Columbia College professor Dan Sinker retired his MayorEmanuel Twitter feed on Feb 23, leaving us with one final f-word. Sinker went on to a week’s worth of celebrity, culminating with a declaration by The Atlantic Monthly that he’d created the greatest Twitter feed of all time, and an appearance on The Colbert Report.
But Emanuel has not even begun his mayoralty, so he still has imitators on Twitter. Or maybe MayorEmanuel has imitators. As with comedians who do an Arnold Schwarzengger voice, it’s hard to tell whether they’re impersonating the actual man, or impersonating his impersonators.
So far, @RahmTheMayor has been the most active in filling Chicago’s need for a fake Rahm Emanuel Twitter feed. It’s not as profane -- it only uses the letter F to suggest a word that Sinker gave us in all its glory -- nor is it as funny. But like Bob Hope rattling off one-liners, every once in awhile, he gets off a good one.
- March 11: If only Wicker F-in Park was near that #tsunami
- March 21: I need somethin to f-in destroy & since Daley already got rid of an airport overnight, one place remains....Wicker F-in Park.
- March 21: Dear Groupon, Rahm needs half-off police officers. Can you get on that, you motherf-ers?!
RahmTheMayor isn’t the only fake Rahm out there. There’s @NotRahmEmanuel, whose bio declares “Been there. Done that. Have the office to prove it. Anybody who mentions ballet gets a size 9 to the side of his head, verstehen sie?” And then there’s the veteran @fakerahmemanuel. That feed competed with @MayorEmanuel during the campaign, and while it didn’t attract as many followers, it’s still going. Its most recent tweet: “RIP Elizabeth Taylor. Wipe that smirk off your faces, monogamists.”
And then there’s @RahmEmanuel, which is verified as the mayor-elect’s Twitter feed, but contains such messages as “Happy St. Patrick’s Day” and “Congrats to the Simeon Wolverines Boys Basketball Team on the state championship win.”
That has to be an imitator, too. There’s no way Rahm Emanuel is that boring.
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