12 Strange and Different Twitter Feeds

Photograph by Coletivo Mambembe.

Although the combination social network and microblogging platform Twitter is handy for people who just want to communicate, it is perfect for one-liners and constant updates. Some feeds draw you in with their clever observations and/or links. Some are constant jokes. And some accounts are so clever, weird, or funny that you have to follow them. Look around and you’ll find something for your personal entertainment. To get you started, here are a dozen feeds that illustrate the strange and different ways Twitter can be used.

1. Modern Twilight Zone

Modern Twilight Zone takes news headlines, memes, and 21st-century situations and gives them a Rod Serling-type twist. Modern Serling generates plenty of these plots, but followers are glad to contribute their ideas. Read enough of these, and you’ll end up with nightmares.

2. KimKierkegaardashian

The tagline of the account KimKierkegaardashian is “The philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard mashed with the tweets and observations of Kim Kardashian.” Each Tweet contains elements of both. See if you can identify them.

3. Roger the Cat

Roger the Cat is just a house cat in Texas. And not a particularly clever cat. But that makes his Tweets all the more entertaining, as he chronicles his cat point of view.

4. Sarcastic Rover

Sarcastic Rover is sort of an evil twin for the Mars Curiosity Rover account, which is excited and happy to be working for NASA on Mars. The parody account Sarcastic Rover, on the other hand, couldn't care less about the goals of far away men.

5. FEMINIST HULK

Of course, the Incredible Hulk types in all caps. In the feed FEMINIST HULK, the green guy holds up his feminist side. Some Tweets are witty quips, in the broken English you’d expect from the Hulk, but there are a lot of interesting links, too.

6. Norman N.

The premise of the Twitter feed Norman N. is that Norman is 83 years old, and thinks Twitter is a search engine -because his son told him it was. The Tweets are all search terms. So we get a look into what this character wants to find on the internet. The account ran sporadically for three years, but hasn’t updated for the past three months.

7. Big Ben

Big Ben is the Westminster Palace clock tower bell, in London. It Tweets every hour, on the hour. For five years now. The account has 451,000 followers. It's pretty handy if you want to know what time it is in London.

8. Middle Class Problem

The Twitter account Middle Class Problem doesn’t Tweet: it only reTweets. Creator Benjamin Lee finds Tweets from others that are crying out for the label of Middle Class Problem. It’s been going for four years and there’s never been a dearth of material.

9. A Huge Ship

The Twitter account A Huge Ship was created in response to John W Trimmer's book How to Avoid Huge Ships. This big boat left a complaint in the reviews that the book ruined his social life because people are avoiding him. So he started a Twitter feed to reach out and make friends. Is it working? Yes. 

10. Florida Man

Have you ever noticed how many headlines in the Friday weird news column start with “Florida Man”? The weirdest things happen in Florida, and the Twitter feed Florida Man reflects that. The feed’s tagline is “Real-life stories of the world's worst superhero.” All the Tweets are links to news stories with a headline beginning “Florida Man…” There’s rarely a day that goes by without a new headline, and some days there are many.

11. Stealth Mountain

Stealth Mountain is a bot, but a very useful bot. The account identifies instances in which Twitter users type “sneak peak” when they really mean “sneak peek.” The former means “stealth mountain” while the latter means “preview.” Stealth Mountain stays busy Tweeting the same message to each of those users. Reading through the feed is not all that entertaining, but if you aren’t careful with spelling, you may get a message from Stealth Mountain. Or not… it’s been quite some time since we’ve seen any activity from the mountain. Maybe he feels his work is done.

12. Dread Singles

If H.P. Lovecraft were to run a dating site, the result would be Dread Singles. Authored by Jordan Shiveley, the feed posts dating site ads and typical dating site profiles and correspondence with a touch of horror added. Just like real online dating.