We’re so utterly connected to the internet all of the time that it’s become a quick way of our mates locating us. We might not text our friends to tell them we got home alright, but they’ll see our tweets the next morning, grumbling about a hangover and take it as a given that we arrived/stumbled safely into the comfort of our bed (surrounded by discarded clothes and the remnants of a kebab).
Social media has become such a reliable way of checking up on each other that, unless you suffix any absence from social media with a Facebook post checking into the Wetherspoons of an airport departure lounge or an Instagram picture of a beach scene, there’s no way of disappearing from the internet for a few days without friends getting in touch wondering if we’re dead. Lucky for us, then, that we’ve only got a handful of friends who worry about our whereabouts, because poor Miley Cyrus was the victim of a death hoax after she stopped posting on Instagram for three days.
She’s so permanently online, uploading reams of selfies on a daily basis, that a long weekend departed from Instagram led dedicated Smilers (that’s what her fans call themselves, fact fans) to believe that she had departed her mortal coil.
If you search ‘Miley Cyrus’ on Twitter now, related searches are ‘Miley Cyrus dead’, ‘Miley Cyrus pregnant’ and ‘Miley Cyrus tattoo’. But the rumour started on Facebook, where a hoax post read: ‘{SHOCKING) Miley Cyrus Found Dead in Her Los Angeles Home! Country singer Miley Cyrus found overdosed this afternoon in her Los Angeles home.’
When users clicked on the post, they were directed to another site presumably full of fit-induceing flickering gifs where they would then be encouraged to share the page further and then take part in surveys to make money for some mysterious bot-sites, reports The Independent.
And they began to really freak out after HollywoodLife ran an ‘Is Miley Cyrus Dead?’ story.
Instead of responding to the tweets, or HollywoodLife, Miley proved just how alive she is by returning to Instagram, posting a photo of herself, topless, looking out onto the desert. She didn't pose next to a copy of today's paper though, so we don't have definite proof she is utterly alive, but maybe we'll give her the benefit of the doubt on this one.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.