"Spambot" Horse_Ebooks Has Been a Buzzfeed Employee Since 2011 - Polidicks

[t]http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/1915kb0m44uocjpg/ku-xlarge.jpg[/t] [QUOTE]Since 2011, the semi-legendary spam Twitter feed "@Horse_ebooks" has been under control of Jacob Bakkila, a Buzzfeed creative strategist who used to tweet under the handle "@agentlebrees." Bakkila revealed his identity in an art installation called "BearStearnsBravo" at the FitzRoy Gallery on Chrystie street in New York. In a series of tweets from the Horse_ebooks account at around 10 a.m., Bakkila gave out the project's name and a phone number.[/QUOTE] [URL="http://gawker.com/horse_ebooks-has-been-a-buzzfeed-employee-since-2011-1377183209"]source[/URL] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/MM9OV6u.png[/IMG]

my life has been a lie

I feel cheated.

it could have been an actual product and i would have been interested but noooooo it had to be ~art~

I'm not surprised. In the end what it is doesn't matter, it churns out some ridiculous one-liners. [B]EDIT:[/B] Wait what this was connected with pronunciationbook?

This is actually cool.

Thanks to the guy who photographed everything for using flash

Fucking hipsters.

As a fan of conceptual art, I'm 200% fine with this. And its connection with PronunciationBook was hella unprepared for so that just makes it even better! An for those uninformed, it opened way to an ARG.

so he posted twice a day, random incomplete sentences on twitter [editline]24th September 2013[/editline] doesn't impress me much

i feel empty and betrayed it is a sad day for mankind Seriously, though, this is actually pretty cool, and it's interesting how it ties in to pronunciation book. As soon as I get to a real computer I'll check out [url]http://www.bearstearnsbravo.com/[/url] since that seems to be the thing that both PB and horse tie into.

[QUOTE=stealth_camo;42293550]it could have been an actual product and i would have been interested but noooooo it had to be ~art~[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=MIPS;42293820]Fucking hipsters.[/QUOTE] You guys sound like idiots. Get over yourself and quit complaining about expression regardless if you think its pretentious or not. With literally an infinite amount of ways to express [B]anything[/B] you are bound to encounter a couple million that you don't personally enjoy. [editline]24th September 2013[/editline] To those of you who think that this was an exercise in anything other than his endurance to keep it up and to be funny, you are mistaken. People enjoyed @horse_ebooks because it was funny as shit sometimes.

Some of the statuses were legendary. Like, thousands of people retweeted them for their hilarity/ randomness and occasional words of wisdom which actually made sense in a convoluted kind of way. Incredible.

So this is why he climbed the roof, he was trying to tell us..

how in the flying fuck did he make himself look robotic there were some combos in there that i would swear there was no way in hell came from a human

[QUOTE=MIPS;42293820]Fucking hipsters.[/QUOTE] I don't think you know what a hipster is

[QUOTE=Echidna666;42293932]I don't think you know what a hipster is[/QUOTE] I don't.

[QUOTE=lavacano;42293911]how in the flying fuck did he make himself look robotic there were some combos in there that i would swear there was no way in hell came from a human[/QUOTE] It was likely still a piece of software posting to the Twitter account (after all, a software developer is credited). Him personally posting chunks of gibberish every 2 hours just isn't reasonable.

>Posed as a spambot Reminds me of that group in Vkontakte (russian facebook) "Nicola Tesla every day" where all it does is post Nicola Tesla's picture every day. They've been doing this daily already for more than a year. [url]http://vk.com/tesla_every_day[/url]

[QUOTE=Take_Opal;42293869]You guys sound like idiots. Get over yourself and quit complaining about expression regardless if you think its pretentious or not. With literally an infinite amount of ways to express [B]anything[/B] you are bound to encounter a couple million that you don't personally enjoy. [editline]24th September 2013[/editline] To those of you who think that this was an exercise in anything other than his endurance to keep it up and to be funny, you are mistaken. People enjoyed @horse_ebooks because it was funny as shit sometimes.[/QUOTE] i wasn't talking about horse_ebooks, i was talking about the other side of the viral (pronuciationbook) edit: i really should have specified that in my post

I'm personally wondering why he bothered to reveal his presence behind the 'bot at all. The arcane and enigmatic nature of the spambot was what made it so enticing and funny. It was a cryptic production of the modern era, somewhat like some sort of mystical artifact form ancient times, except [I]we[/I] birthed the damn thing within the last decade and have been watching it function. Pointing out that there's a man controlling the device while it's still going just ruins a bit of the magic of it. There was something ephemeral about the bot and its ramblings, and now that we know a man at the very least steered the results in some form, the magic is gone. Personally, I think it would've been better if he'd just let the damn thing run its course, then when the bot finally gave out, got banned (as if) or he got sick of it, revealed himself. Assuming that hasn't just happened and I'm not just oblivious, that is.

I still love you Horse_ebooks

If anybody hasn't seen it, you've got to check out the Bear Sterns Bravo website thing. It's a whole interactive adventure movie, and it's hilarious. [url]http://www.bearstearnsbravo.com/[/url]

i feel like i lost a good friend today

[QUOTE=MIPS;42293820]Fucking hipsters.[/QUOTE] Says the guy who collects electronic tat from the 70s

[QUOTE=stealth_camo;42293550]it could have been an actual product and i would have been interested but noooooo it had to be ~art~[/QUOTE] ~Art~ in the form of a several hour long movie/game experience that is totally awesome. Seriously, what were you expecting? An end to hunger?

almost as disappointing as when i found out black people are people too

[QUOTE=Cuel;42293857]so he posted twice a day, random incomplete sentences on twitter [editline]24th September 2013[/editline] doesn't impress me much[/QUOTE] yeah i mean that's the same thing golds

I feel violated. To think, I had horse_ebooks as an RSS feed streaming directly to my keyboard display.

-snip-