T O P I C R E V I E W |
Fluffy |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 01:32:57 AM from nancies.org news:
Neither Paul nor Dave Dead By Waldo Jaquith Jan.29.2003
"Paul is dead."
The long-running circa-late-1960s rumor that the Beatles' Paul McCartney had died and been replaced with a look-alike is legendary in rock. Though it remains unclear where the rumor first started, it was repeated by disc jockeys, fans, and (one must assume) mischievous promoters. Many listeners needed no more evidence than the Abbey Road cover, which famously featured the four Beatles walking across a crosswalk. John Lennon took the lead, clad all in white, as an angel showing the way to heaven. Then Ringo Starr, in all black, like a priest, or the bereaved. Next is a clean-shaven Paul, out of step with the rest of the band, barefoot, wearing a suit, and holding a cigarette in his right hand; he, of course, was seen as the dead man. Finally, George Harrison was in back, dressed casually in blue jeans, in the manner of a gravedigger. Many more hints were perceived on the cover (a car's license plate read "28 IF," indicating that Paul would have been 28 if he were still alive; Paul, being left handed, would never hold his cigarette in his right hand, though a look-alike may not know that, etc., etc.), though whether or not this was done to fan the flames is unknown. Regardless of the Beatles' role in the conspiracy theories, "Paul is dead" became a fundamental aspect of the Beatles' culture, proved to be a compelling aspect of their fame.
Much like Paul McCartney, Dave Matthews is alive and well. This may seem obvious, but it was called into question beginning on the evening of Monday, January 27th, thanks to a hoax CNN website. (The site has since disappeared.) The rather-unconvincing webpage featured a poorly-written article claiming that Dave had died of a drug overdose. It was such an obvious hoax that, of all the e-mails that nancies.org received from Monday night until late Tuesday morning, every one of them referred the article as being obviously fake.
Dave Matthews Band fans are, understandably, not prone to believing such things. This is because stories of band members' untimely demises have been circulating since the very first days of the band. The story throughout the mid- to late-90s was that Dave had AIDS, and would surely die within months. This spread not through falsified news articles, but through word of mouth. It more or less died off a few years ago, but it's still a story that's heard every so often. As the web became a more popular news medium over the past few years, creating counterfeit news stories on official-looking duplicates of major news sites has become commonplace. Roughly every six months, a fake version of the official Dave Matthews Band site declares that Carter Beauford has died in a car accident, a fake version of MTV's website sadly tells of Tim Reynolds' unfortunate death in a car-vs-train incident, or a fake version of CNN's website reports that the entire band has died in a tragic bus collision. Every one of these has been met with a limited reaction of surprise, followed by relief, with an impact largely confined to the on-line community of a few tens of thousands of hard-core fans.
Not so with this week's hoax CNN site. This went from fake news story to a nasty rumor, a new breed of rumor that Dave Matthews Band had never witnessed before. By the second day of the rumor, Tuesday afternoon, it was being discussed on-air at radio stations, passed around via e-mail and instant messages, and even talked about on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. At nancies.org, we normally take the tack of ignoring stories like that, in the hope that they'll go away. By Tuesday afternoon, we realized that approach wouldn't prove sufficient, and we posted a note on our discussion forums entitled "Dave Matthews Is Not, in Fact, Dead," in hopes of clearing this up. Given the scope of the rumor, it would be impossible for us to quash it entirely, but we hoped that people would take nancies.org as an authority on the matter, and that might stem the flow.
That appeared to be moderately successful, particularly because so many major music news outlets rely on nancies.org for Dave Matthews Band news. But what really solved the problem was an unprecedented move on the part of DMB – they put a (somewhat vague) note on their website in an effort to debunk the myth. It read:
"A REMINDER ABOUT HOAX STORIES Please be aware that from time to time individuals may post hoax statements about the band. Any important news about the band or its members will always be reported on this site. If the news is major and not here, it is a hoax."
(Of course, major news often appears on nancies.org and not on the official DMB site, but that's neither here nor there.)
If e-mail and discussion board postings are any indication, it looks like that note on their website may have been sufficient to put a stop to things. Radio stations around the country are following up yesterday's story with excerpts from nancies.org's clarifying comments, the panicky e-mails have stopped, and things appear to be returning to normal.
Long-term, of course, this is good for the band. It results in them being talked about, which ultimately sells albums. Unlike the Beatles, however, nobody is claiming that Dave Matthews Band started this rumor themselves. Until the cover art for the next album is made available, though, nobody will know for sure; if Dave is barefoot, then we may really have a conspiracy theory on our hands. |
17 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
Fluffy |
Posted - 02/08/2003 : 11:08:20 PM In Tericee's absence, I will pick up the mantle:
f-a-r-C-e
HEHE |
KevinLesko |
Posted - 02/08/2003 : 01:38:39 AM I guess my coworker Sarah had a rude awakening because one of her friends called her early one morning repeating to her what she had heard on the radio (that Dave was dead)... but she just hopped on the net and didnt see any stories about it so she knew it was a FARSE |
Fluffy |
Posted - 02/07/2003 : 04:19:29 AM St Jude wrote: quote: i heard, ummm, that dave, ummm, hates tim... umm... because when dave had an overdose... ummm tim was there in the hospital... and umm... he was trying to put a pillow over daves face, and he was gunna get a body transplant, so he could take daves body.... and ummm.... go on living as dave, and just say that his voice was dammaged in the od... and umm... continue on as dave.....in the band........... and then the monkey bit me.
........causing him to spew up "ostrich intestines"!!!
I am sure glad noone misquotes you out of context. Someone could take anyone of those lines and just run with it. HEHE Of course their defense would be, "Well, St Jude said......." |
SpaceMonkey |
Posted - 02/05/2003 : 11:02:35 PM C'mon! I'm right here! I just posted like 3 times tonight! Where are you getting your info?! |
NOTspacemonkey |
Posted - 02/05/2003 : 10:59:05 PM Hey do you guys hear that Spacemonkey died? I think his car went off a cliff or something. |
Saint Jude |
Posted - 02/05/2003 : 8:16:37 PM i heard, ummm, that dave, ummm, hates tim... umm... because when dave had an overdose... ummm tim was there in the hospital... and umm... he was trying to put a pillow over daves face, and he was gunna get a body transplant, so he could take daves body.... and ummm.... go on living as dave, and just say that his voice was dammaged in the od... and umm... continue on as dave.....in the band........... and then the monkey bit me. |
pcbTIM |
Posted - 02/05/2003 : 8:14:08 PM Ahhhhhhh.......don't you just love rumors?! One thing I've never understood is the statement that all rumors have some truth to them. To me, that has never made any sense. After all, all you need is an idiot with a wild imagination and the rumors just start flying through the woodwork. |
therippa |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 5:05:56 PM I posted the link to the fake CNN page the day this happened, but soon after it was taken down do I deleted my forum topic. The article was poorly written anyways. I was going to put "Hoax" in html comments (until I realized this board doesn't support html) just so I wouldn't be deemed as a flaming asshat |
Erich |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 1:54:22 PM quote: Originally posted by CannonBalls
quote: Originally posted by PJK
CONGRAT'S on the 8000 posts! Post whoring....hell yes!!!HEHEHE
(But in between the post whore's are meaningful messages.)
This just in:
In even more exciting news, fans of the DMB who have 1000's upon 1000's of posts at other DMB boards (*cough* Erich *cough*) act as if they hate the DMB on TR messageboards to look "cooler."
More news as it comes in..
I posted the same thing on ants many times. And im very open about thinking you and a lot of those dmb fans are idiots. Whats your point? I go there to socialize with some of the folks i happen to like and laugh at trite like "oh no, daves dead?!" |
victorwootenfan |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 11:41:10 AM hahaha, nice fake cnn story! yeah i was browsing nancies and saw it there as the hoax. some people are so gullible! |
CannonBalls |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 09:01:45 AM quote: Originally posted by genome
quote: In even more exciting news, fans of the DMB who have 1000's upon 1000's of posts at other DMB boards (*cough* Erich *cough*) act as if they hate the DMB on TR messageboards to look "cooler."
so you think it looks cool to hate dmb huh well you're just one fucking huge contradiction arent you.
I think you're a bit confused there, hot-shot. |
genome |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 08:50:02 AM quote: In even more exciting news, fans of the DMB who have 1000's upon 1000's of posts at other DMB boards (*cough* Erich *cough*) act as if they hate the DMB on TR messageboards to look "cooler."
so you think it looks cool to hate dmb huh well you're just one fucking huge contradiction arent you. |
CannonBalls |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 08:42:39 AM quote: Originally posted by PJK
CONGRAT'S on the 8000 posts! Post whoring....hell yes!!!HEHEHE
(But in between the post whore's are meaningful messages.)
This just in:
In even more exciting news, fans of the DMB who have 1000's upon 1000's of posts at other DMB boards (*cough* Erich *cough*) act as if they hate the DMB on TR messageboards to look "cooler."
More news as it comes in.. |
genome |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 08:24:53 AM dave has aids i didn't know. |
PJK |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 06:31:03 AM CONGRAT'S on the 8000 posts! Post whoring....hell yes!!!HEHEHE
(But in between the post whore's are meaningful messages.) |
Erich |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 03:26:10 AM and heres my reaction to all that:
|
Miss Sorrel |
Posted - 02/04/2003 : 02:01:45 AM Well, I really don't have much to say about this topic, although it does point out that fame isn't all glamour. I couldn't imagine what it is like to be so big that people would create rumors about your death for shits and giggles. Dumbasses.
I would however like to reflect that the first post of this topic is Fluffy's 8000th. Now that is being a post-whore!! |
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