Marjorie Taylor Greene ‘Dragons and Dinosaurs’ Tweet

In late February 2023, screenshots of a particularly bizarre tweet about dinosaurs and dragons attributed to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) circulated on Reddit and Twitter:

The account above claimed Greene had deleted the offending tweet, which purportedly had read:

Dinosaurs is a relatively young word that, if I recall correctly, started to gain use in the 1800s. Before that, they called them by their biblical name … Dragons.

Some of the bones displayed are real, but others are know [sic] forgeries.

The land dragons were killed out a couple thousand years ago (maybe a few still hidden somewhere?), but ocean dragons still exist.

Google Trends data indicated that the tweet was circulating. “Breakout” levels of popularity were indicated for searches including “Marjorie Taylor Greene dragons,” “Marjorie Taylor Greene Twitter,” “Marjorie Taylor Greene dinosaur,” “Marjorie Taylor Greene dinosaurs,” and “MTG Twitter”:

A reverse image search using TinEye returned zero matches to the image of the tweet. A similar search using Google Lens returned a handful of matches, primarily on Reddit and Twitter.

At the bottom of the tweet embedded above, text indicated the appended image originated on Reddit’s r/WhitePeopleTwitter. Although the title described Greene as “stupid AF,” flair appended to the post marked it as “Satire/Fake Tweet”:

From that post, the image traveled across Reddit — but the flair attached to it didn’t. At the top of the thread, a “stickied” comment from u/AutoModerator reminded users the tweet was fabricated:

Oi you lumps. This post has been marked as Satire, meaning it is not a real tweet. Satire means it’s not real. duh-doi. You can stop reporting it now.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

Satirical tweets like the “dragons” screenshot often originated on Reddit’s r/ToiletPaperUSA subreddit, but we were unable to find a version of the submission there. We located one iteration that was slightly older than the r/WhitePeopleTwitter version:

A Twitter bio for the account that originally posted the fake tweet read:

PARODY Retired Hospice Nurse Aquarian ♒️ Cat Rescuer ???? She/Her BLM ????️‍???? ATHEIST Schrödinger Fan ????DM’s unless you know me ????BITCOIN

In February 2023, a tweet about dinosaurs and dragons attributed to right-wing conspiracist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene circulated on Reddit and Twitter. In its most common context on Reddit, the screenshot was labeled as a fake tweet. As is so often the case, the label did not accompany the tweet in its travels across Reddit, nor did it appear on other platforms like Twitter, where it was presented as a deleted tweet.