UnNews:Mickey Rooney dead at age 93; millions confused
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This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation. |
8 April 2014
Beloved American actor Mickey Rooney, whose career spanned nearly his entire lifetime, died Sunday at his North Hollywood home, after a decades-long battle with fame. Rooney, the star of countless films during Hollywood's golden era, became the latest in a recent trend by older celebrities: outliving one's own fame, and then dying just to confuse younger Internet users. The trend, known as "bucketing", has become a craze on social media platforms, and has claimed such participants as Nelson Mandela, Pete Seeger, and Richard Petty.
Suzanne Blumpkin, a San Francisco Bay-area graphic design student and amateur living statue, eulogized Mickey Rooney as "one of our generation's best actors," noting his Oscar-nominated performance in The Wrestler. Blumpkin, 25, claimed to be a big fan of Rooney's work, especially "his earlier films, like 9 ½ Weeks". Though she was visibly distraught by the news, Blumpkin was relieved when informed that Mickey Rooney and Mickey Rourke are, in fact, two different people. "Wait, then who's Mickey Rooney?"
John Arrendyche, 23, a waiter and screenwriter in Los Angeles, remembered Mickey Rooney's angry-yet-charming rants on various subjects during his years as a special commentator for CBS's 60 Minutes. "My parents always loved to tune in and watch him wave his arms angrily at 'young folks these days'. It was hilarious. I think I'll miss his eyebrows the most." Arrendyche, when informed that Andy Rooney had already died in November of 2011, was reduced to speechlessness for several minutes, and after being fired for accidentally spilling a plateful of shrimp scampi down a diner's cleavage, added, "Wait, he died again?"
Social scientists say the new trend is one way that older generations are pushing back against the modern youth culture. Baron Münchhausen, a sociologist at FU Berlin, noted that, in earlier times, well-known individuals rarely had time to disappear from popular knowledge before their deaths. "With the Vikings, for instance, a chief or renowned warrior rarely lived to old age, as it was considered more glorious to die in battle. After their deaths, of course, would come the burial in a tumuli, or even a flaming-ship burial, and paeans which would be sung in their honor for decades." However, modern advances in medical science, coupled with higher living standards, allow many notable individuals to comfortably outlive their own notoriety, while remaining only peripherally known. A "bucket", said Münchhausen, gives older celebrities one last boost of notoriety, while simultaneously spiting younger generations. "For older celebrities, what could be better?"
Rooney's death seems to be causing the sharpest degree of confusion with the Internet generation's youngest members. While some know Mickey Rooney from his role in The Family Channel's The Adventures of the Black Stallion, Hannah Dwiebemeister, a 14-year-old Washington, D.C.-based political blogger with frequent contributions to CNN, caused a minor kerfuffle Monday afternoon with this tweet:
Hospitals in the direct vicinity of the tweet reported dozens of facepalm-related injuries. Donna Cantzi, a Seattle woman, was hospitalized with a severe eye injury after attempting a facepalm while knitting a scarf. Said Cantzi, "I just don't understand how she could make a mistake like that! Mickey Rooney and Rooney Mara? How?! They're not even the same gender!" Doctors say Cantzi has a chance of making a full recovery, but will suffer years of ironic jokes based on her own last name.