A chorus of outraged conservatives, including Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh, and Curt Schilling, expressed anger on Monday at what they wrongly called evidence that a postal worker in Ohio had destroyed absentee ballots cast in the Republican’s favor. The anger was prompted by the widespread misunderstanding of a satirical tweet posted online Sunday by a member of the loose coalition of pranksters known as Weird Twitter, who use the social network to post Dadaist jokes and fictional anecdotes disguised as earnest statements of fact.

i love working at the post office in Columbus, Ohio and ripping up absentee ballots that vote for trump — raandy (@randygdub) October 16, 2016

The satirist, who writes as @randygdub, describes himself only as a “cool and chill guy of online,” living in California. Within minutes of posting his tweet on Sunday, he was surprised and delighted that his joke was mistaken for a genuine confession by Trump supporters eager to find any evidence of the election rigging their candidate, falsely, claims is rampant. The clearest evidence that the tweet was a joke was found in the author’s deadpan replies to other Twitter users who scolded him for breaking the law.

@Jackson_Avenue you just made that up. nice try, though — raandy (@randygdub) October 16, 2016

@timps15 @Jackson_Avenue excuse me but ripping all these up is hard work and karma likes it — raandy (@randygdub) October 16, 2016

Despite those clues, late Sunday night, several Trump supporters, including Scott Baio, tried to share their alarm over the rigging in Ohio with the candidate himself. For once, Trump failed to take the bait and did not mention the alleged fraud to his own followers.

I hope you get fired! Cheating is the only way she'll win. @realDonaldTrump Hey @JohnKasich is this okay with you? https://t.co/9mgk11KZHk — Scott Baio (@ScottBaio) October 17, 2016

The satirist, and some of those who did get his joke, continued to troll those who failed to see it.*

By Monday morning, however, the satirist’s joy at confusing enraged conservatives reached new heights when his tweet was reported as genuine by the right-wing blogger Jim Hoft, who demanded to know if someone in a position of authority would “follow up on this.” It apparently never occurred to Hoft that he could have followed up himself, by attempting to contact the Californian who posted the tweet, or by scanning the rest of his Twitter feed, which is devoted to political comedy.

you know things are going great for the trump campaign when surrogates start saying it's actually normal & cool to think 10 yr olds are hot — raandy (@randygdub) October 13, 2016

i am a Black man for trump. that's right libs, we do exist pic.twitter.com/TXx9lX7kM4 — raandy (@randygdub) October 12, 2016

frank luntz can i be in your next focus group im also a huge idiot — raandy (@randygdub) October 10, 2016

i am a small business owner and i fired an employee for being a trump supporter — raandy (@randygdub) September 30, 2016

After Hoft’s post was linked to from the home page of the Drudge Report, it was shared more than 90,000 times on Facebook and Twitter.

Postal Worker Brags About Destroying Trump Ballots... https://t.co/WlWz0aG9aY — DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) October 17, 2016

Within hours, the fictional story had also been discussed, as fact, by Rush Limbaugh and prompted investigations from both the United States Postal Service and the Ohio secretary of state, Jon Husted.

@MisterGoldiloxx The Postal Service has completed an initial investigation of this matter and believes this is a hoax. ^DC — USPS Help (@USPSHelp) October 17, 2016

I’ve contacted @USPS about posts alleging destruction of absentee ballots. We’ll get the #facts & if true, hold anyone guilty accountable — Jon Husted (@JonHusted) October 17, 2016

While many conservatives were fooled, those in on the joke, like my colleague Lee Fang, who has followed the @randygdub account for some time, understood the satirist’s method and aim. “His group of Twitter friends have done this all year,” Lee explains, “testing absurdity of how left- and right-wing media echo chambers pick up any info that validates what they want to hear.” Earlier this year, at a fraught moment of the Democratic primary campaign, another card-carrying member of Weird Twitter, Matt Christman, parodied exaggerated reports of violence at the Nevada state convention in a satirical message.

Vile Berniebros at #nvdemconvention fired an RPG covered in dildos at Barbara Boxer. This is unacceptable. — Matt Christman (@cushbomb) May 15, 2016