Kurt Cobain at a Nirvana concert in Seattle, Washington in 1993.
Photo: FilmMagic, Jeff Kravitz. All rights reserved.
No, sorry: ROLLING STONE is not one of those media outlets that bash the Secretary of Health at every opportunity. But when it comes to big rock bands, we too have to – critically – comment on Karl Lauterbach. The professor, who is always busy posting on Twitter, recently got involved in the blue tick discussion: Twitter boss Elon Musk wants his users to pay for the verification symbol, which guarantees the authenticity of official accounts. Many celebrities are against it. Lauterbach appears to have been following the story – noting that his blue tick initially disappeared but then reappeared without him paying for it.
The public servant, who was not linguistically insane, adorned his observation with a pictorial reference to the band of the late Kurt Cobain and the album title of their best-known work, “Nevermind”. What is meant is, of course, Nirvana, or, as Lauterbach says: “Nirvarna”.
My #bluehook was gone, now he’s back. As if from Nirvarna, nevermind. I didn’t pay anything…
— Professor Karl Lauterbach (@Karl_Lauterbach) April 24, 2023
A typo, a careless mistake? It may be. However, as one user noted, the minister misspelled the band’s name not once, but three times – so the first mistake was followed by two more attempts to spell the grunge heroes’ names correctly. Lauterbach incorrectly corrected his tweet twice. He also had “Nivarna” and “Nirwarna” on offer, at least according to screenshots and version history (old tweets are no longer accessible).