Goodnight Sweet Prince

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Goodnight Sweet Prince

(Redirected from Goodnight sweet prince)

The play that inspired the meme.

Date Discovered: 2006

Discovered On: 4chan

Summary

Goodnight sweet prince is a meme popularized on 4chan which is is used, usually falsely, to declare the death of a celebrity. Sometimes it is used to try and fool people into seriously believing the celebrity is dead but other times it is an obvious joke such as when the picture of the wrong celebrity is used to declare that someone is dead.

Very often somebody will follow up with the post/image etc. saying that it is true and they just saw it on CNN.

Origins

The meme was most likely inspired by Shakespeare's famous play Hamlet which is the first place the term was known to be written many hundreds of years ago. There are other notable sources which may have inspired the meme though such as the movies Robocop and The Big Lebowski in which the phrase was used.

“	Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.	„
—Hamlet, Act V

“	"Donny was a good bowler, and a good man. He was one of us. He was a man who loved the outdoors... and bowling, and as a surfer he explored the beaches of Southern California, from La Jolla to Leo Carrillo and... up to... Pismo. He died, like so many young men of his generation, he died before his time. In your wisdom, Lord, you took him, as you took so many bright flowering young men at Khe Sanh, at Langdok, at Hill 364. These young men gave their lives. And so would Donny. Donny, who loved bowling. And so, Theodore Donald Karabotsos, in accordance with what we think your dying wishes might well have been, we commit your final mortal remains to the bosom of the Pacific Ocean, which you loved so well. Good night, sweet prince."	„
—Walter Sobchak

Current status

It is still often used throughout the internet but most people don't fall for it anymore.Once in a while the death actually will turn out to be true but it is so rare that nobody takes anyone who spouts the meme seriously.

Images

		Not even Moot is safe	Barack Obama was in a motorcade? I thought it was Kennedy...

Videos

No Description Provided

"For real this time"

FOX News Chanmel report on Eddie Murphy's death

4chan

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