Remember this? Not long after I posted that, the man behind the fake Jonah Hill Twitter account sent me an e-mail. His name is John Esquivel, and he’s a comedy writer, and fan of FrontBurner. Our short e-mail Q&A is after le jump.
How did you choose Jonah Hill?
I chose Jonah Hill because I felt if anyone would have a sense of humor about the whole idea, it would be him. I was a fan of his since Superbad, and when reading bios and interviews about him, I realized I had a lot in common with him. I am highly aware this is stalker speak, but seriously, here is someone who would love to be a comedy writer, is self-deprecating, and very loyal to friends. This is a guy who turned down a role in the new Transformers film because it conflicted with him doing another movie with the “Apatow rat pack” with Funny People.
It also helped and motivated me to see he had no Twitter account and I felt some of my humor would mirror what people would believe Jonah Hill would Twitter about.
Did you think you would have to prove yourself to someone — other than comedian Doug Benson — for people to believe it was really Jonah Hill?
The key to doing this was to convince another celebrity, or at least someone with a large base of followers, to not only believe I was the real deal, but to recommend me to their followers via a tweet. Once I lucked into convincing Doug Benson, I was seeing hundreds upon hundreds of emails stating I had new followers daily.
My goal was to never really get out there and mingle with the likes of Jon Favreau and Nia Vardalos, I was going after my favorite comics like Benson and Michael Ian Black, etc. What’s strange is that Nia Vardalos and Marlee Matlin contacted ME first. Being a skeptic, I assumed they were both fake profiles, because I did not realize this monster I created was already living and breathing in this way. I feel bad, because assuming that the Marlee Matlin Twitter was a fake, I made an offhand joke about her being deaf. I felt like a tool when I realized it was most likely her.
Jon Favreau sent me an email welcoming to Twitter, and that’s when everything took off. I suspect when one of my random tweets as Jonah made it onto E!, that was good enough for them to believe it was me.
What’s funny is Marlee Matlin was pushing her autobiography and Nia Vardalos was pushing her new movie, both asking me to shout them out on Twitter about it. Even when celebrities are talking to celebrities, it looks like they’re always hustling and selling something!
Do you think this has helped your comedy-writing career at all?
Well, I wrote on my blog, that as this thing was chugging along, I had this pseudo fantasy that if Jonah found out about it, he of all people would find it funny, reach out to me and have him verify the account, and just continue to let me ghost write it. I’ve seen Jonah on two separate interviews claim that he was told by several friends that they followed him on Twitter and really enjoyed it, so it was saddening to see him be upset about it. Especially considering I was hoping if anyone, he would love to be in on something like that. When I posted my blog confession, I knew the end was near and the account would be suspended. I asked people to join me on my real Twitter and braced myself for the derision and the pitchfork and torch thing. Instead, I got very, VERY little negative feedback. People told me they still thought I was funny and I got a good handful of them them start following me at my real site. What can make a humorist swell with pride in their work more than that?
If anything, it has motivated me and heartened me more to any self-doubt I carried about my writing. I’m not arrogant by a long shot, but sure, I like to think I’m a funny guy with a lot to offer. Even when you’re posting stuff as Jonah Hill, which people and fans expect to be funny, it’s always a thrill to see hundreds of people re-posting your 140 character jokes to their friends.
Any final thoughts?
To me, Twitter is WAY more than a means to let people know what you’re eating or what you’re doing. In a way, sites like Twitter draw us further and further away from human contact and real conversation.If you can’t mash it down to 140 characters, it’s not worth talking about, seems to be the idea. But when you use it as a sharpening tool for comedy writing it’s fantastic. The case used to be that if you thought of something funny, or your friends got a laugh out of it, you would write it down on something, anything. A cocktail napkin, etc.
Now, you just type it as a text message and send it off to your Twitter account. If people retweet the hell out of it, you know you’re onto something, if it gets a lukewarm response, you know it was worth much from the get go.
