Spotting the Fakes

Since the dawn of Twitter...all those many months ago, there have been fake celebrity accounts. Most of the b.s. accounts were and still are bored people actually pretending to be such personalities as Taylor Swift or Perez Hilton or whoever, starting all sorts of rumors and generally confusing their fangirls and boys. Bored and boring. "Verified" accounts have mostly put an end to these dopes, thankfully.

Lately there has been a much more interesting trend of imposters just doing it to entertain their followers with dirty jokes, idiotic opinions and other general absurdity. These fakers make no pretense about their falsehood. In fact, most of them say so right in the user name.

Since this sort of jackassery is definitely right up FTM's alley, today we take a look at some of the doppelganger country singer accounts and let those of you who are Twitter users know who is and isn't worth your follow.

And as far as you know, none of these is run by me...

@notjakeowen

We start with probably the most buzzed about falsie. Fake Jake is subversive, egotistical and gleefully sexist. He also seems to be a Nashville insider. Possibly he's just done his research, but he knows an awful lot about uh, himself, and his Tweet subjects (he often pokes fun at other artists and songwriters) - enough to hit the really hot buttons. Jake Fauxens even interacts with some of the other artists on Twitter, tossing insults directly at them. Not for the easily offended (actually Twitter may not be for the easily offended in the first place), but worth a follow.

@notkennyrogers

Fake Jake's brother in barbs, Kenny Fauxgers is a caricature of the bearded balladeer, proclaiming his love for groupies and dissing contemporaries like Neil Diamond at every opportunity. Like Jake's, Kenny's head is also about 3 sizes too big, to hilarious effect. I'm not sure who's behind these two accounts, which seem joined at the hip since they only follow each other and have a similar style of humor. I'm perplexed that they only follow one other person each and still manage to have hundreds of followers, but I'm no Twitter expert ...obviously. Anyway, fake Kenny is extremely funny.

@notkennychesney

New to the faker game, not-Mr. Chesney has a bit of a split personality. At times he's all about the ladies; others, he's hinting at possible homosexuality. He stays current with what's happening in pop culture and is generally pretty effective with his humor. Worth a look, if not a follow.

@notchuckwicks

This one seems to have sprung up just after the previous entry, hinting that maybe the two are from the same author... or maybe just that there are a lot of fratboy-humor loving reactionaries with too much time on their hands. Fake Chuck is more consistently laughable than Chesney, while treading similar subject territory. Chuck is portrayed as a complete metrosexual who knows little about country music but a lot about fashion and style ...and other male country singers. It will be fun to see how this one develops.

@notsugarland

Another trend-follower that started up just this week. So far, not really all that funny and frequently vulgar, but there are hints that this account could be entertaining in the long run.

@hanksghost

The "former Hank Williams" doesn't say a whole lot and doesn't seem to be in it for laughs, except for the dark humor of his frequent "rolling over in my grave" Tweets. From time to time, ol' Hank recommends a country artist of today whom he grants his stamp of approval to. Interesting.

@john_rich

This guy says even less than Hank, but it's always funny. JR shows himself to be a drunk, self-important, horny hothead, much like... well, much like the real JR. Hopefully he'll start Tweeting more often.