In keeping with the trend of celebrities poking fun at Elon Musk‘s handling of Twitter as the company’s newest CEO, Weird Al Yankovic did what he does best — made a big fat joke. In fact, he’s such a master of his craft that his gag had many users falling for it.
Yankovic managed to convince a decent swathe of five million followers that Weird: The Al Yankovic Story‘s lead star, Daniel Radcliffe, was suspended from Twitter. He added that the suspended account was merely a parody, implying that Radcliffe was one of the few celebrities that changed their profile to impersonate Musk.
After the actor’s name began to trend, Harry Potter fans came to the defense of their favorite actor. How dare Musk suspend one of the most iconic actors in the early 2000s?!
Fans grabbed their pitchforks as they came for Musk for Radcliffe’s suspension. Meanwhile, others were confused and asked to see the original Tweet that caused Radcliffe to get banned on Twitter.
The news only got more confusing as fans assumed that Radcliffe changed his account to impersonate Yankovic, not Musk, just so he could promote the Weird movie. But, naturally, Yankovic was in on the joke.
Here’s the thing: Daniel Radcliffe doesn’t have a Twitter account, and never has.
He never made one, and the Twitter handle that Yankovic mentioned was someone else’s old account that may have impersonated Radcliffe in the past. Radcliffe is one of the handful of celebrities who aren’t active on social media. Others include The Good Doctor‘s Freddie Highmore, Twilight‘s Kirsten Stewart, and James Bond‘s Daniel Craig.
Musk’s revealed plans for verification weren’t something users were excited about. While the CEO claimed it was to bring ‘free speech back to the people,’ people feared that impersonations and misinformation would be more rampant on the site, especially with the upcoming mid-term elections coming in the U.S.
Published: Nov 7, 2022 06:46 pm