Cher scholar Robrt sent me this link today: Margaret Thatcher Hashtag Confuses Cher Fans
As I mentioned to him, the headline irks me for two reasons:
- Not only fans were confused, and
- The headline and article play into the media's idea that
Cher fans, particularly Americans it pains to point out, are dumb and entertainment-obsessed. Forget the fact that we do give off this impression for a minute. Did you
ever see that story about how certain lawyers were asking jury pools if
they were Cher fans…because Cher fans are more gullible:
Howard Varinsky, the jury consultant for prosecutors
in the Martha Stewart case, who advises potential jurors be asked who
their favorite famous person is. Varinsky told Crowley that a person who
chooses Ronald Reagan rather than Cher, for example, might be too smart
for defense lawyers to accept in a complex case. “In a case where you
have a lot of complex information to process, I think you would want
somebody who likes Cher.” Source
Cher fans need to do what that New Mexico liscence plate recommended to me last Thursday, Nerd Up!
#nowthatchersdead — why are those Brits always so verbose anyway?
That’s good perspective Laurie…thank you for talking me down. 🙂
According to this from the Guardian, this was, following in a now grand tradition of Cher’s death-related Twitter tomfoolery, a joke that was taken too seriously. Admittedly, yes, by Brits who are looking for evidence of American/youthful ignorance:
“[S]omeone deliberately misread a hashtag, composed a sarcastic tweet suggesting that it was Cher who had died and watched as people repeated it again and again until a handful of journalists and Ricky Gervais decided that it was a genuine trend, even though it wasn’t.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/shortcuts/2013/apr/08/who-is-margaret-thatcher-confusion
That’s good perspective Laurie…thank you for talking me down. 🙂