I, like others, made use of the easy TwitterBot generator Zach Walen’s instructions, but it took me an exceptionally long time to decide on a subject that seemed pertinent. I knew I wanted to create something that would be revealing about our everyday human experiences, even while the algorithms would be outputting “predetermined” language. I was thinking about the ways in which digital environments allow us to eavesdrop on random human beings’ emotional states — and how uncomfortable I feel about this. I thought perhaps I could recreate that sensation through a Bot — so I created  “Casual Observer” or Tweets from the Fly on Your Wall (@FlyOnTheWallBot). Each tweet begins with “I see you,” or “I see your friends,” and is populated with language drawn from Twitter when I searched those phrases. Each tweet ends with “and I feel,” populated with language drawn from Twitter when I searched “I feel.” Here are the first two tweets:

I’m still populating phrases into the spreadsheet, but just in the construction of the thing I’ve been continually startled by how much individuals are willing to disclose to this public space that is Twitter. Unsurprisingly, they are also funny, culled from song lyrics, mysteriously suggestive (sub-tweets, sub-sub-tweets that are all-the-while public but insular), though so far the output has been… pretty sad. I’m not sure I have anything profound to say about this yet… just that I’m just as curious to see what pops out as I hope you are.