Last week The Atlantic revealed Dan Sinker, former editor of the seminal punk zine Punk Planet, to be the mastermind behind the genius "political satire meets Twitter" character @Mayor Emanuel. Many will remember Sinkers now defunct Punk Planet for it's in depth interviews, critical record reviews and intellectual feature articles exploring punk's role and responsibility in today's society. If perhaps you are not a Chicago resident or politics nerd like myself, it's possible that you may have missed the story of @MayorEmanuel.
Last September, White House Chief Of Staff Rahm Emanuel announced his leaving of the position to run for mayor of Chicago. Soon after a Twitter profile was created called @MayorEmanuel. @MayorEmanuel quickly racked up followers eager to devour every curse laden and sarcastic tweet the presumably fictitious Rahm Emanuel sent out to the world.
Followers were treated to an (albeit fake) behind the scenes look at politics today: from campaign stops to feeble minded interns and even airport pickups of Emanuel's Hollywood super-agent brother Ari Emanuel. Often times @MayorEmanuel would respond to news pundits, primary election results, and political opponents in real time. Slowly, @MayorEmanuel began to craft a multi-layered dynamic character that revealed a deep love of Chicago even if his sentiment was buried in f-bombs. By the time the real Rahm Emanuel won the mayors office, @MayorEmanuel followers had been taken on a comedic and at times emotional journey the likes of which Twitter had never seen before. The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal summed it up as a "epic poem"via Twitter.
Head over to Madrigal's article on The Atlantic, it's a great read with highlights from the @MayorEmanuel Twitter feed. Or if you are interested in the entire story the @MayorEmanuel profile is still up and running.
And for those of us who were along for the ride, I would like say thank you to Dan Sinker. It was a good one.
PHOTO CREDIT: Copyright Daniel X. O'Neil.
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