15 Novelty Twitter Accounts That Will Make Your Day
Most of us go to Twitter for entertainment. But with a stream of tweets from about 225 million voices fighting to bubble up in your feed, it can sometimes be difficult to find unique voices in the crowd.
Some of the best follows on the hyperactive social network come in the form of novelty accounts. Though it’s difficult to define what exactly constitutes a “novelty account,” these charitable handles spend tweet after tweet cultivating a very particular voice, whether it be a Photoshop-savvy red panda or an 83-year-old man who thinks Twitter is a search engine.
These accounts are unique to the medium and can liven up your Twitter feed, one strange, wonderful tweet at a time.
Below, a few of the accounts that are a joy to follow. (You can find them all on Twitter here.)
1. @darth
Darth is the furry animal overlord of Twitter novelty accounts: He’s an insanely talented, timely, and funny Photoshopper, and he’s chosen to embody his character via an adorable red panda dressed in a Darth Vader costume.
Darth’s main talent is contributing to topical conversations via snarky Photoshops or GIFs, either including himself in photos, or adding a hilarious twist to existing images, at the request of his followers. Take, for instance, the photo of Ted Cruz waving a gay-pride flag on Canada Day below.
When someone tweeted a menacing photo of the Flatiron Building, moments before a torrential storm broke, Darth was there to make it even more nightmarish.
When a Reuters White House correspondent snapped a photo of President Obama joining his staff to watch the U.S. men’s soccer team play in the World Cup, Darth imagined an alternative scenario.
Roombas — those roaming, wireless vacuums we all know and love — have nuzzled their way into the hearts of the nation.
Self Aware ROOMBA honors our robot friends by imagining the thoughts of existential panic, self-loathing, and wonder in the vacuum’s everyday life. Some of my favorites include “(Duct taped to the ceiling by a bunch of shiftless ruffians) help” and “Haunted by the past, paralyzed by the myriad futures, each choice the death of a million paths to happiness. (Wrangling with a cheetoh).”
But the best tweets are always the ones with a picture attached, displaying the perspective of a household appliance and its many foes and friends. A few of the best are below.
A feline encounter:
The heart of darkness:
Terrifying stuffed animal:
And a familiar being:
We love our dogs, partly because they’re so innocent-minded and unconditionally affectionate. That’s why this account, which is written like one of Allen Ginsberg’s dark and rambling poems, is so surprising and hilarious. Dogs Doing Things imagines an alternate universe where dogs explore dark and terrifying activities that don’t always make sense. Tweets range from sly commentary on hot topics of conversation (“Dogs typing a last will and testament reading: ‘Yo.’ ”) to entirely random thoughts (“Dogs advising a newborn, ‘Be a nightmare.’ ”).
Many a gossip outlet has dedicated its existence to detailing the charmed life of sex-tape star turned party hostess Kim Kardashian. But what if the tabloid queen dedicated her existence to pondering the purposeless nature of civilization? KimKierkegaardashian mashes the star’s typically vapid thoughts with those of the famously depressed Danish philosopher Søren Aabye Kierkegaard.
Some gems include “The sea struck up its song with a deep, calm solemnity. The souls of the dead came forth to hold me in their comforting embrace. Yacht life.” and “Are passions, then, the pagans of the soul? Is reason alone baptized? The sexy secretary look lets you have both.”
See also: @Kanteye_West
5. @flycolony
(Courtesy of David Bowen’s website.)
Fly Colony takes novelty Twitter accounts to a whole other level by actually rigging a Twitter account up to a fly habitat and allowing the insects to type and send tweets themselves. The project, created by artist David Bowen, works like this: The flies reside in a bulb with a computer keyboard installed. As they buzz over the keyboard, their movements are recorded in real time. If and when a key is triggered by a fly, that character will be entered into a Twitter composition field. Once they reach 140 characters, or they trigger the Enter key, the message is tweeted out via the account.
Though the products of this experiment (displayed below) aren’t particularly coherent, the account itself is a brilliant reminder of how everyone’s tweets are just as insignificant as a dumb fly’s. Or something.
NYT Minus Context is one of the more heavily researched accounts out there, perusing every bit of prose from “The Paper of Record” to find and tweet inexplicable snippets. It’s comforting to think that, chopped up and without context, the Gray Lady could very well pass for a decent MFA poetry project.
And anytime you want to know the source of these obscure strings of text, you can peek at @NYTPlusContext’s replies.
Any early child of the Internet who spent all her after-school hours chatting with crushes and besties on AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) will automatically love your away message. This delicious feed by Business Insider’s Caroline Moss translates the prepubescent emotions every tween went through into emo band lyrics, thinly veiled put-downs, and cheesy lower-case-upper-case declarations.
Some highlights:
One underrated gem of the Twitter bot genre is Stock Market Status, a feed that’s programmed to mash together reports on company stock earnings and losses. As the account’s creator Colin Mitchell explains, “I’ve always thought the stock market reports you hear on the news are fairly silly. ‘The Dow Jones was up x% because this or that happened.’ The people saying those things always sound smart and informed, but no one really has any idea why a stock goes up or down in value. So I made a bot to do the same thing.”
The “reasons,” if you can call them that, are randomly sourced from tweets that include the word “because.” Highlights include “Investors traded 1,570,045 shares of American Express (AXP) because my caffeine addiction is a harsh mistress,” and “Amid reports that they stopped loving you, Akamai Technologies (AKAM) is up +0.82%.”
9. @_FloridaMan
The unthinkably stupid crimes that take place in America’s Retirement Home have captivated us since the early days of the Internet. So much so that a popular Twitter account, Florida Man, dedicated itself to cataloging the state’s wildest local stories. One insane headline after the next come together to tell the harrowing life tale of our composite character, the “world’s worst superhero.”
Below are some of Florida Man’s darkest moments.
A proposal fit for a Bachelor special:
Pushing the boundaries on socially acceptable bodily excretions to pick at on live television:
And a day in the life of a man who needs no introduction:
10. @oldmansearch
The bio for Norman N.’s Twitter account reads “My dad is 83 years old. I’m teaching him how to use the internet. I told him twitter was how to search things on Google. These tweets are what he’s searching.” Though it’s doubtful that someone is carrying out a very mean and hilarious practical joke on his father, it’s still a genius frame for a fictional online character. And an imaginative peek into an Internet-illiterate aging mind.
11. @KimJongNumberUn
There’s something darkly adorable about a 20-something inheriting control of a country and filling his father’s footsteps of government censorship and chest puffing. Kim Jong Number Un imagines the world from the spoiled leader’s naive and powerful viewpoint, which I imagine isn’t far from what Dennis Rodman actually thinks about the country.
12. @big_ben_clock
Big Ben exists for the sole purpose of sending out “bong bong bong” tweets that match the hour, much like London’s original monument. Sure, it may be less romantic than a ringing bell in a bustling town square, but at its very essence, it’s not much different.
13. @thegermanfor
The German For has one real M.O., and that’s to point out the delightful compound words of the German language, and the fact that they have a specific, poetically translated term for everything. As a bonus, this Twitter account is funny and educational! Colony of elephant seals? That’s Seeelefantenkolonie! The middle of nowhere? That’s “wo sich Fuchs und Hase gute Nacht sagen” (“where the fox and the rabbit say goodnight”). Lightbulb? Glühbirne (“glow pear”).
14. @NeinQuarterly
This “Compendium of Utopian Negation,” as editor Eric Jarosinski writes so eloquently in Nein.’s Twitter bio, encapsulates the wandering mind of a disillusioned academic. It’s a concept that many intellectuals can relate to; The New Yorker notes that Jarosinski’s 80,000+ followers “include frustrated graduate students, German-language learners, and the president of Estonia.”
15. @TNG_S8
In the same vein as Seinfeld Current Day, TNG Season 8 imagines plot lines for another season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. But instead of focusing on how the show’s legendary and beloved cast might interact with modern-day issues, it portrays them as incompetent, anxious, and consistently embarrassed characters who must deal with the unexpected obstacles of space (rare screaming diseases, transporter errors, being “dishonorable” in general). If only every season was like this.
You can find all of the handles in our handy Twitter list right here.
Follow Alyssa Bereznak on Twitter or email her here. And let her know if she missed any of your favorites in the comments below.
