dril
His first tweet, in full: “no”
2013·The social era·unexpected
A pseudonymous account, first on Twitter, that has posted absurd first-person jokes in the voice of one self-important character since 2008.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- wint
- Spread in
- 2013
- Began as
- A social-media post
- Format
- Post
- Made by
- Paul Dochney, identified in 2017
- Where it started
- Twitter; he had posted on the Something Awful forums as “gigantic drill”
- What it said
- His first tweet, in full: “no”
- Origin
- Not an upload originally
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
A pseudonymous account posting since 2008, in the voice of a furiously confident and comprehensively wrong American internet user. The tweets are short, misspelled, and structurally perfect: a man who buys a candle to spite his enemies, who declares himself not owned while shrinking to the size of a corn cob, who eats a bowl of shit for money and then negotiates.
A 2017 doxing incident named the author, who was later identified as Paul Dochney and who has mostly answered press enquiries in character. The tweets have been collected in book form and staged as theatre. That a body of anonymous internet writing is now studied as literature is the account's odd legacy.
Why it matteredWhat changed
A central figure of what was called Weird Twitter, with 1.6 million followers by 2021.
TimelineIn order
- Made
The first tweet.1
- Made
The “corncob” tweet.1
- Made
The tweet setting out a monthly budget that includes 3,600 dollars for candles.1
- Found
A post on Tumblr names him.1 What else happened on 16 November
- Mainstream
A tenth-anniversary collection is published as a book.1
- Later
He gives his first interview under his own name.1
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
This first circulated as a social-media post, not as a video upload. Originally published on Twitter.
Where it came fromWhat we know
There is no original upload to identify: this did not begin as one. There is no copy of it here either — what it was, when it appeared and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first publication of this Moment, because the first publication was not an upload. This first circulated as a social-media post, not as a video upload. Originally published on Twitter.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
What this was built on, each one a record of its own.
- Taken from Something AwfulPhenomenon · 2001
Before Twitter he posted on the Something Awful forums under the name “gigantic drill”.
More from the social eraMore of the archive
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things