For a brief moment this week — but maybe an epoch in Internet years — a snake everyone called Austin Cobra dominated central Texas social media after killing its owner in a Lowe’s parking lot and fleeing the scene, into the capital city.
Pet-shop owner Grant Thompson died almost immediately Wednesday at the metaphorical hand of his pet snake, described as a “monocled” cobra. Austin Cobra, seeing this as his chance for freedom, escaped into the nearby woods. But Austin Cobra’s journey was not without documentation. Albeit unverified, the reptile’s Twitter account opened soon after:
Austin residents, it turned out, had little to fear. The hunt was underway, spearheaded by fellow social media newcomer Austin Mongoose:
Shit like this is precisely why people on Twitter cannot for the life of them figure out what Twitter is for.
For two glorious days, Texas Twitter celebrated Austin Cobra, before the rogue snake was felled by the tire of a Texas driver, no doubt speeding unreasonably. The laughs may seem macabre, given the fact that a young man was killed. But he just learned firsthand what the rest of Austin figured out on social media: Unless you’re a mongoose, you shouldn’t fuck with cobras, not even in subtweets.
