The obviously fake Cormac McCarthy Twitter account has been verified, for some reason.
There are two things Twitter loves: ruining people’s lives and lavishing praise upon incredibly anodyne humor. I’m pleased to report that this is a blog about the latter! Over the weekend, a Twitter account claiming to be that of Cormac McCarthy set timelines ablaze with its (allegedly) McCarthy-ish musings about how Twitter is a waste of time.
The account has been around since 2018—and to be fair, didn’t seem to be genuinely attempting to fool anyone—but a viral tweet about how McCarthy’s publicist was pestering him to Tweet because “engagement is down and so are metrics and something something who cares” gave the account enough traction (and by traction I mean people tweeting “so true bestie” at Cormac “Relatable King” McCarthy) that Twitter went ahead and verified it.
Lest you think it’s presumptuous of me to assume I know better what Cormac McCarthy’s twitter persona would be than the 120K people who have liked his Tweet about “this infernal website” (DRAG US, KING), Alex Shephard confirmed with McCarthy’s publisher and agent that the account is, in fact, fake.
McCarthy’s agent has also confirmed that this is not Cormac McCarthy: “It’s obviously not him.”
— Alex Shephard (@alex_shephard) August 2, 2021
I don’t know, legendary literary agent Amanda “Binky” Urban—he’s an old man and at least two of these tweets use the word “infernal,” a word beloved by old men, so… seems legit to me.
Satire!
