Last week Twitter was an epicenter of news and video links about the massive Russian meteorite explosion. Hours after the event, there was already one meteor-related parody account registered and pining for attention. Of all people, a comedian stepped up and this time stopped the distasteful trend of parody usernames that take advantage of public events.
Comedian Jake Fogelnest wagged his finger in disapproval of the first meteor masquerader, and created an account for himself to extinguish any and all momentum for future meteor-related accounts.
Fogelnest put out this statement: “I felt a responsibility to protect the public. I think it was effective in shaming them into realizing what they were doing was wrong. I hope they felt bad. They are a bad person.”
Parody accounts are no stranger to the 175 million registered users on Twitter. They often generate massive followings, but with very little interesting content to justify their existence. Marco Rubio’s infamous water bottle sip during his response to the State of Union speech sprang @rubiowaterbottle. The account never really took off, deemed no competition to the rapid wit of the Twitter community.
Fogelnest isn’t against the idea of fake accounts, he just believes there is a time and place. Like the Russian meteor, hearing that from a comedian just might be a once in a hundred year event.
Source BuzzFeed
