Dril shares his real name and thoughts on working outside of Twitter
The man behind the Nicholson avatar talked about himself and his Twitter account with The Ringer
In 2017, the internet discovered the name of the guy behind Twitter’s best account, @dril. In an act of Spartacus-like solidarity, though, this information was promptly, collectively suppressed by an audience who would rather ignore the identity of the person responsible for some of the finest posting the world’s ever seen than allow it to become common knowledge.
Now, though, Dril seems more than ready to let people know he’s more than a fuzzy Jack Nicholson photo, and he’s shared a whole lot of information about himself, the background of his account, and what he’s getting up to next in a profile by The Ringer’s Nate Rogers.
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.”