TikTok Zoomers Are Convincing Boomers That Their Favorite Celebrities Have Died

When it’s not dealing with ongoing backlash from each federal and state lawmakers, TikTok is breeding some genuinely humorous memes and traits. Enter: The Celebrity Death Hoax.

This trend is pretty simple. Users will fake to be scrolling by way of their cellphone whereas secretly recording their relations—often their moms and dads. It is then when the person lets out a puff or an exclamation of “oh my God,” to disclose the punchline to an unsuspecting sufferer: “[Insert celebrity name] found dead at [insert current celebrity age]!” Some iterations of the prank embody a mode of loss of life (e.g. automobile crash) and/or a location (e.g. Los Angeles).

It is then when these dad and mom/relations usually erupt into a fit of sorrow, grief, or disbelief. The development has been taking on TikTok, however got here to a head over the weekend with the onset of visiting household for the vacation season. Naturally, as a Gizmodo workers author who consumes method an excessive amount of Internet, I needed to attempt the development whereas visiting my Mom this Christmas. It went one thing like this:

“Mom,” I stated after a puff, whereas scrolling my cellphone. “You’re never going to believe this. Andy Cohen dead in New York City at 54 years old.”

“No way, you’re lying,” she replied, white as a ghost and deeply involved about Mr. Cohen’s wellbeing.

At that time I got here clear as a result of I felt actually unhealthy about deceptive her as she is 1) my mom, 2) Andy Cohen’s largest fan. She was not amused—naturally. Also, I didn’t movie my mom for this development as a result of I’m a powerful proponent of not recording somebody and posting them to the web with out their permission.

A compilation of a number of totally different posts involving this development was posted by person @stevecooche, and boasts 14.3 million views on the time of writing this text. The celebrities in query embody Cher (76), Howard Stern (68), Zac Efron (35), Oprah Winfrey (68), Neil Cavuto (64), and John Travolta (68), amongst others. Other celebrities I noticed concerned with the prank embody Taylor Swift (33), John Mayer (45), Justin Bieber (28), and Dave Matthews (55).

I don’t have to be the one to inform you to please be good to your dad and mom this vacation season! What in case your favourite musician/actor/information anchor/radio character died? Not so humorous now’s it?