As you surely are aware by now, over the weekend, both 50 year-old Bernie Mac and 65 year-old Isaac Hayes died. The former succumbed to pneumonia after several weeks of speculation over his health; the latter apparently collapsed whilst exercising at home. At first, the news––especially in regards to Mac––was greeted with shock. But by late Sunday, the two deaths had been conflated into a meme of jokes about how Samuel L. Jackson should, as one Tumblr put it, “head to his doctor tout de suite.”

Surely, some of the jokes were of the spontaneous, “Quick! Think of another middle-aged black man in the entertainment industry!” variety. But pretty much any of that was cut short when a number of bloggers received a press release from Daryl Toor, “CEO & Chief Awareness Officer” for AttentionPR. The subject of the email: Is Samuel Jackson Next? Death Comes in Threes.

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