Nate Lanxon

Nate Lanxon is CNET UK's Senior Editor of News and Features, and covers every aspect of technology for Crave. He also enjoys popular-science books, obscure Japanese animation and plays 'technical metal' on the drums, whatever that is.

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Friday 31 July 2009, 6:21pm

Are you trending on Twitter because you've died?

I have this problem: Whenever I see a celebrity's name trending on Twitter, I immediately assume they've died and I just haven't seen the news yet.

It's a morbid, yet growing vexation I have with Twitter's trending topic feature. Today, for example, someone I've never heard of -- a dude called Jarrod Washburn -- began trending. My first thought? 'Has Jarrod Washburn died?' which was followed swiftly by, 'Who the hell is Jarrod Washburn?'.

He hadn't died. But tragically, Sir Bobby Robson did pass away today after a lengthy battle with cancer. And of course, RIP Sir Bobby Robson became a trending topic as people remember him, share memories and pay their respects.

Before this, we had of course Michael Jackson, who trended for probably the longest period any single celebrity has. And let us not forget the trouble this problem caused for Jeff Goldblum.

I don't like the fact that I now have to prepare to read that someone I respect has suddenly died, or perhaps had a tragic accident. And I hate discovering the news that someone has died by reading a stream of tweets from idiots asking, 'OMG Y IS DIS PERSON TRENDING??!!!111ONEONEONE'.

Truthfully, the whole concept of trending topic lists on Twitter gives me sadface. The en masse vocalisation of collective idiocy means that my homepage is filled with links to pages full of comments from utter morons. And now, to add to that, I assume it will be these very morons that inform me Eminem has died (he started trending as I wrote this article -- I'll update when I find out if he's dead or not).

Perhaps I'm alone with this annoyance, but I bet I'm not. Let me know if it's an issue you've run into.

Update: Eminem isn't dead. High five!

6 Comments | Post a comment

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Comments on this post

Same thing happened to me, I thought william shatner was dead. I nearly had a heart attack.

Posted by Joeheadycus on Sat 1 August, 2009 2:12 PM

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So true.

Posted by Anonymous on Wed 5 August, 2009 3:17 AM

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I don't even have a twitter account :(

Posted by Anonymous on Wed 5 August, 2009 11:19 AM

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It seems that IE6 is also trending due to its demise, not a bad thing in this case

Posted by Anonymous on Wed 5 August, 2009 1:14 PM

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Yeah mentioned that to friends a few weeks ago too. I always fear seeing names pop up now- glad to know I'm not alone.

Posted by Tom M on Wed 5 August, 2009 2:45 PM

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Idiocy? Morons? Masses? You're beginning to sound a touch elitist. You do make the point that you make an assumption when you see a name trending. Does that not suggest that the problem ultimately lies not in the fact that people are talking about a particular topic (intelligently or otherwise), but with the baggage you bring to the situation when you see a person's name show up? I'm teasing of course -- I also tend to assume a trending name indicates news of fresh disaster. But trending topics provide a fascinating glimpse into what people are obsessing over at any particular moment. That's both interesting and, often, disturbing to me.

Posted by Jonathan Strickland on Wed 5 August, 2009 4:10 PM

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