On the campaign trail, former prime minister Stephen Harper tried out a jazzy new gesture. Did this cost him the election? Photo via Facebook/Stephen Harper
Read: The Definitive Explanation for Why Canadians Voted in Justin Trudeau
As news broke on Monday night that the Liberals had not only defeated the Conservatives in the Canadian election, but secured a majority government, Twitter exploded into a flurry of tweets and memes directed at soon-to-be-gone Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
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Too bad it seemed like most people tweeted the wrong Harper.
Renowned hacker and totally-not-Canadian Twitter user Harper Reed was bombarded by tweets from people looking to drop their two cents about the real Stephen Harper, whose account is actually @pm_harper, not @Harper.
Reed, who lives in Chicago, handled the situation like any internet-savvy person should—by straight-up trolling the confused masses.
“So happy 2 get our Canada back. Good riddance @harper. Welcome @JustinTrudeau,” one Twitter user wrote, to which @Harper replied, “I refuse to Leave. You can’t make me.”
Harper Reed, as seen on Twitter
Another fantastic interaction, which occurred between the mistaken @Harper and perpetrating user @lawnsea, began when the latter tweeted “rough night for @harper. aw bud sorry,” which prompted the American hacker to respond tongue-firmly-in-cheek.
“At least my name is not grass ocean,” Reed wrote.
The original tweeter, who appears to be well-versed in the primary Canadian language of English, responded saying that he didn’t think he’d have a “prairie chance” (seriously) of getting a response out of the infamous not-really-prime-minister @Harper.
An internet personality and formerly the chief technology officer of Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, Reed rose to prominence in the mid-2000s, when he was a hacker and the CTO for the clothing company Threadless.
Reed told the BBC the onslaught of tweets had been going on for most of the election, but that they only got “out of hand” after Monday’s results.
“From the beginning it was funny, as normally someone’s really mad at you,” he told the BBC. “When you reply they suddenly turn around. The other funny part is that when I respond, everyone replies in a very Canadian way, apologies, apologies, apologies. I try to be positive, I don’t correct them. I’ll just act like we’re in some fantasy world, where I’m prime minister.”
Reed said that despite Canadians blowing up his Twitter with angry hate mail, he’s still pretty clueless about what the fuck is going on up here.
“I have no idea what’s happening in Canada… People are very sensitive about politics, and people have enough negativity in their lives. I want to have fun, and they hopefully have fun too.”
Follow Jake Kivanc on Twitter.
