In a post yesterday before deleting his verified Twitter account, Tesh said he was leaving and urged his followers to “say goodbye to viciousness and censorship.”
Although he did not provide examples of what he was referring to, Tesh had tweeted a link to Parler on Saturday, describing it as a “much nicer place.” Before its deletion, Tesh had 136,573 Twitter followers, according to analytics platform Social Blade.
Memes and jokes spread across Twitter today, with some users seemingly unaware who Tesh is, why he was initially relevant and why it matters that he has gone. There were so many posts that his name was in the top 10 most trending topics today.
“John Tesh deleted his Twitter account and went to Parler. Serious question, did anyone know he was on Twitter?” read one widely-circulated tweet from a well-followed profile with the handle @NotHoodlum. Another post featured an image of former Trump aide Steve Bannon with the caption: “I’m gonna tell my grandkids this is John Tesh.”
As the trend spread, many users were seemingly unaware of Tesh’s career, asking “who is John Tesh?” Other users said they did not know that he was ever on the website.
For anyone unaware, Tesh has enjoyed a lengthy and varied career spanning a variety of mediums, including radio, television, news broadcasting and music. He was a co-host of the popular TV program Entertainment Tonight between 1986 and 1996.
According to his website biography, he has six Emmys, two Grammy nominations, four gold records, seven Public Television specials and has sold eight million records.
He hosts the syndicated radio show Intelligence for Your Life. His YouTube account, which has over 12,000 subscribers, includes many of his live performances.
Tesh was diagnosed with a rare form of prostate cancer and given 18 months to live in 2015, according to an interview with The New York Post in February this year. He said he is now healthy but indicated that he does not receive regular check-ups.
“I got cancer the same exact year almost to the month my dad died of cancer. DNA is not programmed like that—I manifested that cancer in my body because I worried about it my whole life,” Tesh was cited as saying in the Post interview.
According to his Parler profile, which does not have a main image at the time of writing, Tesh signed up roughly one week ago and has amassed more than 4,000 followers to date. He is following 21 profiles, including Senator Ted Cruz, Fox host Maria Bartiromo, radio show personality Dan Bongino and the political activist James O’Keefe.
In his most-recent Parler post, Tesh pitches the concept of “divine healing,” suggesting to followers the word of God can “destroy disease in the human body.”
Downloads of the Parler app surged in the past week in the wake of Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 election, with some leaving Twitter citing the website’s repeatedly flagging of the president’s posts as a reason for leaving the platform.
