For the last couple of months on Twitter people have been busily speculating whether the Tweets, or status updates, from the likes of Jonathan Ross, John Cleese and Jeremy Clarkson among other celebs are real. Now Popbitch appears to have taken on the task of sorting the fakers from the real thing.
Popbitch has set itself to set up a Twitter account, @namechecker, to reveal who are the fakes and who are in fact who they say they are and surprisingly some of them are indeed genuine celebrities (not to mention some genuine assistants to celebrities who blog for their bosses like Britney Spears).
But until now it has been hard to tell if someone is really who they say they claim to be. Around the time of Sachgate (wow does that feel like so long ago already) Jonathan Ross appeared on Twitter with the account name Wossy (natch). It couldn't possibly be him could it? Well, people agreed, the comic book loving geek does have a bit of time on his hands. And low and behold it was the real thing. Live on Twitter, you can follow him should you wish. He's pretty good and has some interesting celeb filled updates:
"Russell is back in the UK at weekend. Will try to get him on Twitter for you".
"I wish I could repeat the rest of Russell's text but I'd get banned from Twitter. Even I gasped. Bad Brand. But funny"
Then Jack Dee turned up, except he was quickly unmasked as being a Jack Dee impersonator after someone phoned the real Jack Dee (has anyone seen his sitcom 'Lead Balloon' btw? It is really very funny, but too short. More please).Popbitch's Namechecker has since gone onto unmask a hoax Jeremy Clarkson Twitter stream. I couldn't imagine Clarkson on Twitter. A petrol head like him would, I'm wildy guessing, find it all so much a waste of time. I could be wrong.Ricky Gervais is apparently not yet on Twitter, but Namechecker says they have it on good authority he will be soon. John Cleese does apparently use it, but it's his assistant who does it. More exciting MCHammer is on Twitter. He is a popular guy last update: "Dinner at the Carnevino....time to Socialize". He is a popular guy with more than 18,000 followers.Actor and presenter Robert Llewellyn (Kryten of from 'Red Dwarf' fame) turned out to be real, but really only a minor celeb, but he did get on the celebrity bandwagon and out a fake Harry Enfield. Good work Kryten.Others revealed as fakers have included the Archbishop of Canterbury and Tony Benn, which is a shame as I'm sure Tony could tell great stories even in 140 characters (Eating tea and crumpets reminds me of the blitz). Although the Labour Party does have control of this account now so maybe they will get him going. Diary extracts maybe?Talking of which the Labour Party is not on Twitter (the one Labour Party account belongs to the Irish Labour Party). Does Derek Draper doesn't seem to have an account. Of course Number 10 famously does with @DowningStreet (although very quiet of late) and the Tories do with @Conservatives. Labour really needs to get going on this. The most bizarre so far is someone deciding to set up a fake account for the BBC's 'Working Lunch' business programme. Bizarre? Why would you do that?
Once you start searching for these celebrity Twitter's you could go on forever. For instance Bill Gates has to be a fake. His last update is this: "Thinking about what new glasses to get... but the John Lennon look isn't my thing 8:46 PM Oct 13th, 2008 from web".
Follow me on Twitter
hey Gordon, I know you are a baseball guy, but have you checked out Shaquille O'Neal, the NBA's most quotable athlete. @THE_REAL_SHAQ tweets are like unique hip hop haikus. @PhoenixSunsGirl does the social media for his team, so I know he is really THE_REAL
NYTimes confirms:
www.nytimes.com/.../20shaq.html
fwiw, I'm on the look out for brandjacking on twitter, so that's another good topic.
I can confirm that Stephen Fry is genuine though (as we helped him get set-up and going on Twitter)...
Gordon Macmillan
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Member since: 03 Jun 2008
Last login: 23 Nov 2009
Total Posts: 1,617
