David Bridges
Earlier this week, Liz Truss became the new prime minister of the United Kingdom. As the world congratulated the 47-year-old politician, many on Twitter mistakenly tagged a wrong account. A woman from the UK named Liz Trussell, who goes by the Twitter handle @Liztruss, was tagged in a host of tweets about Truss’s latest role. The real Twitter handle of Prime Minister Liz Truss is @trussliz.
Amongst those who tagged the wrong Liz were UK Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, and the official Twitter account of Britain’s Royal Family. What made this confusion funny was that Trussell responded to these tweets in a hilarious way that soon went viral.
People keep tagging a random person instead of the incoming British prime minister and she’s rolling with it lol pic.twitter.com/3VpKzV5Qel
— Thor Benson (@thor_benson) September 5, 2022
Omgg. Dying pic.twitter.com/e5QJEyQHhO
— Citizen Kate, medieval vamp underlord (@ctznkate) September 5, 2022
British woman Liz Trussell, who tweets as @LizTruss, has been spending the morning replying to world leaders and it’s possibly the best thing in the history of the internet. pic.twitter.com/hGGbc7FPMm
— Pádraig Belton (@PadraigBelton) September 6, 2022
If everyone thinks @Liztruss is PM, then doesn’t she become de facto PM.
— Nicholas Cross (@wfastronomer) September 6, 2022
Hahahaha @Liztruss deserves to win a comedy award of sorts for this. Thanks for the good laugh while I’m eating lunch
— Antonio Zuber (@AntonioZuber) September 6, 2022
I love HER, if not the actual incoming PM!
— Darcie (@darcienow) September 5, 2022
Now she knows how @johnlewis feels…
— Andy Kelly 💙 (@Andy_eprr) September 6, 2022
This reminds me of when Erin O’Toole (@ErinOtoole1), the Colorado radio host, was mistaken on Twitter for Erin O’Toole (@erinotoole), the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada!
— Tim Chesterton (@TimChesterton1) September 6, 2022
When Salman Rushdie was mistaken for Salman Khurshid, this is what he had to say: pic.twitter.com/tnb0eDCOJh
— Preeti (@DrSankaran) September 7, 2022
If @Liztruss ever comes back to Twitter (last seen 2018), she’ll quickly discover that she’s become this year’s @johnlewis.
— John Self (@john_self) September 5, 2022
I’m in! Vegas for everybody!!! 🎰🥂
— Liz Trussell (@Liztruss) September 5, 2022
Many of the tweets by verified accounts that wrongly tagged Trussell have now been deleted but netizens were, as always, quick to take screenshots.
Appreciating Trussell for her quick wit, a Twitter user wrote, “Hahahaha @Liztruss deserves to win a comedy award of sorts for this. Thanks for the good laugh while I’m eating lunch”. Another person wrote, “British woman Liz Trussell, who tweets as @LizTruss, has been spending the morning replying to world leaders and it’s possibly the best thing in the history of the internet.”
Trussell, who now has a following of more than 27,900 people on Twitter, is not the first person who has faced such cases of digital mistaken identity. Twitter user John Lewis (@johnlewis), who is a lecturer from Virginia in the US, frequently gets tagged in posts related to John Lewis & Partners, a department store chain based in the UK.
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Maya Kensington
Clara Hastings
