If you can’t stand the suspense of the Huffington Post’s story teases, you’ve got plenty of company at the Huffington Post.
Tweets from The Huffington Post Twitter account are like previews for next week’s “Mad Men” — filled with flashes of intrigue that reveal absolutely nothing.
“Former ‘Teen Mom’ star sold her sex tape for HOW MUCH?” wondered a @HuffingtonPost tweet on Monday. “And the school awarded @GLSEN’s ‘Gay Straight Alliance of the Year’ is…,” @HuffPostGay teased. “Extremely rare car for sale on eBay” @HuffPostBiz announced.
They’re all purposely vague of course, with HuffPost editors hoping readers click through and get lost in the site’s rabbit hole of liberal politics and sideboob.
But for Twitter users who want information immediately — not a click away — @HuffPoSpoilers provides solutions:
Nearly $1million; “star” = Farrah Abraham RT @huffingtonpost Former “Teen Mom” star sold her sex tape for HOW MUCH? huff.to/18fhxpj
— HuffPo Spoilers (@HuffPoSpoilers) April 29, 2013
Gov Wallace Rider Farrington HS (HI) MT @huffpostgay School awarded @glsen “Gay Straight Alliance of the Year” is… huff.to/18fpMlb — HuffPo Spoilers (@HuffPoSpoilers) April 29, 2013
Winston Churchill’s Daimler DB 18 Drophead Coupe; only one left RT @huffpostbiz: Extremely rare car for sale on eBay huff.to/18fkgz1 — HuffPo Spoilers (@HuffPoSpoilers) April 29, 2013
The mastermind behind the Cliffs Notes of the Huffington Post is 30-year-old Alex Mizrahi, whose @HuffPoSpoilers profile says, “I give in to @HuffingtonPost click-bait so you don’t have to.”
Mizrahi told The Daily Caller Monday that he is in between jobs after a stint as an associate producer for the 2013 “Shorty Awards” which “honor the best content producers on social media.”
He started the account last August and, as the Huffington Post itself reported Thursday, “the feed seems to be getting everyone’s attention.” Mizrahi doesn’t know exactly why the account started “catching everyone’s attention,” but he’s happy it did.
“I didn’t expect it to be as big of a deal as it is,” Mizrahi said during a phone interview from Brooklyn.
As of Monday afternoon, @HuffPoSpoilers has accrued nearly 12,500 followers who want a click-free breakdown of whatever The Huffington Post is tweeting. And among those are dozens of self-described Huffington Post employees.
Among the Huffington Post staffers who follow Mizrahi’s account:
- Jordan Hillary (@JordanHillary) — Marketing Director @HuffingtonPost
- Andrei Scheinkman (@ascheink) — Data editor at @huffingtonpost (@huffpostdata)
- Brad J. Shannon (@bradjshannon) — Operations Manager @HuffPostPol
- Jack Mirkinson (@jackmirkinson) — Editor, @HuffPostMedia
- Andy Campbell (@AndyBCampbell) — Editor for The Huffington Post’s Crime & Weird News sections
- Basel Y. Hamdan (@BaselYHamdan) — Producer at @HuffPostLive
- Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) — Politics Reporter at the Huffington Post
- Lauren Leibowitz (@elesel) — associate editor @huffpoststyle
- Jaweed Kaleem (@jaweedkaleem) — National Reporter @HuffingtonPost
- Erin Clements (@Erin_J_Clements) — Editor @HuffPostCeleb
- Taylor Trudon (@taylortrudon) — Associate editor @HuffPostTeen, @HuffingtonPost
- Maxwell Strachan (@maxwellstrachan) — Business Editor, The Huffington Post
- Ana Maria Benedetti (@ambenedetti) — Associate Vertical Editor at The Huffington Post @latinovoices
- Ileana Llorens (@illorens) — News editor @HuffingtonPost.
- Devon Murphy (@devonlmurphy) — Journalist & Huffington Post blog editor
- PaulBlumenthal (@PaulBlu) — Reporter @HuffingtonPost covering campaign finance.
- Mat Yurow (@myurow) — Social media editor at @HuffPostLive.
- joe satran (@joe_satran) — staff writer for the huffington post
- Charlie Lindlar (@charlielindlar) — Editorial Assistant, @HuffPostUK Blogs
- Charli James (@charli) — Producer for @HuffPostLive
- Milos Balac (@losh_me) — Producer @HuffPostLive
- Dena Takruri (@DTakruri) — @HuffPostLive producer
- Jessica Prois (@JessicaProis) — Editor @huffpostimpact.
- Adam Rose (@adjoro) — @huffingtonpost standards editor & golden rule enforcer.
- Ryan Craggs (@ryanrcraggs) — world editor at the huffington post
- Tim Stenovec (@timsteno) — Technology reporter at @HuffingtonPost.
- Alexis Kleinman (@alexiskleinman) — Associate Editor of @HuffPostTech
- Rebecca Searles (@beccabigwords) — Science journalist and social media editor @HuffingtonPost.
- Dave Jamieson (@dave_jamieson) — Huffington Post labor reporter
- Ned Simons (@nedsimons) — Assistant Political Editor, The Huffington Post UK
- HuffPost Politics (@HuffPostPol) — The latest political news from The Huffington Post
- Peter Finocchiaro (@PLFino) — Front page editor @HuffingtonPost
Asked whether it struck him as odd that Huffington Post employees would follow an account meant to preempt clicks to their own site, Mizrahi said he didn’t think so.
But “it’s funny that they’re following me,” Mizrahi admitted. He said the employees have been sending him positive tweets about the account.
He explained that he started spoiling the vaguest Huffington Post tweets last year out of boredom. He doesn’t do it all day every day, but whenever he can’t sleep, he’s pulling the curtain off mysterious tweets.
The most “annoying or frustrating are the ones that keep out just one piece of crucial information,” he said, using as an example a tweet from Monday where @HuffPostCrime wouldn’t reveal the location of a “Tense manhunt for [a] man who stabbed [an] 8-year-old girl” — unless you clicked through of course.
Manhunt’s in Calaveras, CA & surrounding counties RT @huffpostcrime Tense manhunt for man who stabbed 8-year-old girl huff.to/18ebkd3
— HuffPo Spoilers (@HuffPoSpoilers) April 29, 2013
Mizrahi recognizes that a lot of gimmicky Twitter accounts like his often lose steam over time, and while he admitted that it could happen eventually, he said @HuffPoSpoilers isn’t going to die off quickly.
He predicted that the fastest way for his tweets to trickle off would be if the Huffington Post actually started coughing up some details.
“If they change the way they tweet, I’ll become obsolete, and I’m fine with that,” he offered. “And if they keep going, I’ll keep going.”
“I imagine it’ll lose steam at some point, like any flash in the pan Twitter account does,” Mizrahi said, referencing the endless number of parody accounts that pop up every day to varying degrees of success.
“I think the difference, though, is that mine is actually kind of a service.”