Meet the women behind NJ's tongue-in-cheek Twitter account. And no, they're not interns

On the day before Thanksgiving, New York government's official Twitter account warned motorists about an impending snowstorm, Pennsylvania's wished Pittsburgh a happy 261th birthday and New Jersey's made a butt joke.

No, a rogue intern didn’t hijack the state’s Twitter account. The cheeky gag was part of a strategy to lure in social media users with some on-brand Jersey personality so the state can hit them with more serious business, like urging people to sign up for health insurance, promoting the Garden State wine industry and wishing Asbury Park native Danny DeVito a happy birthday.

“We really wanted to be more engaging, more human,” said Pearl Gabel, New Jersey’s digital director. “I don’t want to be like another state. I really wanted to find the essence of Jersey.”

Gabel is one of two women behind @NJGov, the 19-month-old Twitter account run by Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration.

From left, Megan Coyne, Pearl Gabel and Edwin Torres, the digital communications team for Gov. Phil Murphy's administration. Gabel and Coyne are the brains behind the state's Twitter account.

Murphy adviser Dan Bryan said the state wanted an outlet to provide largely apolitical news and Jersey promotion. Bryan noted that when he worked for Hoboken, the city’s Twitter account became the chief source of news about Hoboken’s many water main breaks.

The Murphy administration recruited Gabel from New York City, where the former journalist was a video director for Mayor Bill de Blasio. Her partner-in-Twitter-crime is Megan Coyne, a 22-year-old who educates the, well, more senior staff about fresh internet memes. In the last two months, in tweets to verify the existence of Central Jersey, Coyne used the sign bunny and the buff bunny vs. small bunny memes.

“Those were two I had to explain,” Coyne said.

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Gabel's team doesn't focus solely on Twitter. They run all the state's social media accounts, oversee the state website, make videos, shoot photos and more. But it's @NJGov that has them earning praise from Twitter users on both sides of the aisle.

Lori Ciesla, a Republican former councilwoman who lives in Lopatcong, said she was particularly amused by the New Jersey-Delaware spat. Ciesla did not know that two women were at the helm of the feed.

“It totally makes sense that they’re Jersey girls, because we’re classy yet sassy,” she said. “Nobody likes us, but we don’t care.”

Ciesla is one of the almost 17,000 followers @NJGov has amassed since April 2018. Other states have more — Delaware’s Twitter account has 52,000-plus — but Murphy folks think it’s not bad considering how new it is (Delaware’s account has been active for over a decade).

New Jersey is one of 34 states with official government Twitter accounts. Some of the remaining 16 appear to leave tweets up to their governors. A lot of their timelines are heavy on retweets of state agency news (the original posts are rarely saucier than a picture of a Smokey Bear toy). Meanwhile, NJGov is posting gifs of drag queens and getting into beefs with @delaware gov over which state is No. 1.

Gabel said she and Coyne, who both live in Lambertville, hash out potential tweets via text when they aren’t together. Bryan said Murphy and other administration officials don’t butt in if they think one tweet or another is too spicy.

“Everyone’s on board with the fact that this is an account that’s definitely going to lean in and be engaging in a kind of tongue-in-cheek way,” he said.

Terrence T. McDonald is a reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: mcdonaldt@northjersey.com Twitter: @terrencemcd