This comic was inspired by one type of hoax that has greatly benefited from the rise of the internet – hoaxes about celebrity “deaths”.
These hoaxes were around long before the internet existed, but they can now be spread far more easily spread and faster than ever before in the history of mankind.

In fact, more celebrity death hoaxes have been posted online in the past 3 years, than in all the entire history of the internet previously.*

At least every month, another celebrity will suddenly be taken long before their time, thanks to internet pranksters.
Luckily, nearly all of them are actually around to hear about it and have a good laugh at it.

Jeff Goldblum has actually been “net-killed” twice now. The most famous of these was the version announced as actual news by Richard Wilkins.
Just a few celebrities that also shuffled off the mortal coil – if you had believed Twitter & Facebook at the time –  were Britney Spears, Ellen DeGeneres, Miley Cyrus and P Diddy. As well, Harrison Ford was killed on a yacht, George Clooney died in a plane crash and Rick Astley was found dead in a hotel room.

These reports are often submitted in such convincing ways, that they are picked up by the mainstream press and run as real news.
People believe them and react grief-stricken until somebody in the media decides to actually check the source….

I think these hoaxes actually serve a purpose, as they make us stop and think before we take what the media is reporting for granted.
This can only be a good thing.

*Statistics sourced for the National Internet Bureau of Agent-X Stats and Make Believe factoids that can be put into posts. They are not real.