TikTokers seemingly have no ‘off switch’ to the lengths they’ll go through to garner ‘likes’ and followers. So faking one’s death shouldn’t be a surprise – the only surprise is how no one has tried it before.
45-year old David Baerten is the first.
Dozens of friends and family members dressed in black gathered, waiting for the ceremony to begin until they were met with a landing helicopter containing a very much alive Baerten.
According to Baerten, he wanted to teach his family a lesson about staying in touch, as he felt he’d been getting left out of extended family get-togethers, explaining to The Times UK, “I never get invited to anything. Nobody sees me. We all grew apart. I felt unappreciated. That’s why I wanted to give them a life lesson, and show them that you shouldn’t wait until someone is dead to meet up with them.”
As expected a number of the funeral attendees there were less-than-pleased with unknowingly being a part of the ‘social experiment’ as were many of Baerten’s TikTok followers but, to his credit, Baerten did let his wife and children in on the pseudofuneral – even enlisting them to write tributes to their ‘dead’ father.
In the end, I’m still not sure about what the endgame was here.
Was it to bring the family closer? Was it to up TikTok followers?
No one really knows but at least we know now why he wasn’t invited to those extended family gatherings.
@el.tiktokeur2 Tu nous as eu on t aime mon ami on est content que tu es parmis nous ❤️❤️#pourtoii #fyp #fypシ @Ragnar_le_fou ♬ son original - Thomas faut
[TikTok: el.tiktokeur2] [New York Post]
