What makes @Horse_ebooks’ algorithmically generated Twitter feed so appealing?
That so many people have happily latched onto random wisdom from a spam robot feels vaguely like pareidolia, the tendency to see our own likeness everywhere we look—the man in the moon, the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast, etc., etc.
But considering Horse_ebooks within the context of the Twitter platform also hints at another part of the account’s appeal: Horse undermines our sense of self-importance and control, reminding us that the things and ideas that captivate us moment to moment, the narrative we’re jointly weaving together — in 140-character bursts or elsewhere—is maybe not so meaningful.
So maybe Horse has become a reflection of who we are, a distorted and splintered mirror image of what Internet culture is made of.