If you read only one writer on the Chuck Biscuits Death Hoax, please please please make it Sam McPheeters.

Although the whole knotty tale highlights the perils of new media, this particular hoax also shares some parallels with the perils of old, old media. Letter writers have been duping each other for eons. Three centuries ago, Jonathan Swift faked the death of almanac-maker John Partridge; Partridge was plagued by mourners for the rest of his life. Wherever Biscuits is, he’s probably grateful he got off with just one day in the hereafter.