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Ocasio-Cortez threatens to leave Twitter over parody account that keeps making fun of her

 May 31, 2023

There is a clearly marked parody account on Twitter that makes fun of progressive Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), and the New York congresswoman is not a fan of its humorous mockery.

In fact, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez seemed to imply on Tuesday that she would leave the Twitter platform and abandon her millions of followers if nothing were done to address the account that was "impersonating" her, the Daily Mail reported.

She expressed concern that Twitter CEO Elon Musk had interacted with and boosted the parody account and that the parody account was fooling some people into thinking that it was actually her.

Congresswoman Complains About Parody Account

"FYI there’s a fake account on here impersonating me and going viral. The Twitter CEO has engaged it, boosting visibility. It is releasing false policy statements and gaining spread," Rep. Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Tuesday afternoon.

She added, "I am assessing with my team how to move forward. In the meantime, be careful of what you see."

The parody account almost immediately fired back in reply, "I'm still not going to date you."

That was a reference to a prior claim from the Democratic congresswoman that her Republican critics were mad and sexually frustrated because they couldn't date her.

Ocasio-Cortez Vs. Elon Musk

In her tweet complaining about the parody account, Ocasio-Cortez made mention of Musk's interaction with it, which was likely in reference to a tweet a couple of days earlier from the parody that said, "This might be the wine talking, but I've got a crush on @elonmusk," to which Musk replied with the fire emoji.

That was obviously a joke, however, as the New York Post reported that it followed a number of "acrimonious exchanges" between the congresswoman and Musk over the manner in which he is running the social media platform.

The parody account -- which is called "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Press Release (Parody)" and bears the handle @AOCpress, which differs from the congresswoman's @AOC handle -- had already tweeted dozens of times over the Memorial Day weekend with absurd and outrageous posts mocking Ocasio-Cortez before she drew attention to it herself.

Parody Tweets Remarkably Similar to Real Tweets

After being called out by the legislator, however, the parody account simply fired off its joke tweets at an accelerated rate, including several in direct response to the lawmaker's complaint.

One tweet said, "After brainstorming with my staff -- I’m going to push Congress to make it illegal to joke, laugh, or make fun of me. Parody should be illegal," followed by another that read, "FYI … I have no problem with parody accounts -- just the ones that make fun of me," and a third that stated, "If @elonmusk wants to have a chance with me, he’ll immediately ban the parody account of me. This is like literally not funny."

At some point, the parody account seemed to lose the blue checkmark that it paid for -- as opposed to the gray checkmark for the congresswoman that indicates an official government account -- but then regained it a short time later.

That simply led to a flurry of additional joke tweets, including several that tagged Musk's account, others that joked about Ocasio-Cortez's boyfriend, and still more that read as if they were outlandish climate change-related policy proposals.

The problem with some of the supposed policy proposals, as ridiculous as they seemed -- banning cow farts and using helicopters to keep windmills spinning on windless days -- is that they don't seem too dissimilar from some of the actual far-fetched policies the congresswoman has legitimately proposed ... hence the apparent confusion from some Twitter users.

Parody Account Blocked

Eventually, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez blocked the parody account, but as of yet has not quit her official Twitter account and abandoned the 13.4 million followers she has accumulated over the years.

As for the parody account, which saw its follower count jump from around 110,000 followers on Tuesday to more than 276,000 by Wednesday, it has continued to crack jokes and mock the congresswoman following the dust-up.