Abusing Twitter

Rainn Wilson of tv’s The Office is a dick. Not because of his deadpan portrayal of Dwight Schrute, but because he was caught abusing twitter. (Get your mind out of the gutter…I’m talking about the Internet service.)

We all know twitter is the annoying 140-character method people use to let other people know exactly what they’re doing between bowel movements and has been heartily embraced by celebrities around the world. Something that many celebrity followers may not be aware of is that some of their idols are sending tweets promoting products and services and are being paid the big bucks by sponsors to do it.

Rainn Wilson was busted last week sending a tweet to his assistant regarding a $12,000 deal for Del Taco, the burrito fast-food chain. Wilson’s tweet, his following cover-up tweet and then the final endorsing tweet were more revealing than all of the twitter muck I’ve seen in years. Here’s his tweets in chronological order:

There’s rumours that the incident was a publicity stunt engineered by Del Taco to get their official twitter handle the recognition it deserves but that hasn’t been confirmed by either camp. Wilson’s response to a negative Mashable blog post about the incident (which now sports an official disclaimer apologizing for their initial accusatory post and claiming the original tweets were simply ‘satire’) was amusing but still doesn’t confirm if it was a publicity stunt (read from the bottom up):

So who knows what the real story is all about but I’m guessing that Del Taco may be knocking on the door of Wilson’s lawyers after he referred to their food as ‘shitty’. Or maybe they’re sending him a bigger cheque.