Hacked Twitter: Do You Have to Fake It To Make It?
Accounts like @Horse_ebooks,
the point b were made to describe a straight line horizontally;
— Horse ebooks (@Horse_ebooks) August 25, 2013
@RealCarrotFacts and
If you hire a small man to hide a carrot in your house then you close your eyes and try to find it ,it will take 3 hours but it’s worth it
— Carrot Facts (@RealCarrotFacts) August 6, 2013
Hello have you enjoy a weather yet?? Do so and buy a #coat thanks
— Not Burlington Coats (@NotCoatFactory) October 10, 2013
have served as amusements for all of Larry the bird’s imaginary nest. With the curtain being torn away from the @Horse_ebooks account recently, hilarious outrage then ensued with tweets like this:
horse_ebooks: a performance art piece to recreate the feeling in grown adults they had when they found out santa wasn’t real
— David Uzumeri (@DavidUzumeri) September 24, 2013
It brings about the age-old question: Can you create viral content or is it meant to be an accomplishment left up to the public to decide?
Even if we agree that viral content can be created, I wonder, are you in fact creating it or are you realizing that meaningful and valuable content can lead you in the direction of viral content?
One thing that the @RealCarrotFacts and @NotCoatFactory accounts have in common is that their messaging revolves around their products. Sure, it’s all a joke, but you can at least give them credit for sticking to their messaging.
Commonality: poor grammar
While it’s hard to dig deep and really analyze the intent and marketing aspects of all three accounts, they do all share one commonality: poor grammar. Does it mean anything other than part of the joke? Probably not.
However, when we look at various examples of hacked Twitter accounts, we run into a chicken-egg scenario. Do accounts like these come about because of the poor grammar of hacked tweets, or do the hacked tweets come from the poor grammar that is so popular on these accounts?
One example happened earlier in the year when Chipotle purposefully faked a hack of its Twitter account. This produced mixed reviews as some considered the move to be deceitful and cheap while others thought the fake tweets accomplished what they were intended to do—generate publicity and gain followers.
Mittens13 password leave
— Chipotle (@ChipotleTweets) July 21, 2013
please twitter
— Chipotle (@ChipotleTweets) July 21, 2013
These accounts have found a way to garner a combined following of more than 340,000 people, so they must be doing something right. So now we ask you: What do you think about fake accounts and fake hacking to generate publicity?
