Spotting a Fake Celebrity on Twitter - 2.0

I originally wrote about this last year, but it bears repeating. Plus certain things have changed since I last wrote this.

In the past there has been several impersonators of a TV Show that I enjoy watching. Specifically NCIS. There's been a Pauley Perrette  Michael Weatherly (@tonydinozzoMW ) a Sean Murray ( @SeanMurrayNCIS ) and a couple of Cote dePablo (CotedeP and CotedePablo) accounts tweeting away (although, 'Sean Murray' account has been suspended, and both fake Cote's have been deleted) We do know that the REAL Sean Murray is on Twitter under SeanHMurray

Although he last tweeted in March this year, the fake Michael Weatherly was pimping away his 'daughter' (who has a Twitter account, but as of this entry, that account has been deleted as have all the tweets associated with the 'daughter') Michael Weatherly does NOT have a daughter (August Manning Weatherly is Michael's son). In addition, he also pimped a Jen Aniston ; I am fairly certain it's a fake account.

Some celebrities cannot be on social networking media such as Facebook, Twitter for various reasons. In fact, Pauley Perrette released a YouTube video some time ago on this subject - check the video out here. Since then she also joined Twitter, as PauleyP , you can see the YouTube video here

Some of the NCIS Los Angeles cast are on Twitter, check out @NCIS_News and who they follow. NCIS_News is not associated with CBS in any way, the account is there just to provide news on both the NCIS shows, cast and crew; but NCISNews (another account) mention that in the Twitter info. The ONLY NCIS account associated with CBS is @NCIS_CBS (Check who they follow)

I really don't know why people would want to fake a celebrity (is it just a popularity contest? a joke? or "Oh look, I'm pretending to be Michael Weatherly and I have 50000 followers, and they're all morons because I'm not really Michael Weatherly?") Who knows.... but people still fall for fakes. Guys, please be careful of following fakes. Whilst the world won't end if you do follow a fake, it's still a scam. I'm just putting my two cents in to try shine some light onto the situation, and if I helped one or two people realize they're following a fake instead of a real celebrity, good! Power to us, and no power to the fakes.

Not all celebrities have verified accounts (the little blue tick by their name, NOT in their bio, on their user pic, or in a tweet!), however those who haven't been verified might still be the real celebrities behind the usernames. Here's a few tips, some are rather obvious, based on personal experience and common sense:

- Real celebrities almost always post photographs or short videos from the set of the show they're working on to tease their fans (such as @NathanFillion),  from awards shows they attend (such as Alyson Hannigan-Denisof @AlyDenisof at the Emmy's) or any other photographic or video evidence that's not easily found online.

- Real celebrities might not follow a lot of people, those who they follow are usually close to them, or those they've worked with in the past. (here's a tip: if you're following people who have worked together on past shows/movies, they're likely to follow each other and talk to each other, if one of them is verified, it's more credible evidence to the fact that you're following real celebrities. More so if an official account follows them (such as NCIS CBS account that follows PauleyP , Sean Murray and Brian Dietzen amongst others.)

- Real celebrities also talk about their upcoming interviews and encourage people to tune in to their appearances on chat shows, or tune in to the latest episode of the show they're on. Some, like Julie Benz and Stephen Collins live-tweet the show they're on and also provide interesting insights into the production/storyline.

- If the celebrity has an official website, their Twitter info will be mentioned there.

- As Twitter gains popularity, celebrities will also mention their Twitter details in interviews.

- Celebrities will also converse with other celebrities on Twitter. (such as Stargate Universe's @MingNa and @AmandaTapping of Stargate SG1/Atlantis/Sanctuary. Or the cast and crew of NCIS and NCIS Los Angeles)

- The user pic a celebrity will have, might not be a photo easily found online (for example in the past, NCIS Los Angeles star @BarrettFoa has a picture of himself sleeping. And Nathan Fillion spots a userpic from his Firefly days as Capt Mal Reynolds against a greenscreen.Pauley Perrette has one of herself wearing a tShirt with her name on it, and holding up a sign with twitter and youtube details as well as mentioning that she has someone tweeting for her at times) On the other hand, the photo in the user pic might be a PR photo, so this sign alone, doesn't discount the celeb as being fake.

Fake celebrities on the other hand:

- Always say they're the real deal (seriously, if you ask them "Are you *really* ______?" no faker will say "No, I'm just pretending.")

- to appear more authentic, fakes might link to a MySpace or Facebook page of the celebrity; check their site to see if the Twitter info is mentioned. It's not that hard to fake a MySpace and Facebook profile.

- Fake celebrities might follow more people than follow them back. (usual sign of any spammer, actually.) Real celebrities have no need to mass follow random people on Twitter, because frankly, they have a very busy schedule to deal with. However, celebrities associated with TODHD.com (Kelsey Grammer , Corbin Bleu, etc do follow back, so follower numbers alone is not a factor)

- Fakes might follow other fake celebrities. (such as the case of Michael Weatherly and fake Jen Aniston)

- Fakes will have the celebrity's user pic. (Obvious, right? Seriously though, how hard is it to find a photo of a celeb online?)

- fake celebrities might talk about last night's aired episode and 'how hard/cool/etc it was to shoot it'

- fake celebrities usually tweet 'hey did you see that interview I did with so and so"

- fake celebrities might also tweet really simple stuff such as "Filming the show today" ; real celebrities will most often go into more detail, such as @JulieBenz

Note though, it's not all cut and dry when it comes to spotting a fake. Some are very authentic-looking. And one or two signs from those I mentioned above don't necessarily point to a celebrity being fake or real. Amanda Tapping for instance, doesn't have a user pic (as of this post), however, we know she's the real deal because in her past tweets Ming Na has posted photos of herself with Amanda and talked about getting Amanda to join Twitter. So it's really a mix of things.

To sum things up

- Check before you follow a celebrity! Google is your friend, Wikipedia is also very useful when you want to know things about a celebrity

- check to see if the celebrity has a website, and whether their Twitter username is listed on the website. See who they've worked with in the past, if they're on Twitter, have a verified account and are following the celeb you want to follow, and whether they actually spoke to each other on Twitter.

I'm sure there are some signs I've missed, if you'd like to share your tips for spotting a fake celebrity, find me on Twitter @TDAllonsy or leave a comment here.

I don't know what Twitter is doing about fake celebrity accounts, they have their hands full with other things I'm sure. But that doesn't mean the Twitter-verse is powerless to do anything about it! It's all about a group effort. So, Twitterers - If you spot a fake celebrity, please don't leave it to someone else to deal with them - block and report them to @spam and spread the word. The more complaints, the sooner Twitter will look into the case.

One person can't really make a huge difference, but if we all join hands, our voices will be louder and the difference will be much larger.

Let's not give the fakes any power over us.