...

The first bits to acknowledge up front: Dril is a 35-year-old named Paul Dochney. He, in Rogers’ words, “has soft features and a gentle disposition and looks something like a young Eugene Mirman.” He also seems done with anonymity, saying that it was a useful tool for many years but that people might “need to grow up” and come to terms with him being a real guy.

“Just accept that I’m not like Santa Claus,” he says. “I’m not a magic elf who posts.” Later in the piece, collaborator Derek Estevez-Olsen says that people “want [Dril] to be, like, an insane guy who lives in the woods or something” but that he’s just “a guy named Paul” who’s “fairly normal.”

More interesting than his real identity are the details Dril shares with Rogers about tweeting. Though he says he has “to get into, like, the writing mood,” Dril explains that he ”just [posts] whatever bullshit I’m thinking,” with ideas coming to him “usually when I’m driving or I’m in the shower.”

He also makes his less-than-favorable view of Twitter, which has only become more pronounced in the months since Elon Musk’s takeover, clear. Dril says he finds “a lot of aspects of Twitter very disgusting,” adding that “it would not be my first choice of websites to get popular on, but that’s just the way it goes. And I got to work with that.”

He says that “posting is not something you want to do forever” and tells Rogers that he wonders “whether Twitter’s demise could potentially force him to ‘grow in ways I never thought possible.’” Dril also added, in one of the best quotes from the profile, “You gotta commend Elon for doing everything in his power to wipe this nuisance website off the face of the earth.”

Naturally, then, his recent move to Los Angeles was motivated by a desire to, in his words, “get a job entertaining in some capacity.” Currently, that involves working on ideas for a new version of the show Truthpoint and figuring out how to leverage the enormous success of his Twitter account into something the entertainment industry can understand and actually pay him for creating.

In years past, Dril has expanded beyond Twitter with projects like TV shows, a video game, and books. The profile suggests that these non-Twitter media are where his interests really lie, which is both totally understandable and a bit melancholy, given that a potential end to Dril’s prolific posting would also mark the end of an entire era of internet history.

    • Waldoz53 [he/him, any]
      ·
      1 year ago

      i think hes been doxxed before but for whatever reason people were just like "eh who cares"

      • AcidSmiley [she/her]
        ·
        1 year ago

        yeah he was doxxed years ago due to his writing credits for one of the homestuck videogames

          • AcidSmiley [she/her]
            ·
            1 year ago

            It's at the very least the official NATOpedia narrative:

            On November 16, 2017, a Tumblr post identifying dril's author as Paul Dochney went viral.[13] Other posts identifying Dochney existed as early as 2014 on Tumblr, Twitter, and Reddit, but these earlier posts had not gone viral or been publicized in the media.[note 1][2][14] The 2017 post identified dril through "informed guesswork" founded on other clues, including a LinkedIn page associated with Bear Stearns Bravo and a writing credit on Hiveswap, an adventure game set in the universe of Andrew Hussie's long-running webcomic Homestuck.[2]

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dril

  • Dryad [she/her]
    ·
    1 year ago

    I don't like to be a downer and I hope it goes well for him, but if he thinks he can convert his twitter fame into cash ... well he's gonna learn real fast that he's not actually famous. I respect him for trying to jump off the sinking ship that is twitter, but pretty much any benefit he gets from twitter will end with twitter

    • pjst [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Should be able to convert it to at least a bit of cash. Didn't he publish a book a while ago? Like everyone and their fucking dog it seems

      • Antoine_St_Hexubeary [none/use name]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        His first book was just a collection of tweets from 2012 to 2018, sorted into categories like "jeans" and "restaurants". Kinda pointless, but may not seem that way anymore after he deletes his account. Second book is an elaborate illustrated presentation that reminded me of one particular Michael Palin/Terry Jones joint. Third book was a pointless cash grab.

  • TraschcanOfIdeology [they/them, comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    All in all, Dril's tweets are very much a current-time newspaper comic strip, like those that boomers thought were hilarious, like the Far Side or stuff like that. Much like the people who made those, they'll stop eventually and it'll be another "remember that guy who did really weird posts?"

  • largefather [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    LA comes for everyone dunnit :shrek-troll:

    just kidding i love dril. can’t believe he’s a hugemin being though

  • commiecapybara [he/him, e/em/eir]
    ·
    1 year ago

    “Just accept that I’m not like Santa Claus,” he says. “I’m not a magic elf who posts.”

    Sounds like something a magic elf would say

    • 7bicycles [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      the people want me to be a magical posting elf wehn i am actually, just a guy named paul who's "fairly normal"

      LIke I'm sorry if he's earnest and all and maybe it's the editing but c'mon, that's a drilpost

  • ComRed2 [any]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Dril is a 35-year-old named Paul Dochney. He, in Rogers’ words, “has soft features and a gentle disposition and looks something like a young Eugene Mirman.

    literally_me.jpg

  • Coca_Cola_but_Commie [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    https://twitter.com/vogon/status/1646193973076299776?s=20

    This pretty much sums up my thoughts on this.