On Monday night, former House Intelligence Committee chairman and wide-eyed conspiracy theorist Devin Nunes filed an unintentionally hilarious $250 million lawsuit against Twitter, in which he recounted a terrifying campaign of harassment on the platform that included mean tweets from, among other places, a parody account called Devin Nunes’ Cow. (A sample of the devastating, pun-friendly put-downs: “Devin’s boots are full of manure,” and “Devin is whey over his head in crime.”)
As most stable-minded people could have predicted, the filing of the suit immediately triggered the Streisand Effect. That is, by revealing a previously obscure source of criticism, Nunes bestowed it with more attention and power than it had ever received before.
Prior to the lawsuit, the humble cow account had roughly 1,200 followers. Now, thanks to a visibility campaign boosted by left-leaning Twitter personalities, it has soared to over 395,000 followers — officially eclipsing the congressman’s follower count as of Wednesday afternoon.
As the Twitter account itself might say: Devin Nunes’ Cow is milking this thing for all it’s worth.
