Verified Cormac McCarthy Twitter Account Was Not Cormac McCarthy, and Not for the First Time
Mark Von Holden, Getty Images for Dimension Films
Pulitzer-winning writer Cormac McCarthy isn’t the sort of personality one might expect to find tweeting about kombucha, but that’s what appeared to be a real thing that was happening when the account @CormacMcCrthy was verified over the weekend as being real.
The account features some pretty genius tweets that nevertheless seemed to clearly fall into the parody category, so the verification threw fans and press alike into somewhat of a small tizzy on Sunday and Monday.
The weekend’s tweets were the ones that seemed to rope people in.
My publicist is on my case about my infrequent use of this infernal website
He says engagement is down and so are metrics and something something who cares
There
I wrote a tweet
Are you happy now Terry— Cormac McCarthy (@CormacMcCrthy) July 31, 2021
My granddaughter says it is customary when a tweet becomes popular to refer readers to one’s sound cloud
Terry phoned me ecstatic and he confirms this is indeed the custom
I do not know what that means nor do I care to spend any more time on the internet learning its customs
— Cormac McCarthy (@CormacMcCrthy) August 1, 2021
But some of the older tweets on the account were pretty firmly parody.
Kombucha is simply tea that has gone bad
But kombucha itself never goes bad
With each passing day kombucha drifts from its lost heritage as tea and becomes more firmly kombucha
— Cormac McCarthy (@CormacMcCrthy) July 8, 2021
And that’s how we ended up here.
This tweet almost absolves you for what The Road did to me.
— Helen Kennedy (@HelenKennedy) August 1, 2021
Fantastic! Live shot of @CormacMcCrthy after fulfilling his agents requests. pic.twitter.com/LMpCczTMbi
— Jim OShaughnessy (@jposhaughnessy) August 2, 2021
This might be a parody account or it might not be (because of the checkmark) is irrelevant. Cormac McCarthy is tweeting about kombucha. https://t.co/zOfjng9O2d
— Anang Mittal अनंग मित्तल (@anangbhai) August 2, 2021
Twitter VERIFIED this obviously fake account????? pic.twitter.com/IhcEa9sXxW
— Alex Shephard (@alex_shephard) August 2, 2021
Even legendary novelist Stephen King was in the mix, responding to “McCarthy” who then responded in kind.
I don’t know if Terry is, but I am.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) August 1, 2021
As the profile picked up viral steam, various folks were able to get responses from his talent agency, ICM partners. “I can confirm that this is definitely not a genuine Cormac McCarthy account,” a rep with the agency told The Verge.
McCarthy’s agent has also confirmed that this is not Cormac McCarthy: “It’s obviously not him.”
— Alex Shephard (@alex_shephard) August 2, 2021
Reporters were eventually able to get a response from Twitter, who verified that the account is not verified. In other words, that it had been given the checkmark “by mistake” and that the move has been “reversed.”
Ok this is not my job, but I was annoyed enough with people thinking that Cormac McCarthy parody account was real when it so obviously wasn’t. Statement from Twitter: pic.twitter.com/zwRQKItLks
— Kevin Collier (@kevincollier) August 2, 2021
“Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent,” says McCarthy’s character Judge Holden in the book Blood Meridian. That seems applicable here, given that the account got verified despite having been disclaimed by the author’s agent and publisher.
Still, it was pretty exciting and hilarious for a while there.
And this isn’t even the first time a parody Cormac McCarthy account has fooled people. In fact it’s not even the second time.
The 88-year-old’s style and body of work should be the biggest clue in cases like this. For readers, the verification badge goes a pretty long way in allaying doubt, even when something is out of character. But as for Twitter repeatedly verifying parody Cormac McCarthy accounts as the real thing, there is less excuse.
Even so, whoever is behind the hilarious account can count all of this as a big win.
