Rapper faces year in jail
Twitter Torpedoes "CWalken" (update)
Updated Friday at 5 pm:
This devastating note just popped into my email from CWalken:
"It's been fun! Twitter has decided that the CWalken account is not in their best interest. Alas!"
I will be following up. Twitter's policy is to shut down fake Twitterers. But as CWalken has pointed out to me, he never claimed to be Christopher Walken, just "Chris Walken from Manhattan."
Well, I hope Mondo Media wasn't the cause.
Previously:
Big excitement over here at Mondo Media: Through a combination of sleuthing, persistence and dumb luck, I tracked down the person who is really tweeting as Christopher Walken. (Tuesday, I confirmed that the "CWalken" Twitter feed is not written by the actor.)
What's great about the "CWalken" feed is that it sounds like Christopher Walken, yet it's got the consistent tone and point of view that only a committed writer can achieve. (That's no slag on the actor who, no doubt, has other kinds of business to attend to every day than getting words and images just right within the 140-character or less limits of a tweet.) "CWalken" reads as if the actor himself were emerging from a surreal haze a few times a day to note the stupidity, oddness, and weird beauty of the everyday world:
In keeping with the mysterious, subversive aura he's cultivated in the feed, the "CWalken" writer does not want to reveal his identity to the public. He would communicate with me only on email, and did not tell me his name. How do I know I found the real CWalken? He sent me a personal message on Twitter from the CWalken account. Then, a few hours before that post above appeared, he told me he would soon be posting something about a haircut.
Also, he maintains a personal Twitter feed, which he pointed me to but asked me not to reveal here, and it sounds much like the CWalken feed, only a bit raunchier and more free-wheeling.
Anyway, I'm convinced I found the guy.
Here's our Q&A, conducted by email.
Can you give me some general idea of your age, family, where you live, what you do for a living... that sort of thing? (I take it from [your other Twitter feed] you are a guy. I sense a wife and kid in there too.)
I am a guy in his forties with a wife and a kid -- good catch. My [other Twitter feed] avatar is part of my face and that's about as much as I ever put of myself online. I work in the publishing & media industry and as such spread my time between the coasts. Think of me as one of the consultants from Office Space with better shirts.
OK, so this whole thing started when you took over a Twitter account called "CWalken" run by the culture blog Clusterflock, and changed the password without telling anyone. How involved are you with Clusterflock? Why did you decide to take over the CWalken Twitter account without letting anyone know? Did you tell them after you took it over?
Great question. I am actually only peripherally involved with Clusterflock (see question 1). I was more active in the past but due to privacy issues and professional conflicts I became a more marginal participant (posting under different names -- eventually under the anonymous Christoper Walken account primarily). The core members of Clusterflock have always been a sensitive and welcoming group and, while I've never met any of them in person, I've admired them almost as a quirky extended family. As for Twitter -- believe it or not I never told the group that I'd taken over the account. It's important to keep in mind that only one or two of us even knew what Twitter was at the time and that the account had sat inactive for months before I started playing with it. This was not a dramatic power play by any means.
Why did I take it and not tell anyone? Complicated in a boring way. At first I left the access alone and posted using the shared account information thinking that the feed could be a fun improvisational exchange. No-one else participated but it didn't matter anyway. I think we had a good 40-50 followers so the stage was pretty insignificant.
Given that I was the only person posting to the feed, the updates took on a consistency that one might expect from a single-owner account. It wasn't exactly a source of pride for me but I was satisfied with what I was writing. One day a visitor came by, logged in, and posted a rape-themed "tweet" that was vile, ugly and hateful. I deleted the post, changed the password and waited for someone to ask my why. No one ever did.
So -- for the following months I quietly posted my "cwalken" posts for my amusement and as a subtle prank -- not a prank on the world but a brotherly prank on my buddies at Clusterflock.
Something happened a couple of weeks ago and everybody showed up. Now it's a little weird and would appear to be a "hoax" on a much larger scale. And maybe it is now but it wasn't supposed to be.
Were you approaching the cwalken feed as some sort of literary experiment or project?
The original intent was that of an experiment in that Clusterflock owners/admins wanted to provide an anonymous platform for members to express random thoughts.
Comments
iddaa Tahminleri Says
It's Twitter's loss. I don't think any of us ever thought it was really Christopher Walken. We just looked forward to the cleverness iddaaand subtle hilarity of cwalken's posts. It's a shame Twitter couldn't address this in some other way than account suspension.
evden eve nakliyat Says
can you tell us if "itc518", who posted about cwalken on digg, is related to clusterflock or the person behind cwalken?
mike Says
What a bunch of maroons the Twitter folks are - anyone that would actually believe this was the real Christopher Walken wouldn't be able to *perceive* the irony that is rampant in the tweets in the first place. Anyone who really appreciated the tweets would understand this was a loving tribute to the weird & wonderful actor.
Hope the Twitter overlords grow up and get a grip on the new world, and don't let the fearmongers (lawyers?) make their decisions for them.liseli
nanotext Says
Screw Twitter! If you want fun go to plurk! Be what ever you want to be
Adam Says
I DMed CaptKoons, and he is just impersonating cwalken, ironically. Here's what he wrong:
"Thanks and sorry to disappoint; I'm not the original, but a fan in despair. I wrote up a FAQ, http://notcwalken.resonant.com"
Bring back cwalken! :(
Cann Says
Cwalken was awesome. Sorely missed.
Pies Says
I'd rather if he continued writing, under his own name. @cwalken was a great feed, very funny :)
Sinny Says
Lighten up Twitter. We all enjoyed the posts. If you are going to get rid of everyone that pretends to be someone else then start with the damn spammers.
Anonymous Says
> he never claimed to be Christopher Walken
He used the actor's likeness for his avatar. He posted in a manner emulating the actor's persona. So it seems to me he certainly did claim to be the actor.
t.a.m.s.y. Says
The answer to all your questions can be found @surprisinger. Well, not all of them. In fact, no one specifically asked.
bringbackwalken Says
everyone! please follow @bringbackwalken on twitter. official petition to @twitter!!!!
we love him!
Anonymous Says
What about God and Jesus? They're both twittering. Then again, they could claim that God is talking directly to them. Who would argue?
Jonathan Hitchcock Says
I assume that they're leaving the DarthVader twitter account active, because it is manned by the real Darth Vader?
The CWalken account never once claimed to be the actor Christopher Walken, just somebody by the name of "CWalken". Of course, since that's not his real name, it could be said to be fake, but in that case, we have to wonder whether the HotdogsLadies account is really run by somebody named "Hotdogs Ladies", or in fact whether it's actually run by Merlin Mann under a fake name...
C. W. Says
It's not fair to expect Twitter to bend or suspend their rules simply because of the popularity of one or more of their users.
Twitter is a small, unprofitable private company who could ill afford to ward off even the most insignificant of legal challenges. That they might take a stand publicly in the interest of parody or satire is inconceivable and perhaps even somewhat naive to suggest.
As their business model evolves - through acquisition, attrition or marketplace demands - their policies and procedures will no doubt mature as well. For now however Twitter stands to gain nothing but experience and a bit of wisdom from this latest embarrassment.
With that said - I have it on good authority that, even should Twitter reverse their stand on the @cwalken account, the current contributor has lost interest in this particular project and would not continue to post to the service.
Thanks for the great article and the interesting feedback.
Mike Lonergan Says
What a bunch of maroons the Twitter folks are - anyone that would actually believe this was the real Christopher Walken wouldn't be able to *perceive* the irony that is rampant in the tweets in the first place. Anyone who really appreciated the tweets would understand this was a loving tribute to the weird & wonderful actor.
Hope the Twitter overlords grow up and get a grip on the new world, and don't let the fearmongers (lawyers?) make their decisions for them.
Liz Says
I understand why it was shut down but I'll miss @CWalken. It was one of more amusing accounts.
I wish they'd let @CWalken stay and suspend all of the Hummingbird bot MLM accounts. He was amusing but they are annoying and poisoning Twitter.
K`shandra Says
I find it amusing that they tanked this account, and yet have done nothing about @keitholbermann - when Keith himself has contacted them and asked them to pull it.
david g Says
The head Flocker obviously was not aware that Twitter was "not a democracy"
Anonymous Says
It's Twitter's loss. I don't think any of us ever thought it was really Christopher Walken. We just looked forward to the cleverness and subtle hilarity of cwalken's posts. It's a shame Twitter couldn't address this in some other way than account suspension.
Cwalken - you are awesome and are sorely missed.
Joe Says
The "something" that happened a couple weeks ago was Jason Calicanis on This Week in Tech
Anonymous Says
can you tell us if "itc518", who posted about cwalken on digg, is related to clusterflock or the person behind cwalken? http://digg.com/comedy/Christopher_Walken_on_Twitter
Lee C - Ireland Says
Way to spoil the myth
first Santa Claus now this
*devastated*