Yeah, right! (Source: Twitter)
A day after the death of 53-year-old music icon George Michael, Twitterverse had to brace another shock caused by a tweet from the account of Sony Music Global. “RIP @britneyspears #RIPBritney 1981-2016”, read the tweet by the music firm’s Twitter handle. This was soon followed by another tweet, which read, “britney spears is dead by accident! we will tell you more soon #RIPBritney”.
The tweets set off a flurry of responses by fans and music lovers, and reactions ranged from utter dread at the possibility of losing two music personalities within a matter of a day, to those who simply refused to believe the news. One Twitter user posted, “All we can do now is stream her music and buy her new album glory to remember her #RIPbritney”, while others came up with a series of memes, the most popular of them being her famous number, ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’.
Interestingly, of those to react to the news was Nobel laureate Bob Dylan – who was incommunicado for days after his Nobel win – who tweeted, “Rest in peace Britney Spears”.
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But it seems the Sony account had been hacked, after OurMine posted two tweets referring to the unusual activity. “We detected unusual activity on the account and we checked the account if it’s hacked or not”, read one tweet, followed by, “we saw a new IP logged in to the account a few minutes ago and the tweet is posted by a new IP so @britneyspears is still alive #OurMine”.
Dylan later retweeted this message as well.
“Britney Spears is alive and well, her rep tells CNN. It appears @SonyMusicGlobal erroneously tweeted her death. Sony rep says no comment,” CNN reporter AnneClaire Stapleton tweeted.
The initial RIP Britney tweets mostly saw people using popular Britney Spears memes as reactions, which are currently unavailable as those tweets were subsequently deleted. But what remained was the hashtag #RIPBritney, which soon started picking up traction, and a bevvy of memes that would leave you in splits.
Check these out.
#RIPBritney Leave Britney alone! pic.twitter.com/ToHifuhnRq
— LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! (@hausofjib) December 26, 2016
#RIPBritney
She ain’t dead, but her career is pic.twitter.com/q4PZkABsxA— BBM Baby (@slutropico) December 26, 2016
Britney Spears’ last insta before her son, Sean Preston, accidentally shot her while hunting. #RIPBritney pic.twitter.com/QspMqOTFDn
— #RIPBritney (@DADDYKHANE) December 26, 2016
#RIPBritney stop this nonsense right now pic.twitter.com/7tjKetXzJY
— josh (@joshpls) December 26, 2016
lady gaga finding out britney spears and george michael died on the same day so she can do two tributes #RIPBritney pic.twitter.com/r4u3ifmcnD
— ? (@kyliejenrat) December 26, 2016
“@SonyMusicGlobal: RIP @britneyspears ??#RIPBritney
1981-2016″ pic.twitter.com/F9v27LkeRd— c (@chuuzus) December 26, 2016
.@britneyspears al leer en el Twitter oficial de #SonyMusic:
Britney Spears is dead by accident!
We will tell you more soon#RIPBritney ?? pic.twitter.com/BEJB17hgPG— Roberto Martín (@robbhaifisch) December 26, 2016
soooooo apparently she’s dead lol #RIPBritney pic.twitter.com/QEdmvrtl9f
— yesy? (@yeselynm) December 26, 2016
Britney when she found out she died #RIPBritney pic.twitter.com/io8uUZUInC
— #RIPBritney (@DADDYKHANE) December 26, 2016
And then there was this to round it off
Britney Spears after the #RIPBritney hashtag stops trending pic.twitter.com/trk84PDA4A
— ?? (@blackoutremixed) December 26, 2016
Let’s hope 2016 goes by without another mishap shall we!
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