A liar. A scammer. A lover of robbery and fraud.

This is how newfound Twitter sensation Joanne the Scammer describes herself in the video that catapulted her to Internet glory.

There are a lot of strange things on the web these days, including a Twitter account with almost 60,000 followers that chronicles the life of Joanne, a woman who lives to scam people and create drama. Just what is Joanne scamming out of people? Aside from a few mentions of tangible items, we are really never told. The account instead focuses on who she is scamming and how.

However, aside from the hilarious tweets detailing her life, the best part of the account is she often provides videos of her actions. Allowing people to see her takes away any possibility of people interpreting the account as just a random person behind a keyboard. Joanne is here and we are watching her scam with our very own eyes.

That is why it is so difficult to discern if any of this is real or not. At first glance, Joanne seems to be an exaggerated character; however, after following her for a while, her true nature becomes unclear. She posts so often, and stays in character with such diligence, that it is almost believable that she could be a real person.

Ultimately, Joanne is a creation of Florida-based comedian Branden Miller. Yet, people don’t seem to be that interested in the truth behind the account.

My theory is people don’t care about the true identity of Joanne because, as a character, she is already extremely relatable. She often tweets about how much of a mess she is and how much she loves it. She also tweets quite a lot about Faith Hill, but that is beside the point.

The current world of social media is over saturated with images of perfection. People have made businesses on Instagram by talking about their health food and fitness routines, while YouTube is still the largest platform for posting videos about makeup, health, organization and everyday life. In the case of all of these examples, everything people see is highly edited to make it seem like their favorite online personalities have their entire lives together.

That is why Joanne resonates with people. She is a trainwreck of a person, and she openly promotes that fact. People like to see the behind the scenes reality of everyday life. That is perhaps why DJ Khaled has recently found a massive audience through his Snapchat videos, which chronicle the minutiae of his life down to what he eats for breakfast. People of the Internet don’t need any more images of perfection, and Joanne’s success is proof of that.

Joanne the Scammer works because projecting success on social media has grown old. She also works because the Internet is currently a place where absurd humor thrives. This character has appeared at a crossroads in Internet fame where the polished celebrity is no longer en vogue, and she is here to usher us into a new age where people can be honest with themselves and others about their messy lives. And she does it all while stealing from department stores in a wig and driving away with country music blasting.

Disclaimer: A number of her tweets may be crude in nature so I won’t link them here, but I highly recommend checking out the account if you are in the mood for a laugh.

Featured Photo Credit: Courtesy of Pixabay’s sponsored images.

Julie Kearney is a senior English major and can be reached at juliekearney01@gmail.com.