UnfollowTrump

This Twitter account was my humble protest against the election of Donald Trump, which grew into a massive resource promoted by celebrities and community leaders, giving people an alternative way to follow his content instead of following his Twitter account directly.

Launched right after his election victory, I created a simple bot that copied the contents of his tweets and pasted/tweeted them into a new account, @UnfollowTrump. My basic premise was that he equated followers with supporters and I wanted to break that connection, providing a different way for people to stay on top of his actions.

The account grew to become a primary force in the #UnfollowTrump movement and the de facto archive of his tweets (since he regularly deleted the more controversial ones), as well as giving those blocked by him a way to see his content. The account still stands as a testament to his insane tweeting.

I also set up @UnfollowVP, which provided a similar service for the Vice President's account, although he was less overtly controversial on Twitter.

It was really amazing to see over the years how people actually relied on the account, quoted it regularly and shared with friends. Many celebrities and other media sources would quote-tweet and reply to these tweets instead of giving Trump the benefit of additional retweets directly.

I'm very proud of this simple, clever idea that provided a very specific, authentic solution by leveraging my passion for understanding digital culture and the mechanics of social media.

By the way, in the course of this project I was able to acquire the username @Unfollow and am very open to ideas about what to do with it :-)