Imagine my delight when I noticed that I, @philipreeve1, have over 700 followers on Twitter! And then imagine my lack of delight when I noticed that about 600 of them weren't real followers at all, but pesky spambots! How the people behind these made-up twitter accounts hope to profit by following me, I'm not entirely certain. It's something that seems to happen to all Twitter users, and most regard it as a bit of a blight.
I'm not so sure, though. I've noticed that, while most of these 'bots take on the outward form and semblance of pneumatic young ladies in bikinis, a lot of them have really strange names. Names which are almost like real names, but not quite. The sort of names that aliens might choose if they wanted to pass unnoticed among us but knew of our culture only from really crackly and distorted audio broadcasts. They are the sort of names, in fact, that a lazy author could usefully hoover up and give to minor characters in his next book...
So while the twitterati grumble about the torrents of spam, and suggest that Twitter adds captcha to its sign-up process to put them off, I prefer to look on these little robot followers as cogs in a massive Character Name Generator. Here are the best ones that I've come across so far:
Braziel Troublefield was the one who started it. He's clearly a maverick cop in one of those rubbish dramas the BBC show at 9pm on consecutive weekday nights. He has a dour but philosophical Glaswegian DI called Glaspie, underlings named Sinion Ridders and Calvir Stoddard, and an on/off romance with sultry Tawnya Fillheart. Troublefield is on the trail of the notorious gangster Dovie Spangitti, but in a shock third episode twist that everyone saw coming from the start, the the real villain turns out to be that suave cad Shankland Bushwell MP.
If maverick cop dramas aren't to your taste, there are also some more gothic-sounding spambots, like sweet, innocent Esmeralda Lyke and her villainous governess Clarissa Harshcape. Will heroic Branagan Boots dash to Esmeralda's rescue? And if you prefer pure fantasy, then Lang Stonis has a good swords-and-sorcery ring to it (isn't he in The Game of Thrones?)
Best of all is the magnificent Dindy Wibs, but I'm not sure what story poor Dindy fits into: she may need to have a whole new genre constructed around her.
Further spambot character names as we get them!
With thanks to my fellow spambot-spotters @JulieBertagna @jondwill @ianmcque @frankwkelly @Afterwish and @sculduggery
