Celebrate King's Day with TNW 🎟 Use code GEZELLIG40 on your Business, Investor and Startup passes today! This offer ends on April 29 →

This article was published on March 25, 2016

15 Twitter accounts that show just how weird the Web is


15 Twitter accounts that show just how weird the Web is

This week, Twitter turns 10. Over the next few days we’ll be exploring how far the microblogging service has come, the challenges it faces going forward and some of its key moments along the way.

Facebook may be the most popular social media platform – and it’s arguable whether Twitter itself is one – but it can’t compare to Twitter when it comes to straight up weird accounts. As we celebrate Twitter’s anniversary this week, let’s look back on some of the quirkiest, funniest, and straight-up odd Twitter accounts since the network’s inception.

@Horse_ebooks

One of the strangest Twitter accounts ever created, Horse_ebooks was a spam bot originally built to promote a site about, well, horse-themed ebooks. It amassed a following of 184K users, however, thanks to its posting random collections of words several times a day without context, which seemed to mix poetry and Confucian-like wisdom:

Celebrate King's Day with TNW Conference :tickets:

Use code GEZELLIG40 on your Business, Investor and Startup passes and get 40% off. Offer ends April 29.

Register Now

It then turns out the account was the bought and manipulated for an art project about the 2007 mortgage crisis – seriously. It’s a fascinatingly strange story. Unfortunatlely, @horse_ebooks stopped tweeting a few years ago.

@Lord_Voldemort7

A Twitter account for all budding Death Eaters out there, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named is your daily source for Harry Potter-themed insults and magical pessimism.

@kanyewest

https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/707365004941598721

Everyone knows Kanye West thinks himself one of the greatest artists of all time. What you might not know is that he also has one of the greatest Twitter accounts that’s not a parody. From rants, to an epic spat with Wiz Khalifa, to ponderous self-reflection, you should be following Kanye whether you’re a fan or not.

https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/709095376830201856

@KyloR3n

One of the younger accounts on this list, Emo Kylo Ren gives you a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to grow up into the most emotionally conflicted villain in the galaxy. Just be warned against any spoilers if you somehow haven’t seen the latest Star Wars movie yet.

@dril

Even older than @horse_ebooks, @dril has been confusing/amazing the Twittersphere with nonsensical tweets since 2008. And unlike its horsey friend, no one knows who’s behind the account. What’s more, @dril has somehow kept the momentum going to this day.

@pakalupapito

Pakalu Papito came out of nowhere. Purporting to be a middle-aged gas station manager, Papito is known for his self-deprecating humor, deadpan sarcasm, and love life hopes and woes. But above all, we can all relate to Papito’s under-140-characters struggles.

@FakeAPStylebook

The Associated Press Stylebook is one of the most widely-accepted style guides for English writing, used by countless publications. Fake AP Stylebook was the antithesis for all it stands for.


Unfortunately, the account hasn’t tweeted since 2014, though it still has 335K followers.

@MiguelBloombito

Whatever your thoughts on Michael Bloomberg, former Mayor of New York City, we can agree on one thing: his Spanish was pretty terrible. Though we at least give him props for trying, Miguel Bloombito is a fairly close representation of what it sounded like hearing Michael Bloomberg speak in Spanish.

@officialjaden

Though recently Jaden Smith has taken on projects such as modelling for Louis Vuitton, Will Smith’s son first rose to prominence for his existential quotes:

Though sometimes we have to remember he’s also just a teenager going through teenagery things:

@coffee_dad

Just a dad who loves his coffee. Seriously, virtually every one of this account’s tweets since March 2012 have been about coffee – and usually in less that five words.

@space_sushi

Photos of sushi in space. Why?  We have no idea. Unfortunately, the account hasn’t tweeted since August of last year, but perhaps we’ll one day see sushi in space once more.

@wolfpupy

Don’t let the adorable avatar fool you. Around since 2010, wolf pupy has built something of a cult following thanks to its brand of dark humor with questionable grammar. The jokes become all the funnier when you imagine imagine a wolf-puppy hybrid saying them.

@ProBirdRights

Continuing the animal theme, we have the greatest bird rights activist on Twitter. @ProBirdRights has been around since 2011, humorously fighting against ‘antibird’ sentiment, often referring to bird arch nemesis: the squirrel.

@nihilist_arbys

Nihilist Arby’s is the most depressing Twitter account to try to sell you on a restauruant chain. Of course, it has no official affiliation with Arby’s, but at 185K followers, we’d say it does a fair bit of marketing anyway. No such thing as bad publicity, right?

@everyword

From November 30th, 2007 to June 7, 2014 @everyword tweeted “every word in the English language,” one word at a time, every 30 minutes. There wasn’t a particular order to the words, but by the end of the process it had tweeted a total 109,229 words. Who knows, maybe one day it will relaunch a few years from now, complete with new millenial slang.

Got any favorite odd Twitter accounts? Hit us up in the comments below.

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.

Also tagged with