something to do with the fact theyare co-starring in an upcoming film.

Now the claim is that Louie Anderson is dead. Louie has long been a target of false death. He is just well-enough known that people are shocked; he is just unknown enough that people wouldn't question him dying with major celebrities and he doesn't look that healthy so it looks like he could go anytime.

However, I did say that Louie Anderson wasn't the key topic of this article or at least not the only topic and he's not.

Much as the news reporting services, we don't always have a way to protect ourselves from misinformation. However, there is a service that you can use to verify this type of data.

Anytime you get information that seems weird or untimely or you just want to check out, a good idea is to go to Snopes. It is a great service that helps the person who can't hire a private investigator to check these things out to find the truth.

Even though I write on the internet, there is a lot about the internet that I am distressed about and one of those things is how easily erroneous information is passed.

Unfortunately Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson have died; happily Louie Anderson, Jeff Goldblum and Harrison Ford are alive and to help keep up with this stuff it is a great idea to use Snopes.

References:

http://www.snopes.com/

http://www.louieanderson.com/

http://www.examiner.com/x-12837-US-Headlines-Examiner~y2009m6d26-Louie-Anderson-dead-and-other-Internet-hoaxes