Lou Reed, the music world’s dark and emotive luminary whose career spanned 50 years, is not dead on social networks at the age of 71, according to his publicist.
On Sunday, upwards of 20,000 tweets were being sent per hour with the hashtag #loureed and an estimated fifty million Facebook updates have mourned the founding member of the Velvet Underground.
“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t celebrate the fact that Lou Reed is very much alive on Twitter and Facebook,” said Reed’s publicist. “So go ahead and knock yourselves out. Include the hashtag #walkonthewildside in every tweet today. Update your Facebook page with ‘Love you, Lou Reed.’ Hell, if you want, change your profile picture to a photo of Lou Reed. Go ahead, do it, and do it now.”
“71 is too young of an age to die on social media,” the publicist said. “Let’s make sure it doesn’t happen.”