The Reason Behind All Those Kim Kardashian and Kanye West Breakup Links: Voting

If you’ve been tricked by tweets that say Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are divorcing, you’re not the only one. Countless people have trolled their Twitter followers with clickbait announcing a fake shocking celebrity new story — with a link that takes the user to register to vote.

One person used Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson’s breakup news to encourage his peers to register.

“Wow I can’t believe this is why Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson split up,” Tim Cigelske posted on Twitter along with a photo of the former couple. The shortened URL at the end of his tweet leads to Vote.org’s voter registration page.

Cigelske’s tweet went viral — and he wrote about it on Medium, saying it has been clicked over two million times, thanks to some celebrity retweets.

But Cigelske wasn’t the first person to hatch the idea. He said he stole it “like any good Twitter meme.” Journalist Ashlee Marie Preston tricked him into clicking in the first place, so he followed suit — and others have done the same, hijacking the link with their own clickbait and news topics.

“omg i can’t believe this is the REAL reason kanye is in Uganda,” someone wrote with the link.

“You have to check this out,” someone tweeted simply.

“wow you’ll never believe where I found this #cheeseburger,” someone even said.

“GUYS ONE DIRECTION IS GETTING BACK TOGETHER!!!!!” someone tweeted.

Even Elle magazine got in on the gag, tweeting that Kardashian and West filed for divorce following West’s wild antics in the White House and on social media as of late.

While some may call the trick cruel and deceiving, others think the meme is pointing out our culture’s obsession with celebrity news. Others say the disappointment you feel when realizing you were tricked by the clickbait could be similar to a feeling you could potentially have when an election you didn’t vote in turns out in an unfavorable way.