Frankenstein Twitter Bot

December 2020

Available here

Frankenstein Bot's Twitter profile page

Inspired by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s famous 1823 novel that facilitated the creation of the science-fiction genre, this Twitter bot tweets out lines from Frankenstein approximately every four hours for fans of the novel to enjoy. I learned a lot about Twitter API and scripting through this project, and in creating this bot, I also saw new ways to script, which I can implement in future projects. @BotFrankenstein currently has over 200 followers and got a lot of daily interactions.

In February 2023, I started hearing about potential changes to Twitter’s API policies, which would have rendered Frankenstein Bot non-operational. I made a thread on the bot explaining this, planning to let the bot run as long as it was able to. Though I thought that the bot would stop running at the beginning of February 2023 based on what I’d heard about the new API rules, Frankenstein Bot ultimately remained running for a few months longer than that. This thread resulted in an outpour of support for the bot, and I was touched and happy that Frankenstein Bot was able to bring so much joy into the lives of people who followed it.

My February 2023 Twitter thread on Frankenstein Bot discussing the bot's future in terms of the new Twitter API rules that were set to be rolled out

After Twitter became X, a lot of the company’s rules around API and bots started to more concretely change. As a result, Frankenstein Bot could no longer continue posting. On July 18th, 2023, @BotFrankenstein posted “Alas!” — its last tweet as a bot, one which was very fitting. I was sad to see Frankenstein Bot go, but I also was happy that the bot was able to give people across Twitter so much happiness over the years.

Frankenstein Bot's last tweet as a bot

Though Frankenstein Bot is no longer operational, I am grateful for the time it was able to post and bring joy to the people who saw its tweets and interacted with them. This experience has shown me how important fostering a community through a shared interest can be, especially online. Even if Frankenstein Bot was not a vital part of people’s Twitter experience, I’m still happy that the bot was at least able to make their experience just a little bit better.

My tweet on Frankenstein Bot thanking people for the support