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Eminem not dead despite #RIPEminem trending with images of random celebs as part of disturbing hoax

Most tweets under the trend were humorous, with many tweeting photos of Ellen DeGeneres, Vice President Mike Pence, Mark Zuckerberg, Tom Holland, and even Justin Timberlake to pay their tributes to the rap artist who is very much alive

The internet is full of absurdities. So it makes sense that on Twitter on Tuesday, August 18, the hashtag “RIP Eminem” had more than 25,000 people tweeting under it. This, despite the fact that there is absolutely no news of the rapper being anything but fine. 

But who can stop the tweets once they have gained momentum? As is common to Twitter trends, a lot of the tweets under the hashtag were K-Pop fancams. And given that the K-pop group BTS dropped its music video teaser for ‘Dynamite’ earlier today, a lot of the fancams were from the teaser. 

But even excluding the fancams, most tweets under the trend were of a humorous nature with many tweeting photos of Ellen DeGeneres, Vice President Mike Pence, Mark Zuckerberg, Tom Holland (and even Justin Timberlake) to pay their tributes to the rap artist who is very much alive. As for the reason for tweeting these celebrities, our guess is because they bear a vague resemblance to the ‘Lose Yourself’ artist. 

A Twitter user wrote, “#ripeminem gone too soon,” with a photo of Zuckerberg.

Another shared a photo of Timberlake and wrote, “rest in piece i guess #ripeminem.”

Sharing a photo of DeGeneres, a Twitter user wrote, “Will be missed #ripeminem gone wayyyy too soon didn’t expect it.”

Another did the same, but with a photo of Pence, and wrote, “#ripeminem you were my idol since middle school.”

Of course, some people were visibly not in on the joke and seemed genuinely shocked that the hashtag was trending. “Bruh I thought Eminem actually died cause it’s 2020 and anything can happen but it’s just yall playing too much again #ripeminem,” wrote a Twitter user. 

Another wrote, “Why is #ripeminem trending he is alive stop doing this it’s 2020 aka the worst year of all time.”

Another said, “Who got #ripeminem trending? Y'all can go straight to hell!”

But the question that remained on many minds is why did the rapper’s death trend for no reason at all. A little bit of digging reveals that it started with an anonymous Twitter account tweeting earlier during the day, “I have killed eminem.”

It’s unclear why this person tweeted that or why the subsequent hashtag trended but such is Twitter. A closer look at the account also revealed the early stages of another fake Twitter trend, "RIP Steve Harvey", in the making. Humor on Twitter is weird, to say the least.