Ask the Trollacle: Twitter fakes

FutureFake writes;

Hi Trollacle,

I have an idea for an excellent and funny way to make the political comments that I have until now only been able to dazzle my partner with. My eagerness to share those insights has occasionally led to our conversations being sidetracked, so to spare her I am thinking of doing a political ‘fake’ twitter account.

Hi FutureFake. Here’s the short version: no.

Here is the slightly less short version – a checklist I have prepared;

Are you @BigHarto?

If you answered yes, proceed with your idea. If you answered no, do not. Under any circumstances.

The Australian Twittersphere is overrun with terrible TERRIBLE fakes. These fakes may have even had one joke, which they expended it on day one, and they’ve spent all of their subsequent time trying to recapture their former glory. The midlife crisis for most Twitter fakes happens on about day three, but they do not die with dignity on day six, or even week six.

You probably imagine yourself creating a persona like @FakeFielding. You may even have a photo you want to use. Well FakeFielding had at least THREE jokes that he used. That’s 50 per cent more jokes than @GetUpPR.

However, it is 96.7 per cent more likely that the would-be fake has no jokes at all, other than being one themselves. These are the poor desperate souls who cling frantically to an assumed name hoping it will save them from drowning in a sea of banality, bile and bad spelling.

So please, DO NOT DO IT. There are better ways. Tweet under a pseudonym. Get a blog. Get a spot on a late night commentary show on Sky News that nobody watches but advertising agencies love because they can tell clients they’ve bought ads for them during national news programming, and then pocket the change.

This is not When Harry met Sally. Faking in public is not funny, or endearing, and we CAN tell the difference.