Of all the things brought to you by Internet - Twitter is one of the most fascinating. As a
form of communication - it is nearly impeccable. Lightning-fast, comfortably compressed, incredibly effective. It is the perfect medium for
the conversation in the age of short attention span. It is also a good place for experiments. Twitter bots are amongst them.
In short - twitter bot is a software application that is attached to a Twitter account in order to perform
certain actions. Such as liking, following, tweeting, retweeting, etcetera. Aside from usual role in web automated promotion, Twitterbots
turned out to be rather interesting tool for literary experimentation with random text generation, text selection and text collaging.
Here's the rundown of the most fascinating Twitterbots.
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@everyword
We can't start the list without mentioning the bot who tweeted every word in English language. It took him
109,000 tweets every half an hour for about seven years to get
to the end. Created by Adam Parrish in 2007 (when Twitter was in its infancy) it was an attempt of critique of a new platform.
"People were posting meaningless things, totally out of context. I wanted to satirize the brevity of Twitter messages". Based on a simple
script that makes one post every thirty minutes taking its text from an alphabetized lost - @everyword turned out into conceptual art
exercise. An attempt to show somewhat canonical list of English words.
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@streetsnsheets
This bot is a real deal for those who are looking for unexpected
imagery. @streetsnsheets takes the phase "I'm a (blank space) on the streets and a (blank space) in
the sheets" and randomizes the words to fill in the sentence. The results may wary. Usually it turns out to be like this "Ink-Eyes, Servant
of Oni in the streets, Crossbow Infantry in the sheets" or like this "Pieces of the Puzzle in the streets, Bioplasm in the sheets". It
makes zero sense on its own but it is mildly entertaining depending on the context it can give you accidental shot in the arm. It happened
with me on the tweet "Goblin Arsonist in the streets, Field Creeper in the sheets".
***
@egressmethods
In 1975 Paul Simon wrote a song "50 ways to leave your Lover". It is rather
annoying if you really think about it. But that's OK. In spite of a title it only touched upon about 7 ways. It was quite irritating
for some and but offered food for thought. That's why Adam Parrish created another bot to "fulfill the promise", fill the quota and
expand upon it in an elaborate way "from now into eternity ". Every couple of hours' bot generates another new way to leave a lover. It's a
nice showcase of how we perceive random generated text.
***
@YouAreCarrying
This Twitter bot gives you a chance for an adventure. Created by Andrew
Vestal it is a starting point for an oldschool quest. You just need to send a message to an account with words "inventory" or "I" and get a
list of items for your adventure. This list of things will rather odd. Then you can imagine what is going on. Or don't. Latter is more
curious. Anyway the lists of items are generated at random and sometimes they tell the stories of their own. Usually quite absurd. Classic
@YouAreCarrying posts look like this: "a soy patty, a toy duck, a wallet, an apple, a blanket, a rusty cross." Or "a headlamp, a log tape,
a pair of magnetic boots, a small drill bit, a J-series hyperdiode, a key." Or "an ionic diffusion rasp, a Nutrimat/Computer Interface, a
tool box." Or "a card, a rusty iron key, a Flathead stamp, a white book, a cake frosted with orange letters, a bank brochure.". it is
like poetry - endless images, narrative threads and verbal equilibrism...
Just don't think too hard about it.
***
@BlackBoughBot
This Bot creates variations on Ezra Pounds seminal poem "In the Station of the Metro". The poem known for
its dense imagery and economic narrative is a perfect battleground for linguistic experimentation of a mindless drone. Since there are no
verbs - it makes even more outlandish variations of the poem quite entertaining. Albeit none of them will ever come out of the shadow of
its great ancestor. However, it is weirdly satisfying to think that there is entire army of "In the Station of the Metro" variations
standing in its shadow waiting for the right moment to start the assault...
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@DependsUponBot+ @JustToSayBot
William Carlos Williams is one of the most memetic poets of this day and age. He's legacy got not one but two Twitter bots that frequently post variations of his poems. One bot posts versions of his famous "Red Wheelbarrow", while the other posts variations on "This is Just to Say". Basically both bots riff on the poems ad absurdum. Because they have no rhyme or reason - occasionally result is utterly fascinating.
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Anagramatron
Anagramatron is brainchild of Colin Rothfels. It is a bot that repost posts
that contain anagrams - words and phrases that are made by rearranging the letters of a given words or phrases in order to produce new text
while using all the original letters exactly once. Anagramaton bot looks for anagrams all over the twitter. And when he finds something
that can be qualified as an anagram - he reposts it. This makes an assorted accidental collection of curiosities.
***
BONUS: @big_ben_clock
This one is for the hardcores. It is all just Bong and bong and bong and bong. A bog of Bongs basically. Because it is a clock. It is beautiful the way it is and you should really appreciate this little Twitterbot for its audacity. Also - you might experience a fit of hostile allergy towards the letters "B" and "O" and "N" and "G" and their respective combined soundforms
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