Mitt Romney's latest gaffe prompted a surge in political parodies, proving Twitter is still the place for the best fake commentary
In the hours after a politically entertaining or damning bit of news makes its way around the internet, the mysterious minds behind Twitter's silver-tongued community of parody accounts start working overtime.
This time, it was Mitt Romney's inflammatory comments about 47% of Americans not paying taxes that got the tweeters going.
Romney's comments were made at a fundraiser in May in Boca Raton, the footage of which landed in the hands of David Corn, a reporter at Mother Jones.
On Twitter, the peanut gallery included [fake] Mitt Romney, [fake] Barack Obama, [fake] Joe Biden and [fake] Paul Ryan. Even though the accounts were offering parody – a long-standing perk of Twitter's huge loopholes when it comes to establishing identity – the chorus of commentary was sharp, and took on the implications for Romney's campaign:
Here at The Guardian, we decided to give some superlative-style awards to the best commentaries on Romney's latest gaffe:
Joking aside, it turns out that the people behind accounts like these actually have some sway, even if their immediate influence is measured in the blink-of-an-eye life of a tweet. You may remember that @InvisibleObama cropped up within minutes of Clint Eastwood's disastrous speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa last month. Ian Schafer, the New Jersey-based digital strategist who launched the account, says it logged 40,000 followers within the first day.
"The followers started coming in by the hundreds, then thousands," Schafer told The Guardian Tuesday. "I realized I had a responsibility, so I kept going with it."
Schafer received a crash course in political parody, and quickly learned that the combination of television, online conversation and politicians saying ridiculous things could be an explosive, if invisible, success.
Schafer again snapped to attention Monday evening, after Romney's inflammatory remarks became public.
"Politics is also something that has become so polarizing," Schafer said, "and something people feel so passionately about, that maybe people are looking for snark and humor to help diffuse the situation."
What these accounts are doing is nothing new. Just before the 2010 election, I put together this piece about fake Twitter accounts and American politicians. I called it a love story, because Twitter was and still is the perfect place for inventive weirdos to flock. Back then, Mayor Emanuel, Zombie Obama and Fake Sarah Palin ruled the day.
In the fleeting world of tweeting, accounts don't stay around forever. The fake Emanuel feed gave way to a book deal for its operator, Dan Sinker, but the other accounts have fizzled out.
Schafer, however, continues to keep going. With seven weeks to go until the election, he wants to use the account to entertain and energize some 69,000 followers.
Invisible Obama will "continue to try to make politics more clear. He will seek to make what the candidates say in the debates more transparent. You may not be able to see him, but he's not going away".