When a small platoon of turtles shut down the runway at Kennedy International Airport Wednesday morning in search of a place to lay eggs, dozens of news organizations took to the web and Twitter to report on the reptiles.
In no time at all, the turtles had their own parody Twitter account, @jfkturtles, where the terrapins poked fun at the media and JetBlue.
The account was an immediate hit. It received mentions from Katie Couric, The New York Post, NBC Nightly News and JetBlue.Yet despite gathering more than 4,000 followers in one day, will the account’s pace and popularity last?
For five days in March, the Bronx Zoo cobra and its escape had the world hanging on its every move. Its Twitter account, @bronxzooscobra, collected more than 200,000 followers, making it one of the most popular animal accounts ever created (other accounts include The Honey Badger, Banff Squirrel and L Train Rat). Between March 29th and 31st the account more than doubled its followers from 102,000 to 218,000.
Then on March 31st the cobra was caught.
Since then the account has hovered between 218,000 – 242,000 followers, and continues to tweet. A search of @bronxzooscobra shows that the account is now used as a standard in animal parody among Twitter users, and has spawned accounts like Bronx Zoo’s Hawk, Bronx Zoo’s Camel and Bronx Zoo’s Lion.
From behind his enclosure at the Bronx Zoo, the cobra weighed in on the JFK Turtles and gave the terrapins his blessing in an exclusive interview with The Daily Dot.
“I’m always excited to see more animals participating in social media. It is such a human dominated medium, it takes a very tech savvy creature to jump into the fray. I’m all for it,” said the mind behind @bronxzooscobra in an e-mail.
“You know the old saying, ‘Slow and steady wins the race?’ We’ll just have to wait and see. I’m just a bit worried that they are tweeting so much during mating season. I would think they have better things to do.”
With the turtles now safely removed from the runway, it’s unclear how popular the Twitter parody account will be. Next time, those turtles might want to plan out their maneuvers ahead of time. A morning of mayhem probably won’t cut it.