Anthony Albanese Has A Very NSFW Twitter Problem, But It’s Not His Fault
You've been warned: Be very careful when searching for Albo on Twitter.
It’s common knowledge in Australia that almost any word or phrase can be improved by abbreviating it and adding -o to the end. Service stations become “servos”, bottle shops become “bottlos”, Scott Morrison becomes “ScoMo”. That’s turning out to be a slight problem for the likely next leader of the federal Labor party, Anthony Albanese, who is universally known as Albo.
Y’see, the Twitter account @albo is not actually Anthony Albanese. It’s a porn account.
More specifically, it’s a NSFW art account (you’ve been warned, do not visit at work), run by a talented Italian artist who’s currently open for commissions, if anyone would like a custom pornographic cartoon.
Unfortunately for Albo (the Australian politician), his enthusiastic supporters don’t seem to be checking who owns the account before tweeting their support. Hence a powerful recent outflow of support for @albo, courtesy of Australians.
Whole lotta people tagging @Albo instead of @AlboMP today and I am living for it.
— Jordan Raskopoulos (@JordanRasko) May 22, 2019
Helpul reminder to everyone that Anthony Albanese’s twitter account is @AlboMP, not @albo lol pic.twitter.com/xldtXW7uWJ
— LEVINS (@levdawg) May 18, 2019
And make no mistake, @albo (NSFW artist) has noticed. Yesterday, they tweeted that they’ve received “hundreds of mentions” from Australians voicing their support for a very different Albo — the one who is very likely to become the next federal Labor leader.
hundreds of mentions and all for an Australian politician whose name is Albo too. He as an username slightly different but lots of australian keep mentioning me instead of him… 😭
— Albo draws lewds 🔞 (@Albo) May 22, 2019
And actually, it seems like @Albo is starting to get a little annoyed. “He has the same right of being called Albo like me, this is not the point,” they tweeted yesterday. “I’m complaining about his careless supporters that don’t know even his correct name on twitter.”
he has the same right of being called Albo like me, this is not the point. I’m complaining about his careless supporters that don’t know even his correct name on twitter.
— Albo draws lewds 🔞 (@Albo) 22 May 2019
The Albo problem calls to mind the Santorum problem of 2003, which began when columnist Dan Savage launched a campaign to redefine “Santorum”, the surname of a homophobic US Senator, to mean “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex”. More than a decade later, that definition is still one of the first results to appear upon googling “Santorum”.
In Albo’s case, no one’s deliberately targeting him here — he just didn’t quite get in quick enough to snag the @albo Twitter handle (@albo the artist joined Twitter way back in 2007, whereas Anthony Albanese only joined in 2011, and had to settle for the respectable @AlboMP).
Anyway, no disrespect to either Albo here: just a friendly reminder that if you’re planning on tweeting about Australian Labor politician Anthony Albanese today, you’ll want to use the handle @AlboMP.