>But one thing he was clear about from the beginning: It was all right to end this game of living in the digital shadows.
> “I mean, my name is already out there,” he said, acknowledging the fact that, after the doxxing, he had at separate points confirmed his name on both Twitter and Reddit. “It’s in my Wikipedia article. Maybe people need to grow up. Just accept that I’m not like Santa Claus. I’m not a magic elf who posts.”
Even if he's not Santa or a magic elf, there's still good reason why stories of them are passed down.
I've known about his name for years, but it still feels odd and almost wrong about being able to put a name to dril and part of me doesn't really want to acknowledge it (even if it's literally at the top of the page). Of course there's a human behind dril, but it was never JoeyBob's dril.
On top of that, when gimmick/silly Twitter accounts get big they either sell out to scammers or the person behind it comes forward and uses the joke account as a personal one — so for dril to still be dril even with internet wide personality is a statement in of itself, especially when they keep doing what they're great at.
The weirdness of trying to put a name to dril to me is like trying to put a name on the voice of the people. It’s like if the hacker “Anonymous” was outed as primarily having been orchestrated by some hacker named Hayden Sommers (just a made up name that sounds real enough).
dril is more of a cultural zeitgeist than a guy named Paul Dochney. Dochney is just the channel for how a good hunk of society feels about society and Twitter, and I feel like he also understands this intimately by reading how he talks in the interview.
They do touch on this in the interview when talking about why SomethingAwful originally became popular (a kneejerk reaction against the breathless optimism of the Internet). Feels like a less cynical and more sarcastic cultural phenomenon than Black Mirror/twilight zone, but born of the same vein
> when gimmick/silly Twitter accounts get big they either sell out to scammers or the person behind it comes forward and uses the joke account as a personal one — so for dril to still be dril even with internet wide personality is a statement in of itself
dril is not a "gimmick/silly Twitter account" though
"Gimmick" implies that shitposting is deployed merely as a means to quick success, but dril's style of "shitposting" predates the term and is just what self-expression looked like on the old Internet.
I think in this case "gimmick" was used in the pro-wrestling sense, it basically means "persona".
>In professional wrestling, a gimmick generally refers to a wrestler's in-ring persona, character, behaviour, attire and/or other distinguishing traits while performing which are usually artificially created in order to draw fan interest.
But wrestling itself, or the act of performing a character, is not a gimmick under any definition of the term.
If you want to adopt this definition from wrestling, which is a domain specific definition to be sure, then tell us what is the gimmick of dril the character?
I think you are guilty of very lazy analysis and you don't know what you're talking about.
> Gimmick" implies that shitposting is deployed merely as a means to quick success,
Can you explain this use of 'Gimmick'? I'm only familiar with the other/older/mainstream use of the term of essentially something 'extra' done to attract attention. Can you explain what you mean by 'quick success' w.r.t. 'gimmick'?
Beyond the joke already mentioned, there's potentially another one, in dril's original comment; there was always a bit of a running joke, with some element of truth, amongst Twitter users that Twitter was terrible and needed to be destroyed. There's a reason it was affectionately known as the Hellsite; Twitter aficionados had a very love-hate relationship with it.
As much as we all like to shit on social media, it's also been a force for large and fast public backlash in many spheres of interest.
I tend to view Musk's actions as focused on achieving that outcome rather than destroying Twitter, and it's one aspect that's hard to replace even if we don't always like the outcome.
Everything about his public statements and product decisions indicate to me a person who is utterly incapable of articulating a strategic vision or measurable outcome. The only things he's ever talked about is maximizing profit which is an obvious one but it's an end not a means. I don't really see how any product decisions have been directed at any intended change in discourse aside from his surprisingly explicit preference for conservative politics and professional liars (ie Tucker Carlson). His spat with NPR was a little sideshow but it betrayed his lack of consideration for objective facts before taking action.
It’s not clear what outcome you’re referring to. You say it’s “been a force for…backlash…” So is the outcome you think he’s focused on is to stop that? Or to redirect it to his own interests? Are either of those good outcomes?
I think Musk doesn't like activists of a certain bent, and he's made moves that are damaging Twitter to disenfranchise those groups in particular.
Maybe the net outcome is good, maybe not. I think it's hard to achieve that type of outrage (both good and bad) without these massive social media sites. So we might get less toxic social media, but reduce our ability to effect change through social justice.
Musk literally just started bribing right wing activist accounts with Twitter cash. He is absolutely not wanting to disenfranchise activists, he's wanting to target them at people he doesn't like.
Isn't the most prominent person posting about that money one of the Krassensteins? They are probably right wing by world standards but in the US they are big time Democrats and got famous in Trump's replies saying "how dare you sir".
I helped a kid pack up his house after college graduation last year and I saw that he and his roommates had pitched for a ~twelve foot custom banner for their dining room wall that was just a screenshot of a dril tweet about jacking off.
This is what I really miss about Twitter. Da Share z0ne, Good Tweet Man, Riker Googling, the Transport for London parody account. Weird Twitter is best Twitter.
As someone who's been on SA for longer than I wish to say... SA itself is dead, it's not the same place, the same kind of shitposting and gimmick posting that made the website unique, is now something that will get you mass reported and driven out as well as banned.
It's a interesting case story of newer people joining, and not getting the underlying joke that made it so good in the first place... Much like how a couple people in the replies here don't get why dril is funny. Or what weird twitter is.
I had no idea, this is very unfortunate, the "just walk out" post is widely loved and the reason many subscribed to the account...well, sad that it turned up that way.
I didn't enjoy their content anyway, it was not my style. But I mentioned them because of how notable and transgressive they were. Their Wikipedia article mentions some stumping for Bernie Sanders and there's a whole section on the TCG decks they produced. So I guess that's where the merch ads are.
I've tried dril a few times and never really got the appeal.
Obv funny at times, but a lot of it seems to rely on being alt/cool/surreal in some way that I don't connect with too well.
Not to say that's a negative thing, I'd prob say the same about stuff like Monty Python. I admire the creativity and the best of it is funny, but often the response to it seems a little about mutual recognition and belonging.
As an older guy, I was glad to see "Jack Handey" referenced. I remember going through his stuff and was like -- okay, yes, this is the new Jack Handey.
It's too early to post more background information on Dril. No one wants it.
The final battle of Twitter is king Dril vs shitlord Elon. No know knows what the outcome will be. Elon is trying to promote Dril with artificial inflation, while Dril is trying to destroy Twitter, trolling every new feature and blunder and its inept CEO, and encouraging Block the Blue, to a huge audience. That's the real story here. Everyone is rooting for Dril and the permanent end of Twitter.
It's hard to be precise. But I think the point here is to paint a picture of a man who has embarked on a substantial enterprise (owning beautiful white horses) with an unrealistic dream of how it would turn out (they would recognise him as their father), has failed completely (the horses are extremely ill and do not recognise him as their father), and now wants to abandon the whole thing (by selling them) while refusing to contemplate his own role in that failure (they are the Burden of his life).
It's an impressionist portrait of naivité, narcissism, incompetence, and irresponsibility.
It's not about the meaning, more about the vibe and how the vibe is delivered.
Just read those tweets as you would read a collection of poems.
While poetry more often try to give a feeling of beauty, dril tweets are mostly to make you feel funny or laugh.
It's a story in a tweet; if you don't know Dril too well he plays a character who is self-absorbed, reckless and prone to ridiculous endeavours. In this case "Dril" had some spurious fantasy of mastering six white stallions, he was too incompetent to care for them, they are now dying and all he can do is complain that they won't obey him.
That's not true in my view: the "candles" tweet is about mocking people who refuse to fix their obvious problems, the "hand it to them" tweet is disapproving of people who platform Hitler out of openmindedness, the "buddy, they won't even let me fuck it" is about self-importance and convincing yourself you're normal. Basically "it would be funny if there were a guy this wrongheaded because it exaggerates something recognizable".
I figure this one makes sense to people who understand it's making fun of a 1700s type of guy, perhaps "what if Thomas Jefferson was on Craigslist?"
My point was that if you read these tweets and don't just "get it" then you're not going to be get much out of having any of them explained or by closely examining them. I know that's the case for most humour, but IMO it's particularly true of @dril
Dril is the original "lol i'm so random" twitter tryhard. I guess he's been occasionally funny, like XKCD, but I really don't get the appeal after years and years of just daily shitposts?
> “I mean, my name is already out there,” he said, acknowledging the fact that, after the doxxing, he had at separate points confirmed his name on both Twitter and Reddit. “It’s in my Wikipedia article. Maybe people need to grow up. Just accept that I’m not like Santa Claus. I’m not a magic elf who posts.”
Even if he's not Santa or a magic elf, there's still good reason why stories of them are passed down.
I've known about his name for years, but it still feels odd and almost wrong about being able to put a name to dril and part of me doesn't really want to acknowledge it (even if it's literally at the top of the page). Of course there's a human behind dril, but it was never JoeyBob's dril.
On top of that, when gimmick/silly Twitter accounts get big they either sell out to scammers or the person behind it comes forward and uses the joke account as a personal one — so for dril to still be dril even with internet wide personality is a statement in of itself, especially when they keep doing what they're great at.