twitter fail blog

There are times when we see a twitter stream that is so totally awful, we just need to sit back and admire its crappiness. Such is the case of @X07Brainiac, which was pointed out to us by alert Honorary Fail Bird Handler, @jackassletters.

Yes, Mr. Grammar Person, we know that a person is “who” not “which,” so we’ll point out that XO7Brainiac is not a person. It’s a bot.

“What?” we hear you saying, “How can you tell?”

The first clue:  robots don’t sound like human beings. All these posts sound amazingly similar. The formula:

1. Please Retweet
2. Item from an rss feed
3. Link
4. Hashtag

Observe:

1. The Retweet:

Only newbies, self-absorbed cretins, and bots ask everyone to retweet everything they say. We’ve talked about this before, “RT Please” just makes you look desperate and insecure, or totally fake.

2. RSS feed:

Real people, unless they’re twitter virgins, totally clueless losers, or self-important asshats, will interact with their followers, or the people they’re following, and say something original every now and then.  This bot just spits out its feed. If we want to read an rss feed about something, we’ll subscribe to it.

3. The link:

Every single tweet has a link. Read #2 again. Unless they are completely devoid of original thought, a real person will say something at some point that doesn’t include a link.

4. Hashtag:

The brainiac behind this bot thinks he can get his own username to trend, if he puts it in a hashtag at the end of every single post. So totally wrong, Wil Robinson. Terms trend when lots of people are using them. You can’t trend your own name all by yourself, so you need your friends help you out. Bots don’t have friends, because most of their followers are just as artificial as they are. And, while we’re on the subject, creating a hashtag that is your username is the most conceited, arrogant, supercilious thing to do. If @XO7Brainiac is not a bot (as if) this pomposity alone could cause him to spontaneously combust as the fire of a thousand sun shines down on his greasy, over-inflated head. (Sorry, we were daydreaming again.)

“Oooh,” you say, “he has a bunch of followers, so he must have lots of friends!” Wrong again. Follower numbers mean nothing. Some people get really envious of others’ follower count, as if numbers equal influence. Anyone can use one or more follower apps to get tons of followers. It’s one of the easiest things to do on twitter. The trick is to get followers who are interested in what you have to say. Thousands of followers who are only there because you followed them first will usually turn out to be people who are just after numbers, too. If you want people who will actually read what you have to say, fewer followers can be a very good thing. Especially if you want them to recommend you to their followers, who will follow you because you’re interesting.

Why do we hate bots on twitter? Because they use a lot of resources that could be better utilized by real people having real conversations and making real connections.  Every time you see the Fail Whale, get a 503 error, or a message that twitter is over capacity, blame the bots. Just like the Gunslinger in Westworld, their presence just ruins our fun