Deceit Tweet

I like Twitter.
I am astonished and amused at what people tweet.
People out there have great little accounts, tweeting away about their days, posting photos or short jokes or links to things they've created.

There are also parody accounts of famous people, companies or inanimate objects making the zeitgeist. These are often entertaining and everybody involved is in on the deal because they state "parody" in the bio.

Then there are fake accounts. Accounts created and tweeted from by people pretending to be someone well-known. I am not sure what they are for. The person pretending to be someone else must have an unusual agenda.

In my short time on Twitter I have come into contact with only 2 fake accounts which left a lasting impression.

There was the account set up a few years back supposedly by Gary Glitter, to promote his musical comeback. The person behind the tweets must have read some vitriol on his timeline but simply would tweet: "Just wait until you hear the new album, that'll change your mind"

The Twitter corner I frequent was quick to RT "Gary" into my feed and quicker to then oust the account as fake.

Well, obviously it was fake! At no point, reading the tweets did I think Gary Glitter would be actually back recording a new album to both win back his respect in the industry and bring back "Glam".

The account was quickly suspended.

Only last week a fake Christopher Eccleston account appeared. Within hours he had 20,000 followers (including me). I like Eccleston. He might even be my favourite Doctor. I have to admit I suspected it was a fake account.

It didn't need a whole lot of deduction on my part. I read his tweets.

I strongly feel Christopher Eccleston would not set up a twitter account to tweet photos of DVD stands in an HMV he's in with the title:
"Ah HMV, I love these prices"

Although it would make my year, if he did. Because that is comedy genius.

I wish I had a twitter account set up to tweet photos of things in HMV and "I love these HMV prices". Trust me, I would never get bored of tweeting that.


But I don't have the time. And I'd say neither does Christopher Eccleston.

I continued to follow despite my developing suspicion. I wanted to see just where this was going.

Like all these fake accounts the account holder quickly goes mad with the power, tweeting with increasing frequency. Within 12 hours CE was tweeting about going for run, making a cup of tea (both getting 100's of favourites - what??) live tweeting a Harry Potter film (he bought the DVD from HMV, presumably - though didn't mention it, which was an open goal miss) and finally tried to get his suggested hashtags trending.

It seemed that most people commenting on these tweets were not actually acknowledging the content of them at all. They would write undiluted whovian adulation towards Christopher. Which is fine - but Christopher clearly isn't here to read them.

Still people tweeted, begging him for a selfie to prove his presence as genuine. None was forthcoming, though more tweets came:
"You don't believe I am me? You don't know me, you don't know what I like to tweet!"

Which I imagine Jesus might also tweet on his 2nd coming. Jesus would definitely have a twitter account. "You don't know what I like to tweet - I just really enjoy the prices in HMV. JC out."

Jesus would also end his tweets "JC out", I would suggest.

Predictably the fake Eccleston account was soon suspended and the person behind it with his mission to... promote HMV?... was over. I can now go back to believing Eccleston is a regular independent record store customer.

Anyway, fake accounts - they are weird.