@CIA, Go Home. You’re Drunk.

It’s been one month since the Central Intelligence Agency joined Twitter to much ado. Whoever has been running the account appears to have been on a monthlong bender, because on Monday, @CIA decided to answer some frequently asked questions. The results are silly. No, we don’t know your password, so we can’t send it to ...

SAUL LOEB/AFP/GettyImages
SAUL LOEB/AFP/GettyImages
SAUL LOEB/AFP/GettyImages

It's been one month since the Central Intelligence Agency joined Twitter to much ado. Whoever has been running the account appears to have been on a monthlong bender, because on Monday, @CIA decided to answer some frequently asked questions. The results are silly.

It’s been one month since the Central Intelligence Agency joined Twitter to much ado. Whoever has been running the account appears to have been on a monthlong bender, because on Monday, @CIA decided to answer some frequently asked questions. The results are silly.

 

 

 

The CIA’s reputation hasn’t been doing too well recently, and the move to join Twitter is in all likelihood an attempt to woo young Americans. For 20-somethings, the reputation of the agency — and the broader intelligence community — has been mostly shaped by the blown call on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and by Edward Snowden’s revelations of mass surveillance. The agency’s Twitter persona is trying really, really hard to speak to these Americans. But, like parents trying to sound cool enough to talk to their kids, the whole thing is a little awkward to watch.

Here, America’s spies try to get in on World Cup fever:

 

Nothing says being hip to the concerns of young Americans like a #tbt photograph of George H.W. Bush during his days as CIA director:

Hipsters love art, right? So of course the agency is alluding to its efforts to support modern art as a propaganda tool during the Cold War:

Dipping their toes into the stream of irony with a reference to that time CIA planes were mistaken for UFOs:

And then of course there was the agency’s first tweet, which really wasn’t funny:

So is the agency’s campaign working? I don’t know, as I can’t seem to tell whether the Twitter users of the world are laughing with the agency or at it. I don’t think the CIA knows either.

Twitter: @EliasGroll

More from Foreign Policy

Keri Russell as Kate Wyler walks by a State Department Seal from a scene in The Diplomat, a new Netflix show about the foreign service.
Keri Russell as Kate Wyler walks by a State Department Seal from a scene in The Diplomat, a new Netflix show about the foreign service.

At Long Last, the Foreign Service Gets the Netflix Treatment

Keri Russell gets Drexel furniture but no Senate confirmation hearing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron speak in the garden of the governor of Guangdong's residence in Guangzhou, China, on April 7.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron speak in the garden of the governor of Guangdong's residence in Guangzhou, China, on April 7.

How Macron Is Blocking EU Strategy on Russia and China

As a strategic consensus emerges in Europe, France is in the way.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin greets U.S. President George W. Bush prior to a meeting of APEC leaders in 2001.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin greets U.S. President George W. Bush prior to a meeting of APEC leaders in 2001.

What the Bush-Obama China Memos Reveal

Newly declassified documents contain important lessons for U.S. China policy.

A girl stands atop a destroyed Russian tank.
A girl stands atop a destroyed Russian tank.

Russia’s Boom Business Goes Bust

Moscow’s arms exports have fallen to levels not seen since the Soviet Union’s collapse.