APRIL FOOLS Herb Kim is fine: SORRY!

Updated on April 1st – 1159 BST

It started out as a weird idea I had while looking into bulletproof coffee. I wanted to give it a try but realized most of it including coconut milk and other things which would put me in hospital for a long time. This got me thinking, imagine if Dave Asprey suddenly discovered a coconut allergy and ended up in hospital, which lead me to think maybe as a April fools joke Herb Kim could be the subject of the near death as he is the person who came up with the name.

I always knew death is a very touchy subject for many/most people. But I guess I became more comfortable with my own mortality since mybrushwithdeath. In retrospect I didn’t guess how bad things would get.

Me and Herb talked about it in detail a while ago over dinner and twitter. He agrees it would be slighly fun and frankly its April fools, so can easily be dismissed (so we thought). I honestly thought the fake photo which I put together in Gimp using one of my own from Thinking Digital Manchester last year and a picture of coffee cup from pixabay would be taken apart in seconds. Then created this blog post saying Herb had died rest in peace.

On top of all this, I did recruit some friend to also send/share/be in on the joke.

It was pretty early I got a reply from a few friends saying they won’t take part and this was unwise. But I thought, it will be fine most would realise what day it was and ignore it or even play along?

Here’s the original blog post…

Its so sad to hear Herb Kim died today, rest in peace Herb and hope you are forever bulletproof in the afterlife.

Herb creator of the Thinking Digital conference, a whole ton of TedX’s, good friend and person who came up with the term bulletproofcoffee.

It was about 0900 when I got my first call, asking is this true… I pleded I didn’t know the details. Then a second one a hour later with text messages. Then some messages on facebook once this blog post had been posted. Then there was the direct messages and twitter questions… By 1000 I was ready to confess all!

Worst April Fool "joke" ever this morning about someone dying.

— Josh R (@technicalfault) April 1, 2017

I’ve always been interested in the study of mementics and find Aprils fools
a interesting thought experiment especially in the face of fakenews and the growing worries over algorithmic personalisation; and our desire to share it.

I sit having breakfast at 1136 worried I went too far and people will absolutely hate what I started. It was always meant as a april fools joke and maybe I went too far? Someone suggested I should have said Herb was kidnapped or something so out there you can’t help but laugh and realise its a joke. Death is too far and I had crossed that line.

So this is my massive sorry to everyone…

…who was worried and messaging Herb to ask. It started out as a joke between friends and quickly spun into something else. I never meant to worry people but its crazy how quick these things move. On the good side it shows how much people care for each other that they will get in touch and find out rather than just clicking.

Of course Herb was across everything and family memers knew in advance. This was not a publicity stunt to increase the profile of bulletproof coffee, I just thought it was a good catch; Herb ‘not bulletprood’ Kim.

Sorry everyone again… Won’t be doing anything like this again! Ever!

https://twitter.com/herbkim/status/848250508854915073