Hi, I'm "Miley" "Cyrus"!

During the election season, "Fake Sarah Palin's" observations provided laughs and an ironic look at a sudden American superstar. When a furor erupted over Palin's shopping spree, FSP wrote "I know who planted fancy clothes in my closet now, ppl. CINDY YOU ARE GOIN' DOWN, PALIN STYLE". And during the actual election, after Pennsylvania's electoral votes were announced for Obama, there was this: "I was going to name my next kid Pennsylvania but screw you guys5:45 PM Nov 4th, 2008 from mobile web".

But you knew it was fake. It was quite clear that this was not the real Sarah Palin. But what of Twitterers who postfaux celebrity Twitter feeds? This article is about the twitterer 'cwalken'. His profile features a picture of the actor Christopher Walken, and his tweets speak of celebrity and drip of Walken's trademark irony. Other posters twitter under fictional personas, with Don Draper, Betty Draper and Peggy Olson of the AMC hit seriesMad Men sharing their thoughts online.

Why the inclination to twitter under a celebrity name? Is it because the 140 character limit invovles its own kind of stilted syntax, making it difficult to distinguish the real from the faux? Is this not so different from assuming the persona of a fictional character?

But there is a real Christopher Walken. I can also imagine that the writers of Mad Men may not be too thrilled should the Twitter manifestations start behaving out of character, participatory culture be damned.