April Fools Day Pranks Start Early – Jackie Chan Death Hoax

It seems like April Fool’s Day pranks have started early this year. Earlier today Daily Planet Dispatch reported that rumors of Jackie Chan’s death were going viral. This is not the first time, of course, that the 56 year old legendary martial arts actor and producer’s early demise had been reported as a hoax.
The power of social media networks like Facebook and Twitter in helping a story go viral were demonstarted in a rather silly string of thousands of real-time results showing up in Google, Google Trends and Twitter trends as fans of the comedian started posting “RIP Jackie Chan” without one corroborating story backing up the original, a ‘pastehtml’ site, put up to look like a Yahoo7 News page.
The power of social media networks like Facebook and Twitter in helping a story go viral were demonstarted in a rather silly string of thousands of real-time results showing up in Google, Google Trends and Twitter trends as fans of the comedian started posting “RIP Jackie Chan” without one corroborating story backing up the original, a ‘pastehtml’ site, put up to look like a Yahoo7 News page.
The ‘pastehtml’ site even tried to make the story look real by reporting that Will Smith and President Barack Obama had paid tribute to the celebrity’s life.
Now Jackie Chan’s representatives have had to step in to quash the rumors – with their own message on Twitter and a note on the Hong Kong actor’s Facebook page stating: “Jackie is fine and busy preparing for filming his next movie”.
Fortunately, many Twitter fans were wise to the idea that this might be some kind of early April Fool’s Day Prank and started to limit the effects of the hoax by posting Tweets that asked people to think about the facts of the matter. There have been a smattering of Hoax RIP claims concerning celebrities sent viral on the site in the recent past including the purported deaths of Justin Bieber and Jeff Goldblum.
It looks like somebody, in very poor taste, tried to get their April Fool’s Day pranks in early this year, unfortunately for Jackie Chan. Knowing his character, though, he’ll just laugh it off and enjoy the added publicity.