Are you trending on Twitter because you've died?

I have this problem: Whenever I see a celebrity's name trending on Twitter, I immediately assume they've died and I just haven't seen the news yet.

It's a morbid, yet growing vexation I have with Twitter's trending topic feature. Today, for example, someone I've never heard of -- a dude called Jarrod Washburn -- began trending. My first thought? 'Has Jarrod Washburn died?' which was followed swiftly by, 'Who the hell is Jarrod Washburn?'.

He hadn't died. But tragically, Sir Bobby Robson did pass away today after a lengthy battle with cancer. And of course, RIP Sir Bobby Robson became a trending topic as people remember him, share memories and pay their respects.

Before this, we had of course Michael Jackson, who trended for probably the longest period any single celebrity has. And let us not forget the trouble this problem caused for Jeff Goldblum.

I don't like the fact that I now have to prepare to read that someone I respect has suddenly died, or perhaps had a tragic accident. And I hate discovering the news that someone has died by reading a stream of tweets from idiots asking, 'OMG Y IS DIS PERSON TRENDING??!!!111ONEONEONE'.

Truthfully, the whole concept of trending topic lists on Twitter gives me sadface. The en masse vocalisation of collective idiocy means that my homepage is filled with links to pages full of comments from utter morons. And now, to add to that, I assume it will be these very morons that inform me Eminem has died (he started trending as I wrote this article -- I'll update when I find out if he's dead or not).

Perhaps I'm alone with this annoyance, but I bet I'm not. Let me know if it's an issue you've run into.

Update: Eminem isn't dead. High five!