@FakeJeffWithey reveals himself in Daily Kansan column
The front page of today's Daily Kansan, containing the big @FakeJeffWithey scoop.
The veil has been lifted on one of the most popular KU-related “fake” Twitter accounts: The man behind the @FakeJeffWithey account has revealed himself in a column in today’s University Daily Kansan.
His name is Ty Gardner, and he actually graduated from KU last spring. He talked with the Journal-World back in 2011 for a story about KU-related Twitter parody accounts, but he asked for his identity to remain secret. Since then, the PG-13-rated feed, which cast the 7-foot KU basketball player as some kind of raging party animal and made various KU basketball-related cracks, has exploded from about 1,800 followers to more than 32,000.
But now that Withey’s KU career is finished, Gardner says he’s hanging up the keys to the @FakeJeffWithey account. The Kansan even got a photo of him posing next to Real Jeff Withey on the Allen Fieldhouse floor. (Withey has said he’s a fan.)
I’m curious how the reveal might help or hurt Gardner’s career prospects, or how much he cares. But in the Kansan column, he writes about how the fake account became a big part of his life and thanks everyone for playing along.
Perhaps you feel as though the end of @FakeJeffWithey will leave a void in your life, but now you’ve got a few extra seconds each day to send your KU news tips to merickson@ljworld.com, so no need to worry.