In the early morning hours of Aug. 2, 2021, fans of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Cormac McCarthy were surprised to see that Twitter had verified an account supposedly belonging to the 88-year-old author.
While Twitter truly verified the above-displayed account, this account does not belong to McCarthy. This is just a parody account.
A spokesperson for McCarthy said in a statement to Alex Shephard, a reporter with Front Page Magazine, that "It's obviously not him."
While many social media users viewed this account with skepticism (McCarthy, 88, famously favors his analog typewriters over digital methods of communication), the fact that Twitter verified this account had many people believing that this was real. Stephen King, another famous author, even replied to the fake McCarthy account:
This is not the first time that a parody account of McCarthy has gone viral. The Guardian reported that a fake account for the famed author amassed thousands of followers after its debut in 2012. That imposter account was even greeted by Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter:
A few years later in 2015, another fake account for McCarthy went viral. Again, representatives for McCarthy's publisher put out a statement to debunk it.
The fake Cormac McCarthy account that went viral in August 2021 only had a few hours to bask in verification glory. As many people started pointing out that this account was fake, Twitter removed its verification label from this account.