Death on Twitter – Paying Your Respects or Tweeting Your Own Horn?
#RIP MJ
By now, every corner of the world is aware of the death of Michael Jackson. Love him or hate him, when a celebrity of this stature dies, it reminds us all that even the mighty are mortal. (Yet, for some inexplicable psychology, many still need their mortal confirmation in multiples of three).
In a frenzy to beat the mainstream networks to a scoop, hashtags began to appear for the MJ death watch on Twitter and when the inevitable was confirmed, the inquiries and retweets - “Is Michael Jackson dead?” quickly turned to memorials – “RIP MJ!”.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Now, I don’t doubt that millions of people have been genuinely moved and inspired by Michael Jackson over the years. I never wore a sequined glove but I’ve been known to butcher a moon walk or two in my day. I was as shocked as anyone for whom the bell tolls, but did I feel the need to let a largely anonymous group of followers know that “I’m going to miss #MichaelJackson”? No.
Paying one’s respects to the dead is meant to be just that – a respectful, discreet acknowledgement of the loss to those close to the deceased. Yet, given the proliferation of MJ related hashtags (which by definition are meant to be searched) and insincere tweets about Michael Jackson’s influence, it is clear that many people simply saw this as a grand opportunity for Search Engine Optimized Self Promotion (“My #MJ_RIP tweet will be read by millions!”). Read the rest of this entry »
