Tyler Tweets

If you hacked Tyler Cowen's twitter account, with almost 20k followers, surely you'd do something more interesting than send out a generic spam note about some new diet.

An amazing new weight loss product! It worked for me and I didnt even change my diet! [link redacted]
— tylercowen (@tylercowen) May 31, 2012

What a waste. Given this opportunity, you could either go for lulz or for money.

On the money side, I have a hard time seeing a better play than shorting Spanish or Italian debt and then claiming that you have it on good authority from a central bank insider that default is imminent. There's a slight risk you cause the default by setting a run, but that's more a feature than a bug. Update: On second thought, pushing a penny stock likely gets more cash but fewer lulz.

If you're in it for the lulz, @ModeledBehavior delivers up gold at #TylerTweets - the hashtag Justin Wolfers suggested. I'd put up this:

Tucked away in a strip-mall off Columbia Pike, found a place that serves "long pig". Better than you'd think. Go! #TylerTweets
— Eric Crampton (@EricCrampton) May 31, 2012

But @ModeledBehavior's offerings are much funnier:

Its hard to imagine spoons will exist in their current form in 30 years. What does this tell us about the social discount rate? #tylertweets
— Modeled Behavior (@ModeledBehavior) May 31, 2012

Given what we know about the money illusion, should the moon be destroyed or doubled? The answer is not clear to me. #tylertweets
— Modeled Behavior (@ModeledBehavior) May 31, 2012

#tylertweets cannibalism is wrong, but not for the reasons it's critics say. We ignore the wisdom of cannibals at our peril.
— Modeled Behavior (@ModeledBehavior) May 31, 2012

#tylertweets careful viewers will note Big Momma's House 3 is biting satire of modern central banking. Most underappreciated drama of 2011?
— Modeled Behavior (@ModeledBehavior) May 31, 2012

@ModeledBehaviour, I salute you and your mad surrealist Cowenesque stylings. When you finally decide to make the end-game play with your growing Twitter and blogging audiences, it will be glorious.

Update: It gets better! While everybody who's anybody is playing #TylerTweets and often hitting @tylercowen in their updates, the spammer puts up another lame offering:

Lose 5 lbs of Fat in a week [link redacted]
— tylercowen (@tylercowen) May 31, 2012

What a waste.