Betty White death hoax has gone viral. On Wednesday night, the satirical website known as Empire News published a story about White being dead, the fake article was enough to send the internet into a huge frenzy.
Betty White is not dead, she is alive and well. Empire News titled their absurd piece “Actress Betty White, 92, Dyes Peacefully In Her Los Angeles Home,” it was written by Bob The Empire News Potato.
Fans of the legendary TV actress missed the obvious clues and thought the report was real. So, what did they miss? First of all, dyes and dies mean two very different things. In this case, the site’s headline states that White peacefully changed color in her Los Angeles home, which is clearly absurd.
On the other hand, the word “dies” would have announced that she was really gone. The author of the story is Bob The Empire News Potato, what more can we say?
In an era, where the information gets out very fast and is absorbed even faster, things like these are bound to happen.
Big news agencies tried to quickly debunk the hoax on social media without much success, “Betty White RIP” messages kept pouring in at a rapid pace.
Satirical websites are in the business of provocation and shaking things up, but when people fail to spot the satire, the emotions they feel become all too real. The article had a lot of White supporters being devastated by a joke and that is the part that is not very funny.
It is also very easy to forget that sometimes relatives of the celebrity target get caught in this, receiving calls left and right to confirm or deny something that never happened. The satirical piece might be funny to read but the ensuing chaos is probably not a very nice thing.
Some say that it is time to retire those death hoaxes, the problem is that they are almost as old as the internet.
We will repeat again, Betty White is not dead. If one good thing came out of this, is the outpouring of love the Hot in Cleveland star received online.
