I’m sure you’ve encountered “weird Twitter” at some point in your social media life (if you have a Twitter account). The history of weird Twitter is long, storied, and complicated. It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact beginnings of this underground, offbeat movement that took shape deep in the bowels of Twitter. Many believe weird Twitter was born in a subforum called F**k You And Die on the site SomethingAwful.com. It was here that many a weird Twitter pioneer posted his/her musings. To name a few: @fart, @leyawn, @dogboner, and @cheesegod69 (Herman & Notopoulos, 2013).
On KnowYourMeme, weird Twitter is defined as “a loosely connected group of Twitter users who are known to experiment with spelling, punctuation and format for humor or poetry” (“Weird twitter,” 2013). BuzzFeed explains it as “an intentionally wrong style of idiotic comedy” (Herman & Notopoulos, 2013). These descriptions don’t really do it justice, though. It’s stuff like this gem from @tree_bro:
or this:
One of my favorite weird Twitter handles is @coffee_dad, who tweets only about coffee.
Every once in a while, though, @coffee_dad’s tweets delve a little deeper, into the disturbing tale of his son’s death. Pretty weird.
In a recent article for The New Yorker, Susan Orlean digs deep into one of the most prolific weird Tweeters: the guys behind @horse_ebooks, Jason Bakkila and Thomas Bender. They took over a Twitter account originally used to advertise ebooks, and tweeted segments of texts from books they found. The world was convinced it was a robot.
When people found out there were actually humans behind the account, some were mad. But some called it art.
There’s an ongoing debate about whether these Twitter accounts can be called art. You decide, I guess. Maybe it’s not art. But whatever it is, it’s funny. If you’re into that. (Read: if you are weird.)
References:
Herman, J., & Notopoulos, K. (2013, APRIL 05). Weird twitter: The oral history. Retrieved from http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/weird-twitter-the-oral-history
Weird twitter. (2013, AUGUS 14). Retrieved from http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/weird-twitter
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Weird Twitter is like the dark side of Youtube. At least there is a place for people to go to post random thoughts. They ahve created their own micro community where they can be apprecciated.
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I actually like weird Twitter. I wouldn’t necessarily follow any of these blogs, but it’s pretty funny to read them once in a while. I had heard about HorseEbooks being human created robot created content though, which is interesting and could maybe be considered art
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I think weird Twitter is kind of entertaining. There are definitely accounts that I can appreciate and find humor in, but I don’t know that I’d actively follow any of them. I think a lot of aspects of the internet have become kind of this counter culture recently as a way to express yourself. This might be why websites like Facebook aren’t as embraced any more, it inhibits creativity. I don’t necessarily view any of these account as an art form, but they’re quirky and entertaining. I think it’s just a good way for people to express their weird, creative side in unconventional ways.
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I have never heard of Weird Twitter and I am an avid tweeter. I think this is so strange. At least from the examples in this post. I’ll have to check it out!
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It’s my dream to someday be able to say I’m a part of Weird Twitter. It’s crazy that people can think of such strange things to tweet, but what’s crazier is that people (myself included) actually think it’s funny. I wonder if there was a genre of humor similar to this before Twitter. I think Weird Twitter would be great if it was around in like the 1800s.
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I think its awesome and for the people who were pissed, that’s absolutely ridiculous, horse e-books were taking segments from actual books, I thought it was clever.
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