Media Outlets Pranked By Bogus Twitter Employee Laments Outside Its Headquarters

Bruce Haring
·2 min read
2

Somewhere out there, Heywood Jablome and Pat McGroyne are laughing. Definitely not laughing: CNBC, Bloomberg, ABC7-News in the Bay Area, and other media outlets duped by two Merry Pranksters outside the Twitter offices today.

Two men carrying cardboard boxes were interviewed outside the Twitter offices today, bemoaning their fate as laid-off victims of new owner Elon Musk’s promised purge.

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One gave his name as Rahul Ligma. Fans of internet memes would have recognized the monicker, which is a set-up for a vulgar joke that circulated on Twitter. The other was Daniel Johnson, at least during the interview.

Media outlets hungry for a sob story leaped on it, with the usually reliable Bloomberg running headlines of employees leaving Twitter with boxes in hand.

Local TV news reporter Suzanne Phan of ABC-7 tweeted video of the scene, capturing poor Ligma’s tale of being fired during a Zoom meeting. Embolded by the media interest, Ligma held up a copy of Michelle Obama’s book, declaring that the former First Lady “wouldn’t have happened if Elon Musk owned Twitter.”

Also of concern to the ex-employee pranksters: Britney Spears and the future of democracy, both endangered by Musk’s ownership of Twitter. Topping off their complaints was a confession — since they didn’t have jobs, they were worried that they couldn’t make the payments on their Tesla cars.

Elon Musk himself got in on the fun. “Ligma Johnson had it coming,” he tweeted.

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