As the Twitter turns: Chappelle’s (no) Show Portland or Dave’s not here… wait hold the phone, yes he is

[HTML1]Now, it’s not like I haven’t fallen victim to silly Twitter rumors before. I have. Innumerable times. Guilty and guilty. But this one has to top all of the others.

[HTML3]Seems that sometime today a little Twitter rumor started that comedian Dave Chappelle was going to stage a secret show in Pioneer Square. Well, and you know. One thing led to another. And Portland does love the Twitter. And pretty soon there were thousands of people in Pioneer Square.

But the question remained: would Dave Chappelle make an appearance?

No one was really sure. Although KGW meteorologist Matt Zaffino continued to stoke the Twitter rumor. And Squid Vicious from KNRK got a great panning shot of the crowd.

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But in the end, there was no Dave Chappelle. Or in the immortal words of Chong, “Dave’s not here.

Now, to be sure, Twitter isn’t the only one to blame. There were a few other publications good naturedly fueling the rumor, albeit with a good dose of skepticism and snark.

Luckily, we may be saved from wider criticism for our naivete thanks to one small saving grace—our inability to spell “Chappelle” correctly seems to have prevented it from trending on Twitter.

UPDATE

Go ahead and cross out all of that subpar writing up above there. I’ve got a retraction to print in the middle of my post.

Just as I was about to hit publish on my oh-so-witty diatribe, who to the crowd’s wandering eyes should appear but Dave Chappelle in Portland’s Pioneer Square. Just as Twitter promised.

Well, almost. He showed up right around 1 AM.

And here with a bunch of Qik video—which rivals the bigfoot videos in quality—is Varun Thota.

So the rumor that was a hoax turned out to be the truth. Stranger things have happened. And—appropriately enough—it’s all been captured on Twitter.

So see, Virginia? There is a Dave Chappelle. And a Twitter flash mob in Portland. And all is good in the world.

UPDATE 2

The incomparable PDX Pipeline has found four videos of Dave Chappelle in Portland’s Pioneer Square where you can actually hear what he’s saying.

(Crowd image courtesy ᖌαƨօƞ. Used under Creative Commons. Chapelle photo courtesy riotgrrrl6161)