Heard the one about the ‘margaritas and the protein shake’? Me too, just a few times:

A woman in my office is shaking her #proteinshake and a guy pokes his head around the corner and says “do i hear #margaritas?…no Bob, it’s 10am #business #theoffice #tbt #Entrepreneurs #worklife #workout

— arfin (@arfin) May 9, 2019

a girl in my office was shaking her protein shake and this woman poked her head around the corner and said “do I hear margaritas?”… no Olivia, it’s 9 am.

— ugh (@gIitering) July 14, 2019

shaking up a protein shake in the office and a woman pokes her head around the corner and says, “Do I hear margaritas!?”…

No Janet, it’s 10am on Monday.

— Tyler J. Pratt (@tylerjohnpratt) July 9, 2018

Me in the office pantry trying to get used to diurnal folks…

Me: **shakes berroca in my protein shaker**

Tina: Oohhh Eileen, do I hear margaritas?

Me: 😒 No Tina, it’s 7am…
(thinks to self “I should go back to the evening shift”)

— Neelie (@iamneelie) August 27, 2018

This health nut in my parts dept. Is shaking his protein shake, and I poked my head around the corner and said….
'Do I hear Margaritas?'
He said…. 'No Jen, it's 10 am!'

Damn!!

— 🇺🇸🦋867-5309🦋🇺🇸 (@Deplorable_JW) January 15, 2019

“A guy in my office is shaking his protein shake and this women poked her head around the corner and said Do i hear Margaritas?? No janet its 10am”—-…😂 i like where ur head is at janet lol

— Mr. Benavides🇵🇷 (@C_Benavides12) January 30, 2018

Someone in my office shaking their protein shake.

Neighbor pokes her head around the corner. "Do I hear margaritas?"

No Susan, we are at work and it is 10am on a Tuesday.

— That Girl (@tesacm21) January 29, 2018

Just a quick search on Twitter resulted in these very similar jokes, and there was plenty of other examples not included above.

Passing funny tweets off as your own has become a regular occurrence on the social media platform. Amusing photos (and videos) are also often re-shared and made to look like the person tweeting it created the content. All it takes is a quick look at the responses to the tweet to see people calling the original tweeter out for stealing it. The usual response you see? “I never said it was my photo/video/joke”

The problem with that excuse is that the tweeter is relying on people who have not seen the photo before and will therefore believe it belongs to them. All those people then retweet it without a second thought. The more time you spend on Twitter though, the more you see the same jokes being shared again and again, and they often go viral. Are we so desperate to go viral and be ‘internet famous’ that we resort to stealing jokes?

For me, it’s not great practise (and one all organisational Twitter accounts should avoid at all costs). My trust in people on Twitter is at all time low because it’s highly likely that hilarious tweet doing the rounds already did the rounds once before.

There are some really funny people on Twitter who are posting original jokes and don’t get the recognition they deserve. It’s also possible that their jokes have already been stolen and tweeted out by someone else which is a huge shame.

So what can be done about it? Twitter does have a history of removing copied jokes, but this relies on the original writer of the joke to be aware of the replica tweets, file a complaint with Twitter and hope Twitter does something about it.

What we can do as users of the platform, is double check a funny tweet before we share it. Look in the comments to see if anyone is calling the tweeter out for stealing it or do a Twitter search to see if it’s been tweeted before.

The other thing we can do is follow and support comedians and writers on Twitter putting out original and funny content. Why not share your favourite funny Tweeters using #FunnyFollows so other people can discover them.