In Memory of @BPDeezNutzz, the Best GreenTrolling Account to Ever Grace Twitter

Twitter’s latest effort to do away with parody accounts has suspended @BPDeezNutzz, an account that ruthlessly taunted oil and gasoline large BP.

Amy Westervelt and Mary Annaïse Heglar created the account in April and had about 2,000 observeers by the point Twitter axed the account round November 10. They’re local weather writers and the duo behind the Hot Take podcast. When new Twitter proprietor Elon Musk introduced that customers may pay to get a blue checkmark, Westervelt and Helgar jumped on the chance. Their first tweet after verifying the account was: “Just because we killed the planet, doesn’t mean we can’t miss it.”

The tweet brought about a stir—Helgar thinks it was appreciated over 35,000 instances earlier than the account was suspended hours later. Drummer and producer Questlove even posted a screenshot of it to his Instagram. The bio learn, “NetZero Deez Nutzzzzzz!” in response to the actual BP’s bio, which at present reads “Reimagining energy for people and our planet #bpNetZero.” The account’s avatar was the inexperienced BP brand dripping with oil, whereas its header picture confirmed an ocean wave, scummy and brown after a spill.

The path to creating the account started after Helgar noticed a sustainability ballot from BP on Twitter again in October 2019. “The first step to reducing your emissions is to know where you stand. Find out your #carbonfootprint with our new calculator & share your pledge today!” the corporate’s tweet learn. A pissed-off Helgar responded, “Bitch what’s yours???”

She had jabbed at huge companies on Twitter for some time however turned particularly aggressive after that ballot in 2019. Every 12 months, she and co-host Westervelt have an online “fuck BP day” in remembrance of an enormous spill in 2010. The Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which was leased by fossil gasoline large BP, exploded on April 20, 2010 about 41 miles off the coast of Louisiana. It capsized and sank two days later. Eleven employees and tens of hundreds of marine animals died consequently. Cleanup crews and Gulf Coast residents suffered short- and long-term well being results from the spill. A 2021 report concerning the spill’s results discovered that employees and close by residents struggled with pores and skin points like rashes, respiratory well being points, chronic headaches, and anxiousness for years. The results of the catastrophe are nonetheless measurable alongside the Gulf Coast, greater than 10 years later.

For this 12 months’s anniversary, the duo launched the @BPDeezNutzz Twitter account.

Helgar and Westervelt used @BPDeezNutzz to reply to tweets from the official BP account. Their objective was to focus on how gross it’s that giant oil firms are allowed to greenwash and gaslight, all whereas polluting the planet. “What they straight-up tweet from their own accounts seems like a parody,” Westervelt mentioned.

Helgar and Westervelt don’t suppose that trolling oil and gasoline firms on social media is only for laughs—they really feel it’s an efficient public shaming technique. They usually see on-line feedback during which folks wax poetic about taking the excessive street. But neither Westervelt or Helgar believes they must be neutral concerning the local weather disaster. BP has dedicated a protracted listing of environmental crimes, and the corporate has injected bias into power analysis with their funding. BP has additionally been accused of mendacity and greenwashing in commercials.

“We know who did climate change. They are out there and they deserve your anger,” Helgar mentioned. “I think climate change is often portrayed not as a victimless crime, but a villain-less crime. Greentrolling reveals who the villain in the story is.”

The firms see their trolling. ExxonMobil has Helgar blocked on Twitter. In 2020, Westervelt obtained inside paperwork from BP confirming that the corporate was anxious about its picture on-line. “They were coming up with a strategy for their whole net-zero scrawling handwriting campaign,” she mentioned. “They were very concerned about the fact that people are not taking them seriously and that young people don’t like them. And how to avoid being targeted online.”

Some Twitter customers appear to imagine that the account was run by comic Jaboukie Young-White. In 2020, he modified his Twitter account to seem like it belonged to the FBI. “Just because we killed MLK doesn’t mean we can’t miss him,” Young-White tweeted. Helgar and Westervelt confirmed that his MLK tweet impressed their BP killing-the-planet tweet.

When chatting with Earther, Helgar and Westervelt described the account as a “rage child” and as their “baby boy.” I requested in the event that they had been going to dispute the account’s suspension. “There’s a form that says we can contest, but we’re not gonna…. We know we did that shit,” Helgar defined. “Best to let him go out in a blaze of glory. He was too beautiful for this world,” Westervelt laughed.

Rest in peace, @BPDeezNutzz. You had been right here for a superb time, not a very long time.