Would the real John Hegarty please stand up
About a week ago (August 5th) a new Twitter account appeared. Nothing strange in that. But this one belonged to John Hegarty, Worldwide Creative Director of BBH. The BBH whose offices we share.
His account accumulated over a thousand followers in a matter of hours as word spread that one of the most well known ad agency creatives in the world had joined Twitter.
However, within a day or so people began to suspect that this wasn’t the real deal. The language was poor and the tweeted quotes hackneyed. “Not the language of Hegarty” people cried via Twitter.
On Monday night I tweeted that I was unfollowing the account. The 1990s management speak and trite ‘creative’ blatherings were too much. This was obviously an imposter. And I think I know who it is…On Monday night I tweeted that I was unfollowing the account. The 1990s management speak and trite ‘creative’ blatherings were too much. This was obviously an imposter. And I think I know who it is…
As soon as I announced the fact I was followed by an Art Director from Brazil. On checking out his account there were a few things that seemed odd.
First, the apostrophes used in the @John_Hegarty account looked to have come from a non-english keyboard. They’re more like acute accents. Exactly the same as those in this Brazilian AD’s stream. And secondly, this guy was retweeting the @John_Hegarty account like mad. Pretty much tweet for tweet. He also seemed to have an unusual obsession with reports of @John_Hegarty on Twitter from other sources.
Stuart did a little tinkering with the Twitter API to see if there was anything we could glean that wasn’t visible on the public accounts.
But a look at the resumé on his portfolio site sealed the deal. He said, as part of his bio, that he was following @John_Hegarty on Twitter. Why would you say that? And so quick after the account’s creation.
So, I think it’s time to out the person who I think is the imposter.
His name is Lucas Zaiden, an Art Director from Brazil. Currently working at Leo Burnett. He can be found at @lucaszaiden on Twitter.
What do you think? Am I right?