“Lol Wut?” Happened to Willie Nelson’s Twitter Page?
Some use Twitter, and some don’t. Whether you happen to be on the format or not, it’s an invaluable tool for many music artists to get their information out to fans and the media in a quick and easy manner. Some artists really emphasize their Twitter and social network presence, and for others it’s an afterthought, if they even pay attention to it at all.
Willie Nelson’s Twitter page was initially launched in August of 2008 and definitely fell more into the active category, especially in recent years, not only helping fans keep up with the country legend, but sharing information about the many causes Willie champions. Recently a picture Willie posted on Twitter of a weed-inspired Christmas sweater from his friend Snoop Dogg went viral on the format, for example.
That’s why it was so strange when a few weeks ago Willie Nelson’s official Twitter account converted to an entirely new account called “lolwut?,” and started exclusively posting links to stories on viral content farms like Viralthread and Distractify—in other words, content from a bunch of aggregated clickbait funnels that have consumed the internet over the last few years.
Some of the people who follow Willie on Twitter may have not even noticed that it was Willie’s account that was all of a sudden converted to the new “lolwut?” account, and just all of a sudden saw a bunch of unusual links filling their feeds. The new account is posting approximately 50 links a day, and appears to have taken over on January 20th. All identity information from the former Willie Nelson Twitter account has been scrubbed, as have all of Willie’s previous Tweets. The links to Willie Nelson in Snoop Dogg’s weed-inspired Christmas sweater? They’re all broken now.
So what exactly happened? Did Willie get hacked? Did he sell his account to whomever is now operating the ‘lolwut?’ Twitter page? Saving Country Music has reached out to both the Willie Nelson camp and Twitter, and has received no response. There is another Twitter account that is @WillieNelson that says it was started in January 2017 (probably about the time ‘lolwut?’ took over the old account), and it is also linked to via the Twitter icon on Willie Nelson’s official website. But so far there are no tweets, only a few followers, and the avatar starter egg has not been replaced. Meanwhile many of the 620,000 people following the ‘lolwut?’ account started following to get information about Willie, who’s recently been battling health concerns, and instead are getting spammed with viral posts.
Whether the account was hacked or sold, it has to be one of the biggest cases of a Twitter account from a world-recognized celebrity being re-purposed, yet nobody is reporting on it, and nobody seems to want to offer an explanation. More information if and when it becomes available.
Wallace
February 8, 2017 @ 11:28 am
Maybe Willie himself does his own Twitter stuff and hasn’t been able to address it since he’s been ill.
RedDirtCyclone
February 8, 2017 @ 12:21 pm
I was really confused about why I was following that account…
StopPopCountry
February 9, 2017 @ 8:39 am
I was similarly baffled and unfollowed it. It was clogging my feed and I had no idea why I would ever follow something like that. Now it makes a lot more sense.
Tezca
February 8, 2017 @ 1:44 pm
I was wondering what was going on and why no one outside of Wheeler Walker Jr and a few seems to have noticed and talking about it. You think here would be a mention about it from the Willie Nelson camp like there probably would be from another artist camp if their twitter account got hacked or at least more people telling Willie aboht it like on Facebook or something.
Trigger
February 8, 2017 @ 4:16 pm
The changeover (or hack) happened on Inauguration Day, so obviously most people were preoccupied with other things and it got buried in the news cycle. Also, many folks follow so many people on Twitter, they may either not notice, or think lolwut is something they followed in the past but don’t remember. It’s actually a really crafty way to weasel into people’s Twitter feeds.
Sam Cody
February 8, 2017 @ 5:23 pm
Ain’t it ’bout time to stick that damn bird on the rotisserie?
Matt Bjorke
February 8, 2017 @ 9:45 pm
More than likely it was stolen and the other one set up so they wouldn’t “notice.” I have a feeling that Willie’s team will eventually notice.
FreeTicketGal
February 9, 2017 @ 4:09 pm
Pretty sure it was hacked, since what you are describing is the “normal” behaviour of stolen accounts. Unfortunately there seems to be no way to prevent this, verification of the account in question only seem to makes it worse and like Matt says, we’ll just have to wait for the team to notice.
minimum
February 10, 2017 @ 1:55 pm
The @willienelson account and the lolwut account are now one and the same. The original lolwut account, based on the links in this article, is gone. Someone must’ve gotten ahold of willie’s stash.
Trigger
February 10, 2017 @ 2:16 pm
Yes, it looks like they somehow merged “@willienelson” with the original Willie Nelson account that is now “lolwut?”, and “lolwut?” is now directly linked to by Willie Nelson’s website via the Twitter icon. I would say this means things are now worse.
Camie Jo
February 11, 2017 @ 10:50 pm
Oooo, I hope not. I’m going to say prayers for Willie. For real. He’s extra special.
RainyDaysAZ
March 1, 2018 @ 1:25 pm
I love to listen to Willie; however, I was surprised that he would send me a message. It came from account called im_Willienelson. So sad to know he really isn’t my friend. Regardless, I won’t stop listening to his music. He had me at “Hello Walls”.