Spookily (though, I guess, predictably) enough, for a moment I thought this was Heath Ledger in Joker makeup before looking at the URL and realizing it was Brandon Lee.
(via elvisdepressley)
It takes a special kind of awful person to create a death rumor about a living person, but it’s unconscionable to go online and pretend a dead stranger is alive.
Ken Ober died of a heart attack over the weekend, and as the news spread, various friends of his began to post about it on Twitter and Facebook. As many of these people are comedians with large followings, the news traveled far and wide before there was an official confirmation.
A shameless nature abhors a vacuum. In the absence of an official news story confirming his death, someone decided to go online and call the whole thing a hoax. Someone thought: “Oh, hey- someone just died and there’s nothing online about it. I’ll make some people think their dead friend is alive.” And then they got online and did it. So as news traveled further and people took to the internet to confirm it, they were directed to this news story on the venerable news source “duniyalive.com.” (No sources, no quotes- just “he’s doing well,” from HOLLYWOOD.)
Now, Ken and I were barely acquaintances. But he was a good man who was greatly loved by many, and a lot of those who loved him dealt with a lot of confusion and false hope this morning, just because someone wanted some traffic. That is fucking subhuman and inexcusable.
Here’s an idea: the next time you want to post something hideous about someone- and I suggest we set the bar low here: anything you would not actually say to their face, or to the faces of their friends and family- stop for a moment, take a deep breath, and say the following three words:
ACTUAL HUMAN BEING.
George and Jayne Reed from Ludington, Mich., witnessed a suicide during their visit to Chicago this September.
