Now it can be told! The story of JGold2000 Part 1: Objectives and Accomplishments

JGold2000: Reaching for the top! 6:58 PM Apr 8th, 2009 via web

I began emulating Jonathan Goldstein on Twitter in April of 2009 exactly one month after he created his own account. His username was J_Goldstein, mine was JGold2000. This continued until February 19^th of 2010 when I killed off JGold2000 (I had him eat poisoned chocolate, left on his desk by a stranger over the weekend of Valentine's day).

In creating and maintaining this account I had three objectives:

1) To gain more followers than the real Goldstein.

2) To become recognized as the more authentic of the Jonathan Goldstein Twitter accounts by the Twitter community.

3) To provide a better Jonathan Goldstein Twitter experience and/or product than that of the real Goldstein.

Initially I hadn't found fake or imitation accounts particularly interesting but with these objectives I felt that I was onto something interesting – rather than imitating I would be emulating and rather than mocking I would be competing. It would be fun, it would be challenging and, most importantly, it would be an excellent procrastination/distraction tool. I decided I would keep it going for as long as it was fun to do and that I would keep my identity secret for the duration to assure that I could make the account as authentic as possible.

When all was said and done I hadn't quote achieved the first objective but I had done a pretty bang-up job on two and three.  When you consider the disadvantages and obstacles I faced, this was no small feat. The most obvious disadvantage was of course that I was not the real Jonathan Goldstein whereas the real Jonathan Goldstein was but on top of this the Wiretap website linked to his profile instead of mine, I had an infinitely more ridiculous username and my profile picture was just like the real Goldstein's only I was wearing a beret and, later on, a goatee and sunglasses (obvious and universal signs of dopplegangerism).

At the time of this writing JGold2000 has 1134 followers and J_Goldstein has 1281. I can't remember what the numbers were when I killed of JGold2000 but I know they were slightly closer.  In any event (not that I've done extensive research... actually I haven't researched this at all but) I'm pretty sure I came as close as anyone pretending to be someone else has ever come to gaining more followers than that person.

Whether I was the more authentic of the two Goldstein's is up for debate and my degree of success in this objective is much harder to quantify. I'm sure that not all my followers believed that I was the real Goldstein but I have no doubt that a good chunk of them did (and presumably my followers were also J_Goldstein's followers).  I not only got a lot of attention from my followers but I also had more than a handful of reputable people, publications and organizations interacting with me as though I were the real Goldstein.

In terms of providing a better Jonathan Goldstein Twitter product I don't think there can be any doubt that I did. To quote CBC3 radio host Grant Lawrence (who had just heard the live taping of Wiretap in Vancouver):

 @JGold2000 you got busted big time in Vancouver tonight. Word to the wise: not the real Jonathan Goldstein (but admittedly better tweeter) 5:27 AM Feb 20th via web

So say what you will about my intentions, my slip ups or the ridiculousness of this whole endeavour I was, at least within the confines of one-hundred-and-forty characters, very good at being Jonathan Goldstein. I tweeted often, I followed back those who followed me, I responded to messages and I tried to extend the world or Wiretap into the Twitter universe. In short, while I wasn't the real Jonathan Goldstein, I was the best Jonathan Goldstein that Twitter ever had.