About

Matt Romney is a satirical Facebook account created by writer Matthew Baker Thompson for a fictional politician named after Republican politician Mitt Romney. The character was created prior to the 2012 United States presidential election as a parody of the tea party movement and is known for frequently misspelling words, alcohol abuse and "partyin."

Origin

On July 11th, 2012, the Matt Romney Facebook^[1] page was created, featuring posts written from the perspective of a fictional politician. Later that month, a Twitter feed for the character was created.^[4] Over the next four years, the Facebook page gained over 32,200 likes and the Twitter account received more than 6,800 followers.

Spread

On July 20th, 2012, the page posted a graphic of a marijuana leaf decorated with the American flag along with the caption "legalize bath salt" (shown below, left).^[5] The same day, Romney posted an image macro to Facebook announcing that his fictional running mate Rob Paul had been taken into custody at a Walmart for exposing himself (shown below, right).

On August 3rd, the Internet humor blog Slacktory^[8] published an article titled "Matt Romney and Rob Paul Run for President," praising the Facebook pages for displaying "highbrow political commentary as lowbrow silliness." On September 18th, a Facebook page for Rob Paul^[2] was created (shown below).

On September 26th, the pop culture blog Death and Taxes^[3] published an article about the Matt Romney and Rob Paul parody accounts. Following the results of the November 7th, presidential election, Romney submitted a post announcing he did not win (shown below).

On September 18th, 2013, the pop culture blog Dazed^[7] published an article about Internet fanfictions, which contained a section on Matt Romney and his creator Matthew Baker Thompson. On July 24th, 2015, Redditor saxymofo submitted a screenshot of a Matt Romney Facebook post to the /r/NotTimeAndEricPics^[6] subreddit (shown below).

Search Interest

External References