About

NotAPoliceman is a novelty Twitter account run by an anonymous blogger who claims that he is not a police officer. The tweets are meant to be read as if the blogger is trying to bait juvenile delinquents into admitting their crimes by impersonating a peer trying to fit in with youth culture.

Online History

The Twitter account @NotAPoliceman was created on September 21st, 2012. Although faux-policeman accounts @NotANark^[1] and @NoNarkHere^[7] had been registered in the previous month, @NotAPoliceman^[2] became the first to adopt the entrapping tone of voice. On that day, the account tweeted 19 times, seeking out illegal drugs, places that sell alcohol and tobacco to minors and people who shoplift from the local mall. As of January 2013, @NotAPoliceman has 63,639 followers.

Reception

On September 30th, the first @NotAPoliceman tweet was shared outside of Twitter via a screenshot on FunnyJunk.^[12] On October 2nd, humor site Jest^[13] highlighted a series of tweets from the account, followed by similar reports on Slacktory^[15], Reddit^[14] and the Daily Dot^[8] throughout that week. On October 5th, the Facebook fan page Not A Cop^[3] was created, gaining nearly 17,000 likes by January 2013. Later that month, @NotAPolice^[4] began tweeting, recycling some of the jokes from @NotAPoliceman.

i love to party, anyone send me the details to a party with illegal drugs and underage drinking i can attend

— Not A Cop (@notapolice) October 14, 2012

On November 5th, Buzzfeed^[9] ran a feature story with a compilation of @NotAPoliceman’s tweets, sparking a newfound interest in these accounts. The next day, beauty blog Lovelyish^[11] posted its own roundup of tweets from the account. Between November 5th and 15th, @NotANark and @NoNarkHere began tweeting again. During that time, at least ten police-impersonating accounts were created including @NotANarc^[5], @_NotTheCop^[6], @Am_Not_A_Cop^[17] and @NoPoliceman^[16], among others. On November 20th, We Know Memes^[10] featured a series of @NoPoliceman's tweets. As of January 2013, @NoPoliceman has the largest amount of followers, with more than 262,000, followed by @NotANark^[1] with more than 141,000 followers.

Notable Tweets

Search Interest

External References