This article was published on August 7, 2018

This hilarious Twitter account triggers film fans with fake criticisms


This hilarious Twitter account triggers film fans with fake criticisms

When I stumbled across this hilarious parody account on Twitter, I lost 30 minutes of my workday to laughter. It’s called @movie_goofs, and it tweets joke criticisms of movie “mistakes.”

The fellow behind the tweets, Sean, plays the role of a daft movie critic pointing out inaccuracies in films that, as you may have guessed from the above tweets, aren’t actually “goofs.” The best part about the account isn’t actually the jokes, funny as they may be, it’s the comments. A shocking number of people have replied to Sean’s parody tweets by fansplaining to him why his criticisms are invalid – invariably to the delight of everyone else.

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Take this tweet, the account’s first, for example:

It has 42 comments and it seems like most of them are people rolling their eyes at some silly movie critic who doesn’t understand what he or she is talking about – which, of course, means they don’t get the joke.

It’s difficult, sometimes, to discern what’s earnest and what’s satire on the internet. Unless, of course, the account has the word “parody” in its description like @movie_goofs does. Which, if you think about it, makes it even funnier when people express their indignation at Sean’s haughty criticisms.

TNW asked Sean, whose last name is unpronounceable by humans (not really, he asked us to leave it out), whether he was a professional comedian or just a regular funny person, he told us:

No background in comedy. I have a background in pedantry, though. I imagine there are other people who could pull off @movie_goofs, but I’m very sure there is no other twitter comedy account I could pull off.

Perhaps one reason the account seems to resonate with people is its incredible dryness. The only tweets it sends are criticisms. Throughout its two week history, whenever someone criticizes his criticisms, Sean merely responds with another criticism of the same movie. It’s a brilliant way to tip your hand to the audience while staying in character, and another example of the subtle genius of the account.

Another reason? Maybe it’s relevant to what’s happening around the world, especially online. Twitter is often called the most toxic of the social media platforms, with far more than its fair share of fake news, gaslighting, and trolling. And its arguable that by playing an oblivious character Sean is, in a way, pranking his audience when he responds without explicit clarification.

But, Sean says:

I can see interpreting it that way. I mean, not breaking character is a choice on my part. But my reason for not breaking character isn’t to troll, but because it helps suspend disbelief that the movie_goofs critic is sufficiently unable to understand moviemaking that he can express Nigel Tufnel levels of incomprehension. And I just find it more aesthetically appealing. The accidental trolling that comes with it is really just Poe’s Law writ large – writ large all over movie_goofs notifications tab.

As far as we can tell, @movie_goofs is a safe-for-work parody account that’s full of good clean fun. You can DM your ideas to it and, if the joke works, Sean will tweet it out on the account with credit to the author – essentially crowdsourcing laughter while turning criticism into comedy.

Here’s my favorite (so much subtlety!):

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