Sometimes it doesn’t really matter if the Twitter account of someone you’re following is genuine, as long as it’s funny.
Jesus has been gathering followers for two thousand years, so it’s no surprise that he’s built up quite a following on Twitter.
Of course they’re not following the real Jesus (although this week Pope Benedict XVI tweeted from the Vatican account for the first time), but @Jesus boasts approximately 340,800 followers – not bad for a man who started with 12 a couple of millennia back.
‘Jesus’ is only one of a number of high-profile people to be ‘honoured’ with a fake Twitter account.
Here we celebrate five of our favourites:
When she’s not being a not-so-secret shopper down at the English market (the entourage was a bit of a giveaway), the British Head of State is surprisingly active on Twitter. Well, the person purporting to be her is.
There are actually a number of Queen imitators, with @Queen_UK boasting around 363,100 loyal followers, but our favourite is @QueenLizII with 14,300 followers and her ‘tell it like it is’ way with words.
While we’re looking at British Royals it’s worth mentioning @DianaInHeaven with 45,000 followers. “Just been watching my boy & his missus on the news. That bonce of his seriously needs the Rooney treatment before it’s too late” she tweeted on 30 June. A bit sick, isn’t it?
Typical @QueenLizII tweet: “We hope our new peasant granddaughter-in-law knows she has three years to produce a male heir or she will be beheaded.”
The person pretending to be troubled American actor Gary Busey (think of a slightly older Charlie Sheen and you get the picture) makes no attempt to hide the fact that he’s a fake – his Twitter name tells you that – but that doesn’t stop him being followed by almost 250,000 people.
Why? His tweets are often funny and generally obnoxious – usually a good Twitter combination.
Typical @NotGaryBusey tweet: (on Father’s Day) “Ask your dad to wipe your ass for old time’s sake.”
The good news for @Jesus, who in his profile describes himself as ‘carpenter, healer, God’ is that with his 340,800 followers he’s way ahead of @satan who has just 22,500.
@Jesus doesn’t tweet very often, but when he does it tends to be something dryly amusing. That said, he seems to have gone off the boil a bit of late.
Last Easter saw him wake up on Sunday with “the world’s worst hangover” having basically lost a day.
Typical @Jesus tweet: “I just wanted to clear the air now that it’s been a while… I had NOTHING to do with that horrible ending to LOST.”
As most of you probably know, you don’t mess with cinematic hardman Chuck Norris. There’s a flavour of this to the fake tweets from @ChuckNorriz who has 196,800 followers and likes to take every opportunity to point out just what an alpha male Chuck is.
Typical @ChuckNorriz tweet: “#ChuckNorriz doesn’t breathe, he holds air hostage”
It’s good to see that here in Ireland people are taking the time to fake it on Twitter too. We doth our cap to the man claiming to be Enda Kenny who although only has around 550 followers but who gives good value to these early adopters.
Away from the requirements of government office and away from the carefully planned politically cautious official statements we get a view to what the man in charge of the country would really like to tweet.
Typical @RealTaoiseach tweet: “Syria’s looking more and more like an Aslan gig”
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