Jimmy Fallon Is Trending Because Fans Think He’s Dead
Jimmy Fallon is asking Elon Musk to intervene on Twitter because #RIPJimmyFallon is trending.
With celebrities leaving in droves and mass firings happening left and right, it’s no secret that Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has been more than a little messy. And now, talk-show host, Jimmy Fallon, is having major issues with the social media platform as a new hashtag is trending and leading followers to believe that the celebrity has passed. The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Fallon is directly calling on Musk to take down #RIPJimmyFallon and put an end to the confusion surrounding his supposed death.
It all started on Tuesday night when Twitter users began #RipJimmyFallon, a hashtag that immediately took off and began trending on the platform. The hashtag would often be accompanied by a photo of someone other than Jimmy Fallon, adding to what many are seeing as a silly prank. Although The Tonight Show host knows how to make and take a joke, he’s had enough and is asking Elon Musk to do something about the false rumor.
Since Musk’s Twitter takeover, there’s been a major uptick in the spreading of misinformation, something many are chalking up to those mass firings that the new owner moved forward with upon stepping into his position. Jimmy Fallon’s issue is just the latest in the Twitter drama with fake accounts and fake news taking hold of the platform on a massive scale over the last few weeks. Just last Thursday, an account holding the coveted blue checkmark and the handle title of pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Co. made the “announcement” that “insulin is free now.”
Although it was simply a joke to the folks behind the tweeting hijinks, it dropped the company’s stock from $368 a share to $346 a share and allegedly took away billions in market cap. Outside the numbers game, we imagine it also caused some false hope for those dealing with high insulin bills, believing that they no longer needed to shell out hundreds of dollars to stay alive.
Even though for Jimmy Fallon, the snafu was not technically life or death, he still didn’t want his followers to believe that he had passed away, leading the comedian to send out a tweet targeted directly at Elon Musk, asking him to “fix this.”
While the trolling happening to folks like Jimmy Fallon and the big pharmaceutical companies may have a more mischievous spin, other forms are just flat-out comical. Take for instance the current feud raging between Elon Musk and comedian Kathy Griffin. After the performer tried to stick it to the platform’s new CEO by posing as him via her handle, he quickly put the kibosh on Griffin’s personal account, banning her from the social media outlet and decreeing that anyone creating a parody account would be banned should they not directly announce the imitation.
The ever-resourceful and witty Kathy Griffin then moved on to her deceased mother’s account where she clapped back at the billionaire and a battle of tweets took off between the two, with Griffin standing by her decision and Musk cracking some tired and old jokes at the comedian’s expense.
The hashtag #FreeKathy quickly picked up and began trending across the platform, with users calling on Musk to take a joke (something he said he was bringing back to Twitter) and let Kathy back into her account. We’re sure Jimmy Fallon would’ve much preferred a fun hashtag like this one as compared to #RIPJimmyFallon. As of this reporting, Elon Musk and his team haven’t replied to Jimmy Fallon’s cries for help.
