RIP Kanye West: Black Humor Trends on Twitter

False Rumors that Kanye West is Dead Have Fueled a Flurry of Darkly Precocious Tweets

Tamara McRill
'RIP Kanye West' is the current Google and Twitter trending topic of the hour. Sparked by false rumors that Kanye West died in a car accident, Twitter was the first to see 'RIP Kanye West' as a trending topic. As can be expected of most news surrounding the controversial superstar, not all tweets referring to Kanye West's supposed death were mournful. Most 'RIP Kanye West' tweets seem to be twisted up in dark humor.

RIP Kanye West: Dark Humor Rules the Twitter-verse

While some tweeps seem to be morbidly cheering at the thought of Kanye West dying in a car accident, most seem to get that this is a hoax. This is where the dark humor 'RIP Kanye West' tweets begin to fly. Twitter user gazebow chimes in with the tweet, "BREAKING NEWS...Kanye West continues to not be dead."

Many are re-tweeting mattscareskids' thought that Taylor Swift killed him with her moon man. This refers to West's outburst in the middle of Swift's 2009 VMA award acceptance speech, for Best Female Video. West took the microphone from the teen singer, saying that Beyonce' should have won.

This is the same Kanye West outburst that inspired the many satirical tweets that even if Kanye West wasn't dead, his career was.

RIP Kanye West: Publicity Stunt?

Many tweets went out to the effect that Kanye West's rumored death was a publicity stunt. Whiskeypark jokes that Kanye West's death hoax was originated by West himself. The goal was to gain record sales.

Others in the Twittospere back this up with tweets linking to other Kanye West publicity stunts. One link was to theInsider.com, an old news story on the September 2007 'battle' between Kanye West and 50 Cent. Kanye even admitted that he thought up the rivalry, to sell more records.

The Mashable claims that the Kanye West died in a car crash hoax started in the 4chan.org forums. 4chan is an image board that is often the root of many virally popular, but fake Internet search topics.

RIP Kanye West: Not the Best Stunt Ever

It may be just because so many love to hate Kanye, even in faux death, but even this stunt doesn't satisfy the Kanye critics on Twitter. Early tweets supported July's fake reports of Jeff Goldblum falling to his death on set as a better Internet hoax than Kanye dying in a car accident.

This was very quickly taken over by mentions of Balloon Boy Falcon as being the best hoax ever.

Sources:
www.twitter.com
http://www.theinsider.com/news/489259_Kanye_West_Admits_to_Publicity_Stunt
http://mashable.com/2009/10/20/4chan-kanye-west/

Published by Tamara McRill

Tamara McRill is a freelance writer focusing on news, politics, lifestyle and business. Tamara began her career writing for newspapers, including a brief stint as a sports editor, but is now reaching lar...   View profile

12 Comments

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  • Rick Soisson 12/17/2009

    Nicely written...do tweets matter, though? (Read your "Doonesbury.") Also, Swift was just barely a teen-ager on your post date, and she's about four times the talent that West is/was (who actually cares?)...I suppose I could tweet that if I indulged in a "genre" re-cycling decades-old SNL jokes about Franco.

  • Jody Harkavy 11/6/2009

    It's very interesting isn't it? Maybe it's part of what comes around goes around.. :)

  • Jennifer Budd 10/27/2009

    Maybe Kanye was jealous of the Balloon Boy's attention!

  • K K Thornton 10/24/2009

    When that man dies, odds are it won't be in a car accident-- unless it's the kind of "accident" where there aren't any skid marks. ;)

  • Jan Corn 10/22/2009

    It seems like another celeb dies on Twitter every day and then...like magic...appears again, alive and...Tweeting :)

  • Cassandra James 10/22/2009

    Funny :-) And thanks for the help, Tamara.

  • Scott Moyer 10/21/2009

    funny how all this starts, great read, look forward to reading more

  • bish 10/21/2009

    4chan runs the internet bish

  • Dan 10/21/2009

    Kanye West is not dead and this is not the first time the death of a celebrity was faked on the internet. Many people are rushing to search for news about Kayne West's death while the Twitter crowd are busy fueling the rumors. Twitter is known to have fueled sparks in rumers thanks to its large user base and popularity. But one question remains to be answered, who started this rumor that was taken to Twitter and spread rapidly? This is how it all started http://ketiva.com/News_and_Events/kanye_west_is_not_dead_and_this_is_how_it_all_started1.html

    Don't believe rumors people :]

  • CoolestGeek 10/21/2009

    Interesting the fact that it trended 1st in Twitter - before Google picked it up! Hmmmmm

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