Submitted by Erin:
Revealing the Man Behind @MayorEmanuel
by Alexis Madrigal
The Atlantic
February 28, 2011
It was the best fake Twitter account ever, deftly satirizing Rahm Emanuel, and elevating the Tweet and the f-word to the level of literature. But the mystery writer was never revealed – until now.
There were many storylines in Rahm Emanuel’s romp to the Chicago mayor’s office: a powerful presidential aide leaves the White House; a mayor’s race without a Daley or even an incumbent; a candidate with a hazy claim on residency; the meltdown of former senator Carol Moseley Braun; the terrible voter turnout; and more.
But for networked Chicagoans and political insiders across the country, the performance and identity of @MayorEmanuel, a fake Twitter account, captured the imagination nearly as much as the real politics.
Caricaturing the notoriously dirty-mouthed former White House chief of staff, the Twitter account was a sensation as the election came to a close last week. @MayorEmanuel wrote nearly 2000 tweets in five months and collected several times as many followers as Rahm Emanuel’s real account. Since its last — and apparently final — update on Thursday night, some 1500 Tweets have been issued about the fake account . Daxid Axelrod himself, a frequent character in the stream, responded to a tweet Friday asking whether he missed the account, “You’re freakin’ A right I do.” Continue reading “TwitterLit: @MayorEmanuel Author Comes Clean”