The beloved character whom we all grew to know and love has been shot to death.
"I can't believe he's dead... what are we as a society going to do now?" exclaimed one distraught witness to the crime who asked not to be named.
According to early reports from police, Dustin was just leaving his home he shared with his mother Emily Diamond when he was gunned down.
"This is a tragedy. I am confident that our investigation will reveal the culprit behind this heinous act," commented Detective James Progman, in charge of the investigation.
Although Dustin was mainly known for his role as Screech on Saved By the Bell, he has recently been involved with some instructional chess videos, possibly to make ends meet.
Interview with Dustin Diamond
Purchase the chess video
Watch Dustin's Chess Video
Article comments
1 - Craig Lyndall
Is there a link to a story?
2 - Eric Olsen
I find no reference to this anywhere - we need to designate if it is fiction.
3 - Rodney Welch
Crushkill's website indicates that he has spent a lot of time reading The Onion. This article is just more of the same, I feel certain.
4 - Eric Olsen
I have designated it "fiction"
5 - Craig Lyndall
Umm... not that I would be overly affected either way, but where is the punchline?
6 - crushkill
Here's the punchline :
http://www.crushkill.com/archives/dustin.wmv
7 - Natalie Davis
I did not see any fiction designation. I thought it was real, and as a onetime fan of "Saved by the Bell," the news was upsetting, not only to me but my family, who heard me exclaim, "Oh my god, the actor who played Screech was shot to death!" This isn't funny in the slightest. Had there been a "fiction" designation, it might have been, esp. the chess reference. Instead, this was pretty rotten.
8 - Craig Lyndall
The witness' exclamation made me think it wasn't true and that is why I posted for a link. War of the Worlds this is not.
9 - Eric Olsen
I was pretty startled too. I don't have a problem with satire, fiction, faux news, etc, but we need to be very careful to designate it as such so we don't have these kinds of reactions. Most of our news is NEWS and we can't confuse people.
10 - Eric Olsen
Okay, we have resolved this and any future confusion/alarm by adding a Humor and Satire subcategory under Et Cetera, which this post has officially been dubbed.
11 - Natalie Davis
In other words, someone has to get to the end of the damn thing before they realize that this is a hoax. In order for the categories to be visible to me, I have to change the text size on the page, and I may not be alone in that. Is it possible to insert the word Fiction, Hoax, Satire, Nasty Rotten Joke, or something similar in the title so that there is not room for error here?
12 - Eric Olsen
okay Nat!
13 - Tom Johnson
I have no problem with satire, but is Blogcritics really the place for something like this? I'm not picking on Crushkill or anyone else, I'm trying to point something out. This kind of satire can really upset people, and since BC isn't really known for this kind of content, it may tar us with a bad feather, so to speak, if things like this continue to pop up.
Since the category of the item shows up only at the very, very bottom of the piece, even after the Amazon links, it's easy to miss. Maybe the category listing should be moved to the top of the entry, under the title, so it's easy to determine what you're looking at. We're definitely not The Onion, so this kind of content might mislead a lot of readers. It's something to think about, at least.
14 - Eric Olsen
All of these considerations are important, and I will see if we can move the subcategory listings up to the top of the page, but I also think it will usually be pretty obvious, such as with the nightclubbing Saddam post.
15 - Natalie Davis
Thanks, Eric.
16 - claudia congiu
hello, i'm claudia i come from holland i cant believe, dustin is dead i look every day to save by the bell on nickelodeon. when is he dead?? and way??
17 - Eric Olsen
he isn't dead - this was a joke. Look again at the title of the story