Country stars' social media accounts are a double-edged sword. On one hand, attempts by Travis Tritt and others to engage directly with their followers boost country music's fan-centric image. Unfortunately, crooks, liars and people with no lives take advantage of this by creating fake accounts of artists ranging from legends to newcomers -- sometimes with malicious intent.
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Country Catfish
At a time when "catfish" has a new meaning in the dictionary, impostors pop up all over social media. It seems worse on Twitter, although there's probably more than one "Kenny Chesney," "Carrie Underwood" or "Jason Aldean" on Facebook and Instagram with 20 followers and an offer you should refuse.
If it's just bored people with obviously fake accounts, then what's the big deal? While some of these impostors may just be running deceptively-titled fan pages, others con followers out of money. They digitally panhandle in a way that takes advantage of a hard-working musician's good name.
Tritt uses a lot of his time on Twitter to alert his fans to this issue:
They scam our fans by selling meet & greets, ?special tickets?, ?private shows?, ?previously unreleased music?, limited edition merchandise etc. to people who don?t know any better and think they are communicating with the actual artist. They are committing fraud and making $$$$.
