Hyderabad: As Twitter as a company is riding on a roller coaster after Tesla chief Elon Musk recently bought it, the social media platform is seeing some experiments by its users lately, especially as a dig to Musk's $8 fee for the blue tick.
On Saturday, Twitter users were left confused after Elon Musk was seen tweeting in Hindi and Bhojpuri, only to realise that the account was not of Musk's but some other verified user with a blue tick who had changed the name to 'Elon Musk' and kept the same display picture as the billionaire has nowadays.
Posts from a verified handle @iawoolford used #TwitterLayoffs, and shared some Hindi film dialogues and Bhojpuri songs. Many users were left bewildered as at first glance, they assumed it was Musk himself tweeting.
Soon, however, they realised that it was not so and the account was just a verified handle that had changed its name and DP. " I swear I thought this is the real Elon Musk. I had a pause, then I looked at the handle 'iawoolford' tried to recall what was Musk's handle but couldn't remember and then thought could be him, why not. And given his crazy, the Hindi and Bhojpuri didn't surprise me one bit," tweeted journalist Sanjukta Basu from her verified handle.
Now suspended, the handle originally belongs to Ian Woolford, an American-Australian Hindi professor who works at a university in Melbourne. One of the posts, retweeted hundreds of times, read, "This bird is sold." It used the viral "gormint bik gayi" meme.
Also read: Unfortunately, there is no choice: Musk on Twitter layoffs
"This time the broom will run, this time the broom will run! The broom will hit the corrupt Twitter!!" said another tweet, playing on the AAP's poll symbol and anti-corruption slogans.
There was a Bollywood angle too, using a famous dialogue from the movie, 'Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge', said by Shahrukh Khan's character: "Small things like this keep happening in big countries... isn't it?" Woolford's profile on the website of La Trobe University, Melbourne, lists his research interests: "Hindi language and Literature, North Indian folklore, Maithili and Bhojpuri languages, and LGBTQ+ Movements in South Asia".
