Is Katrina Kaif dead? No, but a 2013 death hoax has been started by a fake news website that’s intended to mock the media.
As previously reported by The Inquisitr , the Jackie Chan death hoax was one of the most popular reoccurring hoaxes this past year, although it’s possible the Andy Kaufman stunt may be more memorable because it seemed to convince his family that Andy may still be alive.
Or did it really fool his grieving relatives? Some reports claim Andy’s brother Michael was in on the joke .
This is how the hoax describes Katrina Kaif’s death:
“At about 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday (November 13, 2013), our beloved actress Katrina Kaif passed away. Katrina Kaif was born on July 16, 1984 in Hong Kong. She will be missed but not forgotten. Please show your sympathy and condolences by commenting on and liking this page.”
Unlike many death hoaxes, there’s no embedded virus or direct scam. There’s also very few details about the actual death. For example, Jackie Chan’s death hoax describes an accident during a stunt. But in this case, the only intent is to get people to click on the links in order to garner advertising money.
The Katrina Kaif death hoax was started by a website called Mediamass.net that describes itself as a “medium of satire [intended] to expose with humor, exaggeration and ridicule the contemporary mass production and mass consumption that we observe.” You’re reading that correctly. This fake death hoax is completely made up news attempting to mimic The Onion except with satire instead of humor. Which, to a very limited extent, does have a point since many websites will spread such celebrity news like wildfire.
And the strategy seems to be working. Even though there’s not a real death hoax surrounding Ms. Kaif, other sites focused on celebrity death hoaxes have reported it as a genuine hoax (talk about an oxymoron!). Even an India-based forum got readers talking and angry .
One of our Inquisitr readers summarized this approach to generating internet traffic:
“This hoax is stupid and wrong. Only the lowest of the low will lie about a celebrity dying all so they can get subscribers to their page or website.”
Do you think it’s okay to portray Katrina Kaif dead under the guise of satire?
