Feed Your Feed!: 10 Nonliving Twitter Accounts Worth Following

By Michael Burgin  |  March 14, 2014 | 7:01am
Tech Lists Twitter

Each week, Paste looks to an area of interest—science, food, fitness, etc.—and provides a batch of active, interesting accounts for people who like such things to follow. Whether you dabble in the Twitter-sphere or rule over it, Feed Your Feed! hopes to find you some new sources of Twit-spiration. But hey, this is Twitter—side by side with the countless sources of useful and practical info, tips, reviews and news, there are plenty of … well, less practical feeds. Especially when compared to other social media outlets, Twitter is chock-full of nonhuman, nonliving voices. With that in mind, this week we present you with a list that is unlikely to aid you in the pursuing of a hobby or the honing of a skill. But they are sure to inject your daily stream with a dose of “Wait—what?!”

1. Karl the Fog – @KarlTheFog
Twitter Bio: All that is sunny does not glitter, not all those in the fog are lost.
Followers: 37.4K
Need for Feed: So many of the nonhuman accounts on Twitter are just giving voice to one of human kind’s most cherished mental tricks—granting human feelings and motivations to nonhuman forces. Enter Karl the Fog, a wispy sliver of pathetic fallacy brought to life.

2. Orange Cone – @TheOrangeCone
Twitter Bio: I am an orange traffic cone, living the NASCAR dream one race at a time
Followers: 48.5K
Need for Feed: Have you spared much thought for NASCAR lately? How about the ubiquitous orange cone? @TheOrangeCone would like to change that, on both accounts. This feed provides a steady diet of racing-related news and occasional humor.

3. Curiosity Rover – @MarsCuriosity
Twitter Bio: NASA’s latest mission to explore the surface of Mars. Roving the Red Planet since Aug. 5, 2012 (PDT) (Aug 6 UTC).
Followers: 1.51M
Need for Feed: Red rover, red rover, with an entire planet to roam over (or at least part of the Gale Crater). The Curiosity Rover provides a steady stream of tweets, retweets and links to inspire exploration junkies and science enthusiasts alike.

4. SarcasticRover – @SarcasticRover
Twitter Bio: Doing a science on the red planet. Not the real @MarsCuriosity. Tweets relayed by @jfiliatrault. Questions? Ask @ http://ask.fm/SarcasticRover
Followers: 117K
Need for Feed: An antidote for all that unbridled enthusiasm born of science and exploration, Sarcastic Rover has a way of putting things into perspective.

5. Drones – @drones
Twitter Bio: News and views on surveillance drones in the US and military drones around the world.
Followers: 21.3K
Need for Feed: A departure from the comedic and novelty-based entries on this list, this feed is devoted to covering all news related to the increased usage of drones and all the issues of technology, law and ethics such usage entails.

6. A Good Blaster – @AGoodBlaster
Twitter Bio: Random and clumsy at your side
Followers: 1,555
Need for Feed: For the most part, we’ve excluded one-joke Twitter accounts from this list (even though some are quite funny), but this account makes the cut because of its tenacity and the inescapable fun of reading the tweet while mentally “hearing” the “pew” sound. (Plus, who knows—if any of us actually spoke blaster, we might be amazed at what it’s saying.)

7. Spotticus Giraffe – @SpotticusNH
Twitter Bio: Chimps up all night ’til the sun Squirrels sing karaoke ’til done I’m awake all night no fun Boars just want to get mucky
Followers: 1,487
Need for Feed: The only once-living member on this list, Spotticus is a stuffed giraffe that now serves as an exhibit of the Natural History Museum in Dublin. That doesn’t stop it from tweeting, and with much more frequency than that cetacean showboat at the American Museum of Natural History.

8. The 91 Freeway – @The91Freeway
Twitter Bio: The Nickelback of Freeways
Followers: 439
Need for Feed: So many places in California are considered a slice of heaven. Welcome to an asphalt-paved slice of … something else. This particular stretch of highway in southern California takes pride in the role it plays in the ruining of commutes and heightening of blood pressure.

9. Hubble – @NASA_Hubble
Twitter Bio: The official Twitter account for the NASA Hubble Space Telescope.
Followers: 54.4K
Need for Feed: Mars rovers are all well and good, but for the big Big Picture? The Hubble Space Telescope has to be the piece of machinery of choice. Its feed provides the practical science lover and awestruck universe admirer alike with a steady diet of images, links and other information on the Final Frontier in which we are all immersed.

10. Kale – @daily_kale
Twitter Bio: *Official fabric of dragon and bear clothes. Most cruciferous of the crucifers.
In your mouth.
Followers: 19.8
Need for Feed: Not content to take a backseat any longer, kale is out to, if not supplant, then at least overtake Big Carrot, Big Broccoli and all those other vegetable staples of a nutritionally minded home. How? Through a relentless campaign of cruciferous promotion. “Delicious kale” this and “delicious kale” that, this vegetable aims for more than trendiness—much more.

How about you, Paste readers … what are some of your favorite nonliving feeds?

 
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