538 days ago I launched an Andrew Bolt account on Twitter: @andrewbolt.

I felt as a major right-wing commentator he would make an ideal target for my satirical pen. The account was instantly successful, and 537 days later it has hummed along quite nicely without incident. So what happened?

Andrew Bolt happened.

Yesterday morning I awoke to an account awash with links to a blog post entitled “So which media organisation is implicated in this dishonesty?”. News.com.au then followed up with a story entitled Twitter Fake is Identity Theft, says Andrew Bolt.

The dishonesty Bolt was referring to was my Twitter account. To title the blog post with a gaping factual error was a stroke of pure genius on his behalf. The answer is “none”.

The Twitter is the work of me alone. I do not work nor have contacts to the vaunted “media industry”.

Having shrugged off the facts with the headline, Bolt immediately jumped into an assortment of ungentlemanly threats, suggesting that I “had been warned” and “a tearful sorry may be too late”.

I shouldn’t need to point out that the only tears springing forth were tears of laughter. As I began reading my replies, I quickly realised that all of Twitter was behind me. Even on Andrew’s blog, the early, angry comments (“call the police!”) gave way to ridicule.

Andrew tried to quell the mass by comparing them to the “Leftists” at the French Revolution, which says a great deal about his mindset. We are the assorted rabble and ABC employees, and he is the Aristocrat, quivering ‘neath our shimmering blade. When the mockery didn’t subside, he updated again, this time threatening he may “name names” — in other words, using his pulpit to bully me.

I’d long assumed that Bolt had decided that ignoring the account was better than calling attention to it. Not knowing my identity meant he couldn’t engage in character assassination, an occurrence so frequent it has been given the nickname “Bolting”. The only thing that I can see has changed is someone has fed Bolt wrong information about me and he has jumped off the deep end.

The failing of my account seems to be that it is too successful. Satire is a powerful tool. The Pure Poison blog does a great service by rebutting many of Bolt’s articles, but in thousands of words. Using Twitter I can make the identical point in 140 characters and it will have more of an impact. This seems to cause Bolt bother.

Andrew has charged that I am too close to his writing and not parodic enough, perhaps not realising that this reflects worse on him than it does on me (an update to his blog labelled me a “barbarian”, a word that I have delightedly put to frequent use since he started using it several months ago).

He also claims that I am engaging in “identity theft”, which sounds as though I am renting suits in his name and not paying the bill. This, too, is nonsense. I encourage Crikey readers to read my tweets and decide for yourself whether I am parodying him or stealing his identity. If Bolt is right, Bob Hawke should take Max Gillies to court.

At this point I’d just like to thank Andrew Bolt for giving my Twitter account so much attention. Yesterday I received 800 new followers and Tweeters have started 33 new fake Andrew Bolt accounts (to my count anyway, there may be more) in support of me:

bolt

Tom Lehrer is often quoted as saying satire was dead when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize. A major commentator threatening a parody because he thinks their views are too closely aligned certainly backs up that theory.

Follow Fake Andrew Bolt at @andrewbolt