An internet troll has been having the time of his or her life since Wednesday after creating a fake Twitter account and then posting tweets that are part racist, part satire.
The account spoofs the real Viljoen and, mostly, the opinions of white people who come to his defence.
The troll used a publicly available picture of the man from the infamous Spur video under the Twitter handle @ekisnicoviljoen.
He started out by getting attention for saying the sort of ridiculous things many may feel could well come from the real Viljoen, who is yet to make a public comment about the furore around his threats to slap a black woman in a Spur restaurant at The Glen.
A racist tweet from the fake account on Wednesday about how “these people” (black people) shouldn’t have been at Spur but rather at ChesaNyama has been the most widely shared and condemned, with many initially believing it was real.
However, the troll has also messaged numerous social media celebs directly, including Steve Hofmeyr, who penned his opinions on Facebook about the Spur controversy. The troll not-so-subtly made fun of Hofmeyr, though of course many also read the tweets literally. Sarcasm continues to be difficult to understand in South Africa, it seems.
The timeline of his tweets over two days suggest the troll believes he’s very funny and that all this mockery of the situation is a great idea.
He even poked fun at former Sunday Times columnist David Bullard, who was fired in disgrace from the paper for writing an opinion piece panned for its racism.
Bullard had on Sunday written in defence of Helen Zille that “If you’ve created nothing and invented f**k all these past 2000 years I can see why you would have a problem with @helenzille tweets.”
The fake Nico Viljoen asked Bullard to share what his favourite invention is, clearly insinuating there is no such thing.
Take a look at some of the other tweets. And don’t get tripped up by fake accounts, tweeps. Remember, they’re easy to create.
Download our app and read this and other great stories on the move. Available for Android and iOS.
