What is Gimmick Accounts?

Gimmick Accounts, also called Novelty Accounts, are parody Twitter profiles that impersonate celebrities, companies, fictional characters, or inanimate objects for comedic effect.

Where did Gimmick Accounts come from?

The earliest known example is @_FakeSteveJobs, created on January 26, 2007 to mock Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

What does Gimmick Accounts mean?

The term (also 'Novelty Accounts') refers to Twitter feeds built around a comedic persona rather than a real identity, ranging from public figure parodies to accounts written from the perspective of objects.

How do you use Gimmick Accounts?

Creators typically pick a target with a strong public persona, adopt its voice, and post in-character reactions to news, as Josh Simpson did with @BPGlobalPR during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill.

Is Gimmick Accounts still popular?

The format is a classic of Twitter comedy, though individual accounts often fade fast; New York Magazine was already running 'where are they now' retrospectives in October 2012.

Gimmick Accounts

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Published September 10, 2026

Gimmick Accounts, also known as Novelty Accounts, are parody Twitter profiles that impersonate celebrities, corporations, or fictional characters for comedy. Starting with the Fake Steve Jobs account in January 2007, they grew into a full genre of short-form comedy writing that fooled major newsrooms and inspired hundreds of impersonations from BP's oil spill spokespeople to Darth Vader.

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Overview

The format works by adopting the voice of a real person, a fictional character, or an inanimate object, then tweeting in-character observations, complaints, and jokes. Some feeds stay tightly satirical, like @BPGlobalPR's oil-industry riffs written from the perspective of a jaded PR flack named Terry2. Others go absurd, running impersonations of William Shakespeare, Betty White, or Rebecca Black tied to whatever is trending that week3.

The best-known accounts pick targets that already have strong public personas, then dial them up. Fake Steve Jobs mocked Apple's co-founder for years and pulled in over 36,300 followers before going silent in July 20101. Long-running feeds tend to be single-writer comedy projects, while short-lived ones often chase a single news cycle and then go dormant3.

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Origin & Background

Platform

Twitter

Date

2007

The earliest known parody Twitter account was @_FakeSteveJobs, created on January 26, 2007, less than a year after Twitter's public launch1. The account lampooned Apple co-founder Steve Jobs with in-character tweets about product launches and industry rivals4. It stopped posting on July 31, 2010, but by October 2012 had still gathered over 36,300 followers3.

The idea spread fast because Twitter's short post limit fit the sketch-comedy rhythm the format needed. Within two years, gimmick accounts had multiplied into impersonations of celebrities, fictional characters, and inanimate objects3.

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How It Spread

On October 7, 2008, io9 published 'Twitter Me This: Our Favorite Fake Twitter Feeds,' a round-up spotlighting parody feeds for director Michael Bay and fictional characters like Captain Picard and Darth Vader3. PC World followed on February 15, 2009 with '15 Fake and Funny Twitter Accounts,' calling out impersonations of Chuck Norris, Nick Nolte, and William Shatner3. Twitter itself responded to rising impersonation confusion on June 6, 2009, when co-founder Biz Stone announced the verification program that put blue checkmarks next to real public figures3.

Verification did not slow the fakes down. On May 19, 2010, comedian Josh Simpson launched @BPGlobalPR, writing as a fictional BP publicist named Terry as the Deepwater Horizon spill dragged on2. A retweet from Roger Ebert pushed the account into national coverage from The New York Times, Advertising Age, and the Los Angeles Times, and it spawned copycat feeds like @UNGlobalPR and @IsraelGlobalPR5. Six weeks later, on June 27, 2010, the Daily Mail ran a story reporting that Steve Jobs had announced a possible iPhone 4 recall, sourcing the claim from the now-defunct fake @ceoSteveJobs. The Guardian, CNET, and The Next Web repeated the report before pulling it once the hoax was spotted3.

By late 2012, the format was mature enough to get eulogized. On March 9, 2012, BuzzFeed reported that Twitter had accidentally verified the fake @hoobastank_band as the official account for the rock band Hoobastank3. New York Magazine's October 5, 2012 piece 'Twitter Parody Accounts: Where Are They Now?' revisited long-dead feeds3, and two weeks later the humor site Jest published 'Twitter Parody Political Account Graveyard,' a video montage of accounts that had faded3.

Timeline

2007-01-26

The @_FakeSteveJobs account is created, the earliest known parody Twitter profile.

2008-10-07

Io9 publishes 'Twitter Me This: Our Favorite Fake Twitter Feeds,' the first major round-up of parody Twitter accounts.

2011-11-11

Slacktory publishes 'The Fourteen Best Novelty Twitter Feeds,' including several fabricated screenshots.

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How to Use This Meme

Creators typically pick a target with a strong public persona, adopt a caricatured version of its voice, and post in-character reactions to current events. Common conventions include a mock-official handle (e.g. @ceoSteveJobs), a bio that hints at the joke, and jokes that hit whichever news cycle the target would plausibly be part of3.