The Grobitch Confessional

Hello, my name is John Fleming. I am twenty-four years old. And I am the founder of the Twitter account @grobitch20.

This seems like a silly coming-out really; I suspect that for most people who follow both me and Grobitch on Twitter (which is a lot of people, many of whom interestingly enough followed Grobitch before following me, including the man who eventually outed me), this comes as about as big of a surprise as when George Michael came out in 1998. It’s a formality; it isn’t Earth-shattering news. Like George Michael, I’m only confessing because I got caught, but I knew this day would come. Frankly, I’m surprised it took as long as it did. I never wanted to go out on top. That wouldn’t be in the spirit of Grobitch. I wanted it to go down in flames.

I hope that anyone who reads this who is amused by Grobitch is amused for the same reasons I had so much fun doing it. Grobitch is a parody of @grobot20, not an indictment. Is the account critical of its target? No question. But it is also, as its bio long said, “a loving tribute to @grobot20.” For anyone who doesn’t know, I am actually friends with Nick in real life. And we were friends before I got Twitter. In fact, I got Twitter largely because Nick said I would enjoy it. He was right. And if I weren’t at least somewhat amused by his shtick, I’d have no particular motivation to satirize him. And that is why I started Grobitch. This account has lasted ten months. It started when Nick was an undergraduate and he’s now closer to the end than the beginning of Masters degree studies. I’ve had three different jobs since it started. It’s been a fun ten months and here is the story.

Of all of my friends, Nick is the only one that I think could have a half-decent parody account made about him. First of all, he tweets a lot. Second of all, he tweets passionately—he doesn’t just say what’s going on his day, but rather he tweets excitedly about sports, TV, or whatever’s on his mind. Third, and most importantly, he has a great sense of humor. This isn’t necessarily the same thing as being funny, as most people seem to think. A sense of humor means he can, well, sense humor. He can appreciate humor, even when it is derisively directed to him. He would probably be reluctant to admit this, but I suspect the only person who enjoyed Grobitch more than I did was he himself. And fourth, and almost as importantly, he had a large Twitter base upon which to build a following. You can’t parody somebody that has twelve followers. Frankly, I suspected Grobitch would end up with about twelve followers anyway.

Grobitch was founded the night of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship between Kentucky and Kansas and it was the perfect night to do it. Nick hates Kansas basketball (as all good Americans do) and was destined to passionately live-tweet the game. However, I had actually gotten the idea for a parody account of Nick that weekend, when I went up to Kirksville for the initiation of the fraternity of which we are both members. While #LadiesLoveThemSomeGrobot, as Grobitch so often hashtagged, was actually invented by me (as myself, not as Grobitch) as a fairly sarcastic mocking, it’s kind of true. It was the second straight semester that I had come up for initiation and it was the second straight semester that, with Nick not even around, he came up in conversation and I realized that something I hadn’t foreseen was happening here. Nick was becoming something of an institution, as silly and absurd as that sounds. But anyway, the basketball game would be a tremendous opportunity for me to exhibit some of the memes that became Grobitch’s trademark. The memes were insane exaggerations of things the real Nick would use on Twitter, but they soon became the basis of the exaggeration. As with all satire, the solution isn’t to use non-sequitors; it is to become something of a caricature.

The first Grobitch tweet came at 9:00 p.m. on April 2, 2012. “Kansas is proving right now that they’re overrated. The SEC is the best conference in the universe. #MIZSEC #NotBiased.” In retrospect this was an okay tweet, as it does pick up on a secondary Grobitch meme of ridiculing homerism. Tweet 2 said “Doron Lamb is getting laid tonight. Just like me.” Thus beginning Grobitch’s infatuation with “the ladies” (or “teh ladies” if you prefer). Tweet 6 is, in my opinion, the tweet that really launched Grobitch: “Bill Self is an asshat. Thomas Robinson is an asshat. Everybody is an asshat.” It’s a totally insane comment that Nick on his worst day wouldn’t even make but at the same time, it works as satire. It calls people an asshat and it evolves from calling Bill Self an asshat (which I’d be surprised if Nick hasn’t done directly), to calling Thomas Robinson an asshat (less likely, but somewhat plausible), to calling everybody an asshat (the point at which the parody is acknowledged).

I won’t lie; I thought this might last about a week.

Even early on, I alternated between insanity (“When I’m wearing my Jayhawks shirt around campus tomorrow, it’s the only thing ever that could prevent me from getting laid”) and pseudo-social commentary (“Fuck having to work tonight at a job that I voluntarily hold not because I have pressing financial need but for beer money”). And that was the blueprint.

And then the others got involved.

As per the request of others involved, I will choose not to indicate who the others are. I will say that, to the best of my knowledge, the total number of people who have tweeted under the name @grobitch20 is four and that the total number of people who knew before today for an absolute, tangible fact who was behind the account is around ten. With that said, about ninety-five percent of Grobitch’s tweets, including almost all of the reply tweets (even most of the ones that are replying to my personal tweets) came from me.

And so it has continued. Grobitch now has 82 followers. Holy shit, a parody account of a non-celebrity who has only followed people based on whether or not @grobot20 has tweeted at them has EIGHTY-TWO FOLLOWERS. I’m amazed, personally. It’s been a hell of a ride. Will it continue now that the truth is known? I don’t see why not. To some extent, Grobitch had probably seen better days even without being outed. One thing I can promise is that Grobitch will be deleted before it ever resorts to insisting on prior review from, as he would put it, “Real Me”. Thanks to everybody who has made this the most fun ten months anyone could ever hope to have on Twitter.

Love,         

John (@johnjf125)

P.S.—If you have any further questions about Grobitch or the Grobitch process, leave them in the comments section or DM me (either under @johnjf125 or @grobitch20 will be fine) and I’d be happy to answer them under a separate post.