dril is a pseudonymous Twitter account, @dril, known for absurdist humor and non-sequiturs written in the voice of a hapless, furious internet user. “dril” is the handle and “wint” is the account’s intermittent display name. Wikipedia counts it among the most notable “Weird Twitter” accounts, and many of its phrases have become internet slang.
Origin
- 2000s: the writer posted on the Something Awful forums as “gigantic drill,” according to Wikipedia. He took the handle @dril because “@drill” was already taken.
- September 15, 2008: dril’s first tweet was the single word “no.” After nine months of silence, the second was “how do i get cowboy paint off a dog .”
- October 2012 to January 2021: followers grew from 23,000 to 1.6 million, per Wikipedia, which now puts the total at more than 1.8 million.
Who Is Behind dril
For years the writer was anonymous. On November 16, 2017, a Tumblr post identifying him as Paul Dochney went viral; the press described it as a doxing, and many fans asked others to respect his privacy. Wikipedia reports that Dochney confirmed his identity on several occasions afterwards: in August 2018 the account announced it was transferring publishing rights for the first book to Paul Dochney, and in a 2020 Reddit AMA dril wrote, “im some guy named paul dochney who cares big whoop.” In April 2023 he gave his first fully out-of-character interview under his own name, to The Ringer, which notes that his earlier interviews were “always in character.”
Famous Tweets, Verbatim
Wording and dates as quoted by Wikipedia; each links to the original post.
| Date | Tweet |
|---|---|
| Sep 15, 2008 | no |
| Oct 13, 2011 | fuck “jokes”. everything i tweet is real. raw insight without the horse shit. no, i will NOT follow trolls. twitter dot com. i live for this |
| Nov 10, 2011 | ”im not owned! im not owned!!’, i continue to insist as i slowly shrink and transform into a corn cob |
| Sep 15, 2012 | who the fuck is scraeming ‘LOG OFF’ at my house. show yourself, coward. i will never log off |
| Sep 29, 2013 | Food $200 / Data $150 / Rent $800 / Candles $3,600 / Utility $150 / someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying |
| Feb 15, 2017 | issuing correction on a previous post of mine, regarding the terror group ISIL. you do not, under any circumstances, “gotta hand it to them” |
dril Phrases in Everyday Use
| Phrase | How it’s used | Source tweet |
|---|---|---|
| corncob / “im not owned” | Someone who has clearly lost an argument but insists they haven’t; Wikipedia says “corncob” alone was common Twitter slang by 2017 | Nov 10, 2011 |
| ”you do not, under any circumstances, gotta hand it to them” | Widely referenced after someone apologizes for a dramatically offensive, obviously incorrect statement | Feb 15, 2017 |
| ”i will never log off” | Refusing to step away from the internet; Chris Hayes joked about getting Trump to “recreate that @dril Tweet” | Sep 15, 2012 |
| Candles $3,600 | The budget tweet GQ and Newsweek named among the best tweets of all time | Sep 29, 2013 |
| ”There’s always a dril tweet” | The saying that some dril tweet fits any situation | General |
| large adult son | A trope that The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino credited dril with originating | dril’s recurring “sons” |
Books and Shows
- August 2018: first book, Dril Official “Mr. Ten Years” Anniversary Collection, a selection of the account’s best tweets with new illustrations.
- October 2019: Truthpoint: Darkweb Rising, a weekly web series for Adult Swim with comedian Derek Estevez-Olsen. Tubefilter reported on October 14, 2019 that it “appears to be a send-up of InfoWars,” with dril in a mask resembling his avatar.
- 2020: second book, The Get Rich and Become God Method.
- December 2022: The Dril Archives, about 10,000 posts in four editions ordered chronologically, alphabetically, by likes and randomly.
Recent Developments
On November 9, 2022, after Twitter began giving blue checkmarks to paying Twitter Blue subscribers, dril started the #BlockTheBlue hashtag, and he revived it in April 2023 when legacy checkmarks were removed. A few days later he joined Bluesky during its invite-only phase, which Wikipedia notes Forbes called the platform’s first bona fide celebrity user.