Junlper (stylized as JUNlPER;[a][b] born November 1, 1995[5]) is an American shitposter on Twitter. She is known for posting satirical screenshots of fabricated news stories and creating a viral fake headline about the "dick vein" being removed from Snickers candy bars. She is also credited with popularizing the term "goblin mode".
In October 2023, after satirically suggesting that the site's owner Elon Musk was a pedophile to protest a Twitter policy that removed headlines from posted articles, Junlper's multiple accounts were suspended. Junlper currently posts from the account @CantEverDie.
Twitter activity
Junlper originally created her Twitter account in early 2019 in order to support the 2020 presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, but later pivoted towards mocking people she considered her political enemies.[1] Her original account's profile falsely claimed that she was a reporter for The New York Times.[2]
In February 2022, Junlper made a tweet featuring an edited Fox News headline of an interview with the American actress Julia Fox, purporting her to have used the phrase "goblin mode".[3] The image prompted a large increase in online searches for 'goblin mode',[6] and led Fox to respond, saying, "Just for the record. I have never used the term 'goblin mode'".[3]
In June 2022, the term was defined by Dictionary.com as "a slang term for a way of behaving that intentionally and shamelessly gives in to and indulges in base habits and activities without regard for adhering to social norms or expectations".[7] In December 2022, online respondents selected the term from Oxford Languages' shortlist, which also included metaverse and #IStandWith, as the Word of the Year.[8][6] The Oxford University Press attributed the spike in the phrase's popularity to Junlper's tweet.[9]
Snickers "dick vein"
A Snickers bar with "dick vein" showing
In April 2022, Junlper satirically claimed in a tweet that Snickers was removing the "dick vein" design from the top of the candy bar, prompting a backlash from unwitting Snickers fans. Due to the volume of response, Snickers clarified in its own viral tweet that the "veins remain".[4][10] The tweet spawned follow-up hoaxes including a viral fake image of Tucker Carlson talking about the "dick veins" on his Fox News show, alluding to Carlson's comments about "unsexy" M&M's characters earlier that year.[11][1]
Other tweets
In response to a December 2022 Elon Musk joke that his preferred gender pronouns were "Prosecute/Fauci", Junlper responded that "we didn't ask for your woke pronouns",[12] alluding to Musk's views on transgender issues.
In February 2023, Junlper said that controversy regarding the 2023 Hogwarts Legacy video game was manufactured in terms of 'TERFs' pointing out the games' success despite boycotts. She also said that despite saying that people should feel free to buy it, they should not attempt to get "good ally points" for disliking J. K. Rowling.[13][14] Later, in June of that year, Junlper criticized U.S. states that prohibit medical gender transitioning for adults.[15]
In March 2023, when the YouTuberMrBeast suggested that his fans should disarrange Hershey's chocolate bars displays in stores, Junlper wrote that it was proof that he is "demonic".[16] Later that month, she fabricated an image of a Walmart website page for a "product zoner", to which he responded, "I'm all for dunking on me, but no need to spread lies."[17]
In June 2023, when MrBeast said that he was invited on the Titan before the Titan submersible implosion, she accused him of lying, as his text was blue (meaning the text was sent, not received). He responded by saying that it was a screenshot he took of his friend's text.[18][19]
Junlper satirically replied to a video showing a body bag being removed from the White House that went viral in July 2023, saying that the body was U.S. President Joe Biden. Snopes later fact-checked this as false.[20]
On October 6, 2023, Junlper was suspended from Twitter.[22] The previous day, an update to Twitter had removed headlines from posts which link to news articles.[23] In response, Junlper exploited this to make a satirical tweet in which she claimed that "growing evidence [suggested] that" Musk was a pedophile. Junlper and her secondary account were terminated hours later, for which no official reason was given. She was briefly unbanned.[24][25] For a short time, Junlper used the account @junegoblinmode[24] but was again suspended on October 7. On October 8, she created the account @JUNlPERBOT,[26] which was subsequently suspended.[27] In November, she created the account @CantEverDie, which as of September 2024[update] has not been suspended.[28]
The move to ban Junlper was condemned by journalists Erin Reed and Ben Collins, as well as civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo. The move was supported by Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok.[24][29] Mike Masnick of Techdirt contrasted the suspension with Musk's previous claims of being a "free speech absolutist".[30]The Messenger described the incident as Musk banning "a popular poster who skewered him".[24]The Advocate framed the incident as Musk and Chaya Raichik teaming up on Junlper.[29]NBC News listed Junlper as an example of suspended leftist accounts under Musk.[22]
A 2024 commentary article in the Postdigital Science and Education journal characterized Junlper's post as an example of weaponized multimodality in service of protesting site governance.[31]
^ abcDickson, EJ (April 27, 2022). "Meet the Shitposter Who Started a Right-Wing Moral Panic About the Snickers Dick Vein". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on July 3, 2022. Retrieved May 3, 2022. After her tweet went viral – as well as a follow-up photo of an apparently veinless Snickers bar, which she says she pulled from an old Reddit post – many on Twitter believed it to be true, to the degree that Snickers itself had to post a tweet reassuring fans that the vein wasn't going anywhere.
