In April 2018, an image of a purported tweet from Bill Nye — an American science communicator, television presenter, and mechanical engineer popularly known as "the Science Guy" — was widely shared online. That tweet appeared to be a retort to some other unidentified Twitter user, asking if that person was "made of copper, nitrogen, terbium, and silver" — a combination that spelled out an offensive acronym:
The displayed tweet image of course lacked any information common to genuine tweets, such as a timestamp documenting when it was posted, or counters tracking the number of retweets, likes, and comments it generated. And a search of Bill Nye's verified Twitter account for any tweets containing the word "terbium" (which is in fact a real element) turned up no matches.
The substance of this faux tweet is in fact an old science-themed joke which, as commonly happens, has become attributed to a famous "science person" in order to give it more potency.