Ah celebrity death hoaxes. Aren’t they a wonderful thing?
Just yesterday, one of the world’s biggest news stations made a giant boo boo when it falsely reported the death of Australian star Gotye:
The claim, made on CNN’s iReport spread through the interwebs like wildfire. And the public who didn’t know better jumped in on it, lapping it all up. The funny thing, however, was the way nobody bothered to dissect the report properly. Or rather, nobody had the time to.
For example, how did the investigation conclude so soon after he was pronounced dead? Regardless of the cause of death, investigations for cases like these are usually long-drawn and draggy. Also, why didn’t anyone bother to Google the said hospital? “Central Montmorency Hospital” is not, how do we put this, a hospital for human beings.
So no, he’s not “somebody you used to know”. Not just yet:
[youtube id=”8UVNT4wvIGY” width=”600″ height=”350″]
Furthermore, if Goyte’s death was real, a quick search would pull up not one, not two, but multiple reports – especially Wikipedia, usually the quickest to update bios and profiles. Tsk!
We’re pretty sure Goyte was amused when he woke up to a flurry of “RIP” tweets a few hours after the news hit mainstream media. The artist himself took it his Twitter account in the morning, stating:
Hah! Take that, rumour mongers.
