Twitter Bot Invents Fake 'Louis Theroux' Documentaries And Louis Loves It

Louis Theroux is a national treasure, one of the best and most loved documentary makers in the country. He's travelled the world bringing us tales of drug addicts and prostitutes, swingers and prisoners as well as all kinds of political radicals from Nazis to Orthodox Jews, Black Nationalists and Christian fundamentalists.

Our Louis always imbues his docs with his trademark style, an almost childlike innocence that disarms his subjects and allows them to show them their strange worlds. From the Miami Mega Jail to the Place for Paedophiles, the unsettling Jimmy Savile story and the most recent series Dark States, his inimitable style is a guaranteed ratings hit.

Credit: BBC Two

It turns out, however, that Louis' inimitable style is, well, quite imitable. A Twitter user has created a Louis Theroux Bot - cunningly titled @LouisTherouxBot - that recreates the fascinating and somewhat fantastical stories of the TV journalist's documentaries.

Let's look at a few examples:

Baffling to the uniniatiated, no doubt, but anyone who has ever seen a Louis Theroux doc will know the format.

One person who definitely gets the joke is the man himself. Louis took to his own Twitter account to applaud the parody and even offer to record his own versions of the tweets to add extra authenticity.

"Alright, you asked for it. If this gets enough retweets I'll record it. Using my real voice," tweeted the multiple BAFTA winner. And if there is one thing that we know about social media, it's that the people tend to get what they want.

Over 31,000 people retweeted the post and Louis later posted to the social media site: "I've recorded it. Seriously though how do you upload a sound file onto Twitter?" with BBC Three later responding: "Email it to us, we'll do it for you."

That was just this morning, so we wait with bated breath for a real life parody recording of a Louis Theroux parody.

Now we think of it, that sounds like a documentary in and of itself: "I'm in London to meet Louis, a former documentary maker turned social media superstar who posts voice recordings of his own parody Twitter account."

Topics: TV and Film, Funny, louis theroux, Documentary

James Dawson

James Dawson is a Journalist at LADbible. He has contributed articles to LADbible’s ‘Knowing Me, Knowing EU’ series on the EU referendum, the 'Electoral Dysfunction' series on the 2017 general election, the ‘U OK M8?’ series tackling mental health amongst young men, and for its ‘Climate Change’ initiative in partnership with National Geographic.

@thejaytoday