There’s a strange kind of fame happening on X right now, and it doesn’t look like any celebrity story you’ve heard before. Catturd Twitter—No real name attached to the account for years. No TV appearances, no book tour, no recognizable face.
Just a cartoon cat avatar — and somehow, millions of people hang on every single post it puts out. That’s Catturd, and honestly, the story behind how this account got so big tells you a lot about how influence actually works online these days.
Who’s actually behind Catturd Twitter?
For a long time, genuinely nobody knew. The account, @catturd2, quietly started back in September 2018. It wasn’t until early 2023 that investigative reporting finally identified the person running it as Phillip Buchanan, a resident of Florida.
Before Twitter, he’d spent years posting on conservative comment sections, building a habit of frequent, opinionated commentary long before he ever picked the handle that would make him famous.
Here’s the interesting part, though — finding out who he was didn’t really change anything about the account’s popularity. People weren’t following a person. They were following a voice, a tone, a very specific brand of humor.
The big reveal barely made a dent in the momentum, which says something about how parasocial these online relationships have become. Followers care about the persona, not necessarily the human typing behind it.
The Growth Numbers are Honestly Wild to Look at
By the end of 2019, the account had cleared 100,000 followers — a solid niche presence, but nothing earth-shattering yet. A year later, during the pandemic and the chaos of the 2020 election, it jumped to over half a million. Both of those events gave Catturd a constant, never-ending stream of things to react to, and the account leaned into it hard.
Then in late October 2022, Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter closed, and that’s when things really sped up. Catturd publicly complained about shadow banning and algorithmic suppression. Musk replied directly, in public, saying he’d look into it.
Within days, the account picked up tens of thousands of new followers — purely off the back of that one exchange. By January 2023, it had crossed 1.3 million. By October 2025, the count sat around 3.6 million. That’s a genuinely massive trajectory for an account that, for most of its existence, nobody could even attach to a real name.
Why did This Particular Account Take off the Way It did?
A few things lined up at exactly the right moments. The 2020 election gave it a constant stream of content people wanted to engage with, especially among conservatives who felt mainstream outlets weren’t covering things fairly. The pandemic added another layer entirely, with vocal opposition to lockdowns and mandates that resonated with an audience already skeptical of official guidance.
But the real accelerant was Donald Trump. He retweeted Catturd seven separate times before his own suspension from the platform in January 2021, and each one of those retweets put the account directly in front of his enormous following. That’s the kind of exposure money genuinely can’t buy — one retweet from someone with that reach can do more for growth than months of organic posting.
It didn’t stop there either. Shoutouts and engagement from people like Donald Trump Jr., Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jack Posobiec, and Tucker Carlson all added to the snowball. Each amplification event introduced the account to a slightly different slice of the conservative online world, and a lot of those new followers stuck around.
What’s the Actual Content Like, Day to Day?
Sharp, sarcastic, and unmistakably built for the internet rather than for a newspaper column. Immigration, media bias, and cultural flashpoints around gender and education show up constantly, almost always delivered through mockery rather than careful argument. That’s intentional — it’s part of what makes the account feel different from a typical political pundit account.
Hashtag campaigns are a huge part of the strategy too. According to Media Matters for America, the account has organized more than 40 separate hashtag pushes since 2019. Phrases like #EmptyShelvesJoe stuck around in conservative online spaces well beyond whatever specific news cycle originally inspired them, which tells you something about how effective the messaging actually is at being memorable.
And yes, the fart jokes are completely real, not a side detail. They’re baked right into the account’s branding and name, and recurring bathroom-humor hashtags sit comfortably alongside genuinely serious political commentary. It’s an odd combination on paper, but it’s clearly resonating with the audience the account has built — the humor lowers the barrier to engaging with otherwise heavy political topics.
About that Whole Musk Situation
It got genuinely complicated. After their public back-and-forth in October 2022, leaked internal Twitter documents surfaced in March 2023 suggesting Catturd’s account had its reach artificially boosted under the new ownership.
That kicked off a real debate across the platform — was this finally correcting years of suppressed conservative reach, or was it just new, different favoritism replacing the old kind? Depends entirely on who you ask, and the answer tends to split pretty cleanly along political lines.
By early 2025, though, Musk had largely gone quiet on the account. The public replies stopped. The amplification stopped. Multiple observers have noted the shift, though nobody’s said definitively whether it reflects a broader strategic pullback from politically charged accounts as regulatory scrutiny on X intensifies, or simply a change in what Musk personally pays attention to these days.
The Criticism Side is Real, and Worth Taking Seriously
Fact-checkers and election officials have repeatedly flagged the account for pushing already-debunked claims about fraud in the 2020 presidential election. During COVID, posts mocking mask mandates and questioning vaccine safety drew direct condemnation from medical experts, who warned that kind of messaging could discourage genuinely protective health behaviors during an active public health crisis.
Several other unverified conspiracy theories tied to major news events have circulated through the account too, often without any later correction once the claims were disproven.
The deeper concern critics raise isn’t really about any single post — it’s the overall pattern. An anonymous account with millions of followers, spreading unverified or outright false claims, operating with essentially no traditional accountability mechanism attached to it.
That combination is exactly the kind of thing researchers studying online misinformation pay very close attention to, because the scale here genuinely rivals established media outlets.
Does it Actually Shape Real-World Politics, or Is It Just Noise?
More than you might assume at first glance. Conservative outlets including Breitbart have referenced the account in roughly 200 separate articles. Phrases and framings that originate on @catturd2 have a track record of showing up on cable news within a matter of days.
A Catturd-run informal poll about a hypothetical 2024 Republican primary matchup between Trump and Ron DeSantis even got picked up and actively promoted by Trump’s own affiliated super PAC.
That’s the detail that elevates this beyond just being a funny meme account. It’s become an actual functioning node in how conservative political messaging gets tested, refined, and spread across multiple channels — sometimes before traditional media or campaign staff have even weighed in themselves.
Where Does This Go From Here?
Hard to say with any real confidence. The formula that’s worked so far — constant daily posting, sharp humor, deliberately provocative content that drives strong engagement either way — has proven remarkably durable over several years now.
But platform policy under X’s current leadership could shift at any point, political conditions can change quickly, and online attention is famously fickle even for accounts that seem unshakeable. For right now, though, the cartoon cat shows absolutely no signs of slowing down.
Quick FAQs
Who runs the Catturd Twitter account?
Phillip Buchanan, a Florida resident, identified through investigative reporting in early 2023 after years of anonymity.
How many followers does Catturd have?
Around 3.6 million on X as of October 2025.
Why did Catturd grow so fast after 2022?
A public exchange with Elon Musk following his Twitter purchase triggered a major follower surge.
Has Trump engaged with the account?
Yes, he retweeted Catturd seven times before his platform suspension in January 2021.
Does Catturd post on other platforms?
Yes, on Truth Social, though with a much smaller following than on X.
What’s the biggest criticism of the account?
Spreading debunked election and COVID-19 claims with little accountability for accuracy.
