An Australian teenager has spoken out after she was wrongly presumed dead following the Astroworld tragedy.
Amelyun Nguyen, 17, uploaded a TikTok showing screenshots of some of the alleged rumours around her apparent “death” at Astroworld. The rumours were spread across Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.
On Sunday a tenth victim, 9-year-old Ezra Blount, died after the fatal crush at rapper Travis Scotts’ Astroworld Festival in Houston on 5 November.
Around 50,000 people were at the festival. The tragedy happened when attendees reportedly pushed towards the front of the stage, leaving some unable to breathe.
Nguyen told BuzzFeed News that she doesn’t know how the rumour started, given she’s not even a Travis Scott fan.
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She said: "I was honestly very confused and was wondering how people found my pictures."
Taking to TikTok, she uploaded a clip with the caption: “Woke up and the world pronounced me dead”.
She showed a screenshot of a tweet with a misspelling of her name and a picture of her announcing that she was “the first to be announced dead” at Astroworld.
The tweet, which at the time of publication indy100 could not verify, appeared to have 74,000 likes and had been retweeted 30,000 times.
She also showed screenshots of her Instagram DMs where she could see that people were tagging her account in tribute posts on their Instagram stories.
Another Instagram encounter she had showed someone reaching out to her Instagram in an attempt to contact her parents. They wrote to inform her parents that his school in Toronto organised a GoFundMe for her.
Someone else uploaded a picture of her to Instagram asking for people to share it so her “family can see that we’re all here” for her.
News of her apparent death also spread to TikTok.
Since uploading the video it has garnered over 8.3 million views, 1.4 million likes, and 26,000 comments.
Some made light-hearted comments about the misinformation, with one user writing: “Stage one: denial”, while another said: “It’s like she’s still with us”.
One person wrote: “At least they chose a cute pic.”
Another said: “This reminded me I can literally say anything on the internet and people will just believe it”.
Misinformation and conspiracies related to the tragedy could be seen on TikTok following the crush.
Some TikTokers’ outlandish claims include a theory that the crush was a “Satanic ritual”.
Even today when typing Astroworld into TikTok, you’re given the autocomplete options: “Astroworld demonic”, “Astroworld symbolism”. One TikToker claimed the stage looked like an “upside-down cross” and the triangular shape of the canopy was a “super clear symbol of the Illuminati”.
Indy100 has contacted TikTok for comment.
