 | | If you’re on Twitter, you’ve probably seen Walter by now. Photo: Walter(Owen’s Grandp/Twitter | | |
If you follow Donald Trump or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, start paying attention to their replies, and you’ll notice Walter, a.k.a. “Walter(Owen’s Grandp,” is always there. The satirical account can constantly be spotted happily espousing right-wing talking points, both to cheerfully encourage prominent Republicans and provoke outspoken Democrats. And the account has become incredibly popular: Walter currently has over 111,000 followers. So who is the actual person behind the keyboard? He declines to publicly say his full name, but the mastermind behind it all is a Nashville-based musician named Adam. Now that Walter has skyrocketed to Twitter fame, Adam spoke to Vulture about why he created Walter, what he aims to accomplish through the account, and his thoughts on the reactions it’s constantly provoking online. So when was the account born?
Funny enough, it came around through Daily Intelligencer. Years ago, I used to be an active member of their commenting community. Before I got into playing music full time, I was a software developer. I was doing a lot of consulting work, and I was at Wells Fargo insurance and there wasn’t a whole lot of work to do over there. Most of the work we were doing was crime, so probably good there wasn’t too much. I needed to stay engaged with something, and the 2012 election was going on. I started to notice there was this network of trolls. One of them was way too abusive. He would get kicked off the site like four times a day and just kept creating new accounts and logging back in. One of his favorite things to do was take someone’s comment and cut it off and call them a “low IQ commenter.” So I created an account called “Low IQ Commenter” and just started outstupiding him, thinking of the dumbest thing I could say, which tended to basically be the sarcastic response to what I thought he was about to say. That’s basically what Grandpa Walter is. Like one of them was, “Obamacare made my grandson gay.” I only did this for a couple of days, then it got old and then that was the end of it. A year and a half ago, my whole health-care situation was up in air. I was getting back on this hellscape platform and hearing nonstop political noise. I really wanted to start replying to stupid people that way. There’s really no other way to do it. The only way to irritate them, if they’re dumb, is to pretend you’re playing along, then sneak something in the back door. When I started, I was like, This could be kind of fun. Somewhere along the way people started following this and it started growing. I went over 100,000 the other day. That’s crazy to me. Where does the character of Walter come from?
A lot of the character is borrowed from people I know very well, like my own grandparents. I see them all the time at family events, but I know if we ever get started talking politics, my grandpa would go nuts. He’s a big Trump fan, but I still love the guy. I really wanted to create that character. You can’t hate him. He’s not an asshole, he’s just wrong all the time, about everything. Are you shocked at how popular the account has become?
I’m glad people enjoy it. It’s weird to me because it’s a meta critique of social media that’s also taking place on Twitter. I don’t think social media has been a force for good in our society. This is a very good object lesson about why not. You can laugh at this character, but then you have to go home for Thanksgiving and deal with your real Uncle Walter. How many people in your life know about the account?
My family knows. My parents still think centrism is an ideology, but they get a kick out of this. They see my grandparents in it. My grandpa is the sweetest guy, a quirky character, and I took a lot of his quirks and turned them into Grandpa Walter. Most of the people I work with directly, even if they’re really right wing, still find this pretty amusing. I have hard-core right-wing friends who sometimes text me stuff I said like, “Dude, this is hilarious.” I’m like, “I’m making fun of you, but cool! Glad you enjoyed this!” Read the full interview here. Subscribe for $5 and get unlimited digital access to Vulture, New York, Intelligencer, the Cut, and Grub Street. | 
If you’re new to Bing and want to launch a fresh campaign on Bing advertisements ( Also known as Bingad center), you may save a lot of money by using these discounts. When compared to other PPC networks, Bing search engine advertising have the greatest conversion rate.
ReplyDeleteBing Ads Coupon USA