Recently, fake death rumors circulated about Abraham Clinkscales, who gained prominence through the viral ‘Jamal did it’ meme.
The online world is so full of information that it is getting increasingly difficult to find out what is true or not. Indeed, with the rise of information, there is also an increase in the spread of disinformation.
Social media handles like TikTok play a pivotal role in these instances, where they are useful in rapidly circulating accurate news, but then are also central in spreading fake news.
Information about the death of a famous TikToker started spreading recently. Abraham Clinkscales is an actor and an athlete, who enjoys a significant following on TikTok and Instagram. His TikTok handle is @Abraham Clinkscales. He also shares funny videos and got attention with his viral ‘Jamal did it’ meme.
Photos and videos started coming out on TikTok with captions like “Famous TikTok star shot dead in Houston”. But soon after netizens looked this up on the internet and found out that the information was false.
What was the ‘Jamal did it’ meme on TikTok?
This meme went viral in October 2022. A video first came out with animations of 4 different people, out of which three were white males and the other was a newborn black kid named “Lulquidication Daquan.” The premise was to see who is more likely to be accused of stealing a KFC burger. The caption under the video said, “We all know who it is, no doubt about it”.
Eventually, the animation of the back baby body was replaced with the childhood picture of Clinkscales and the name was changed to Jamal. Other videos like this one also came out, where the black baby was blamed for crimes instead of the white men.
This meme was supposed to be a funny take on racial stereotypes. But the response to this meme was not good, where people highlighted how the meme is reinforcing and normalizing racial stereotypes.
It is not funny to make such memes in a place with a dreadful history of slavery and where to this day individuals have to participate in movements like Black Lives Matter.
