RIP Betty White

By Michael Brooks

Staff Writer

    Over the weekend, social media was flooded with a posts that said “Betty White Dyes peacefully in her Los Angeles home.” The social media article got so much attention in fact, the article showed up on the national news.

    As people all over stated their condolences and talked about how much Betty was loved, the people who made the post just sat back and laughed.

    The spelling of the word “dyes” should have been a giveaway, but alas, people can’t read. It turns out, this was precisely what the people who started sharing the post again were setting out to prove. You see, this crazy weekend proved a few points; 1) people share an article without verifying how old it is. This particular article was first published in 2014; 2) people will blindly share a headline without reading what the article actually says; and 3) dyes and dies sound the same but they are not. This should have been a giveaway that something didn’t add up.

    For the people who actually do their research, and don’t just blindly reshare posts, this provided validation that articles need to be read and not only the headlines.

     Anyone who actually read the article knows the headline wasn’t misspelled, and the article wasn’t a hoax or fake news as so many people argued.

    The article stated that White, naturally a brunette, dyes her hair blond.

      Some people had no interest in seeing if the article was true. They just said “I just looked it up and she did not die.” Ahhh, but that is not what the article said.

    Others called it fake news. All because they did not click on the link and read what the article said.

    So, while everyone showered Betty with their condolences, she sat back and laughed along with everyone else who was in on the joke. Yes, Betty White said she thought it was pretty funny, too.

    For the millionth time, I will say it: researching something is vital. Reading is fundamental. If something sets out to prove how people randomly just call something fake, and you randomly call it fake, it makes you look not very smart and just adds to the confusion.

    If people want to just continue believing everything they read, I will just dye. My hair, of course.

    Besides, Betty White will never die.