These celebrities are definitely Really Dead: Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon. (Please folks, no more mention of the tired theory that celebrity deaths always happen in threes.)
These celebrities are alive but TwitterDead: George Clooney, Jeff Goldblum, Harrison Ford, Natalie Portman, Randy Jackson and Britney Spears.
TwitterDead is defined as someone who is said to have died in a tweet, which is retweeted so often that it trends in Twitter so others believe the celebrity is Really Dead. (If you can't follow the previous sentence, you need to get a lesson on Twitter because many people believe it is the future of the web.)
OK, I just made up the term TwitterDead. But I needed a word to describe the phenomenon of social media moving so fast that a rumor of a celebrity death is picked up by other media, but ends up being a fire drill.
TwitterDead is the modern version of the great Mark Twain quote: "The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated."
The first TwitterDead on the day Michael died was Randy Jackson of American Idol, which I noticed in trending topics. Bless his still-beating heart, Randy was TwitterDead because of his last name.
Next came the trending of actor Jeff Goldblum who was so TwitterDead that he had to dispel the rumors by going on camera to deny to TMZ and then to appear on the "The Colbert Report."
Other celebrities who got killed off Twitter-style at the end of last week were Harrison Ford, Natalie Portman and Miley Cyrus. Britney Spears was TwitterDead by the weekend.
All's fair in the twitterverse since it's just basically an enormous high school rumor mill. But, my Twitter friends, you have gone too far when you TwitterKill George Clooney. NOT CLOONEY. ANYONE but Clooney!
Stan Rosenfield, Clooney's publicist, contacted TMZ -- which apparently is running the world now -- to dispel the death rumors because he was inundated with calls from mainstream media outlets.
If you filter through rumor and TwitterDead, Twitter is still the fastest way to get real news, whether about political protests in Iran or the celebrity deaths last week. I found out about Michael Jackson being Really Dead from Twitter, too.
The first tweet from TMZ Harvey Levin: Michael Jackson taken to hospital for cardiac arrest!!!! http://bit.ly/15PFWv4:47 PM Jun 25th .
Minutes later, a confirmation tweet from TV reality show M.D. Dr. Drew: retweet RT @daxholt: HOLY S---!!CRAZY S--- GOING ON W/ MICHAEL JACKSON!! RUSHED TO HOSPITAL http://bit.ly/15PFWv4:54 PM Jun 25th.
So it's time to update the quote attributed to W.C. Fields when asked about how his tombstone should read: "On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia." The 2009 version is: "On the whole, I'd rather be TwitterDead."
Of course you can follow me on Twitter: EmilyMiller_DC. Just please don't make me TwitterDead.
