But let's give credit where it's due. One thing I'll say for Twitter is that their bot-blocking armor has improved--largely, I believe, because of the "Block and report as spam" feature: Human judgement trumping mere algorithms, nat'cherly...
And, while it's been quite awhile since I've wanted to dunk my eyeballs in hot bleach after looking at one of my "follower"'s avatars, Twitter has obviously hunkered down for the never-ending cat-and-mouse game that is the fight against people too lazy/slimy/uncreative/lame to actually add value to the economy (a.k.a. spammers).
Yet, rather than bemoan this state of affairs, why not actually have fun with it? By which I mean a Twitter game/meme called "Bot Bingo." (Note: For the purposes of the game, it's probably best to create a separate account.) To avoid the necessity of a centralized scorekeeper, here's how I imagine the rules would work out:
1.) The "grid" is based on a 25-day month--in other words, spam-bots collected on the 26th through the 31st day of the month don't count. The "grid" is considered to be 5 x 5 (see Rule #3, below)
2.) "Bait"-tweets must be issued on the appropriate day of the month, or they don't count.
3.) The (5 x 5) BINGO "grid" looks something like this:
- Row 1: The 1st, 6th, 11th, 16th and 21st day of the month
- Row 2: The 2nd, 7th, 12th, 17th, and 22nd day of the month
- Row 3: The 3rd, 8th, 13th, 18th and 23rd day of the month
- Row 4: The 4th, 9th, 14th, 19th and 24th day of the month
- Row 5: The 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th and 25th day of the month
4.) The "bait" subject for tweets are as follows:
- Day 1: Jobs
- Day 2: Stocks and/or investing
- Day 3: Real Estate
- Day 4: Work from Home
- Day 5: Marketing (pref. w/the word "Consulting" included)
- Day 6: SEO and/or Internet Marketing
- Day 7: Social Media
- Day 8: Blogging
- Day 9: Twitter
- Day 10: Facebook
- Day 11: Lindsay Lohan
- Day 12: The Jonas Brothers
- Day 13: Justin Beiber
- Day 14: Taylor Swift and/or any dude who's ever brassed her off
- Day 15: Any member of the High School Musical brat-pack
- Day 16: Bacon
- Day 17: Wine
- Day 18: Any secret "discovered" by "A Mom"
- Day 19: Health
- Day 20: Any self-proclaimed "ninja" or--worse--"sensei"
- Day 21: Sex (specifically, nothing that would be endorsed by the Puritans)
- Day 22: Sex (specifically, anything the Victorians would consider "trashy." And, by the bye, don't overestimate their standards. These, after all, were the folks who considered 12 or 13 the "age of consent" for a chick...until the more "enlightened" year of 1885 raised that minimum to 16--unless she was to inherit property, thus giving the protection of her "virtue" the force of law until the age of 21.)
- Day 23: Sex (specifically, anything that would have been criminialized before the 1960s/1970s in the industrialized West)
- Day 24: Sex (specifically, anything that would raise Hugh Hefner's eyebrows and make him say, "Seriously?! I gotta see this..." right before hollering for a photographer)
- Day 25: Sex (specifically, anything that would skeeve out Larry Flynt)
6.) The "winner" in each Twitter group, presumably, gets bragging rights until the next month.
