Fans of Canadian pop singer Justin Bieber caused shock and alarm on Monday when thye began participating in a Twitter trending topic that encouraged fellow fans to cut themselves to gain the star's attention. The hashtag #Cut4Bieber made its way among "Belibers" in response to Bieber's recent alleged pot smoking behavior.
According to the NY Daily News, the initial anonymous message stated, "Lets start a cut yourself for bieber campaign. Tweet a bunch of pics of people cutting themselves and claim we did it because bieber was smoking weed. See if we can get some little girls to cut themselves." The first thread was later deleted, but it did not stop the idea from going viral.
The alarming campaign was reportedly started by an anonymous user on the message board website 4Chan.org, the NY Daily News reported. The trending topic earned over 26,000 hits in a mere 12 hours, trending tracker site Topsy reported. The NY Daily News reported that 4Chan was also responsible for a similar hoax in October called #Bald4Bieber, which encouraged fans to shave their heads for the international superstar, who was wrongly reported to have cancer.
The 18-year-old singer has not addressed the hoax, although several other celebrities have. Fellow singer, Miley Cyrus, reportedly tweeted, "Don't blame this on Justin, it's his life no one else's! So stop with this #Cut4Bieber, self harming is serious."
According to the NY Daily News, the performer then deleted her message and opted for a retweet message from @OfficialCANCER that read: "#cutforbieber? Cutting is NOT something to joke about. There are people who are actually suffering from self-harm, this is so disrespectful."
BuzzFeed later reported that a group of anonymous users on 4Chan planned to continue the hoax with the fake deaths of two teens called Addison and Jazzy. The elaborate plan including placing the blame on fellow message board website 9GAG.com as well as creating fake Anonymous videos and fake Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Comments on the story by BuzzFeed, however, could not decide whether the hoax truly emerged from 4Chan or 9GAG.