A new parody account is gaining traction on Twitter and its of the crunchy kind.
For the last 12 hours, @fritoiay (with a capital “i” instead of a lowercase “l,” so they look alike), has been tweeting some racially charged jokes at the expense of the snack-food company.
Take a look:
“Due to pressure from the Tea Party, we are changing the names of Doritos and Tostitos to be less, as their rep put it, “wetback-sounding.’”
“Did you know? All Frito-Lay snack foods are made with all-natural ingredients, like genetically modified corn grown with chemical fertilizer.”
“Did you know? The next commercial for Doritos will feature a Cool Ranch Mameshiba popping up out of the bag. Stay tuned.”
The name of the parody account is almost identical — save for the deceptive capital “i,” a technique employed by spammers and hackers seeking to trick people into clicking on fake websites. Not to mention, the parody account’s Twitter page had the exact same name, description, and background as the real thing. The only thing missing from the parody account is a verified badge.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Frito-Lay (a subsidiary of PepsiCo) and the person who runs the parody account for an interview. We’ll let you know when we hear back.
Twitter parody accounts have been under fire recently. In March a parody account of Apple founder Steve Jobs, @ceoSteveJobs, was suspended because the account was not clearly labeled as a parody, according to Business Insider.
The same thing happened to a Gary Busey parody account in November. The suspension of the Busey parody account (@notgarybusey) started an uproar on Twitter and eventually forced the people behind it to change its Twitter name, description, and photo before it could come back online.
According to California law, it is illegal to “knowingly and without consent credibly impersonates another actual person through or on an Internet Web site or by other electronic means.”
Although the law doesn’t mention anything about impersonating companies, you can bet that Frito-Law isn’t happy with the account.
Interestingly, this is not the first time that Fritos had been accused (directly or through parody) of racism. The “Frito-bandito,” a character created to advertise the corn chips, came under fire some 40 years ago for playing into negative stereotypes of Mexicans.
