There are many unexciting corners of the internet which most of us have learned to tune out: Robotic spam accounts which fill our social media feeds with advertisements. Youtube channels, run by corporations, whose revenue streams rely on mass-clicking, providing only minimal value. These are the parts of the modern world which typically aren't given much attention. But nearly a decade ago, an unusual Twitter spambot advertising ebooks... ...and a Youtube channel offering spoken word pronunciations became internet phenomena-- with followers numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The two mysterious profiles became the source of internet investigations, as dedicated sleuths carefully watched, waited, and theorized over their purpose for years. Who is Horse Ebooks? And what is Horse Ebooks? Who runs it? Who can sleuth it out and figure out what's going on? Their content was used as inspiration for jewelry, webcomics, published poetry, and even theories about an impending apocalypse. And after an enigmatic 77-day countdown, when the mystery was finally revealed, it was nothing that any could have predicted. "Something is going to happen in 74 days." This is the cyber fiction saga of Horse Ebooks and Pronunciation Book. Beginning in late 2010, the Twitter account Horse Ebooks began, as most spam accounts do, tweeting advertisement. Multiple times per day, the eponymous profile would tweet a brief sales pitch, along with a link to a suspicious-looking website... ...enticing the viewer to purchase such riveting titles as "Horse Cents" and "The Fancy Fillies Horse Racing System". This was nothing exciting, nor was it anything new. The profile was largely ignored, as most profiles of its kind were. But as the months passed, something changed. Horse Ebooks began to garner a fan base, and it wasn't due to its advertisements. Written in the stream-of-consciousness style of a fever dream, absurd one-liners began to punctuate the posts. Those who discovered this profile couldn't help but feel a sense that they'd uncovered something truly unique. There didn't seem to be any obvious connection between the advertisements of ebooks and these surreal posts... ...causing many to wonder what was truly going on behind this profile. Webcomic artist KC Green is quoted saying: Excitement grew, the profile was spread, and Horse Ebooks began to develop a following. As its follower count grew, its retweets began to often number in the thousands. The tweets inspired home-made jewelry featuring favorite lines, as well as a three-panel comic series based on the profile's various tweets. High school seniors were using the tweets as yearbooks quotes... ...and, of course, YouTubers were recording themselves performing dramatic readings. A Chicago-based poet named Erin Watson even composed a book of poetry based around Horse Ebook's enigmatic tweets. "There's plenty of spam on the internet, but Horse Ebooks has a way of being weirdly evocative... "...or absurd. It was already doing something that seemed poetic to me..." "...and I wanted to pursue that." She began a Kickstarter to fund this venture, asking for $1,700 but ended up raising over four and a half thousand, with more than 300 backers. In a digital world where spam had become intrusive, annoying, and even harmful... ...Horse Ebooks seemed to suggest that artistic value could be found in even the unlikeliest of places. As popularity for the profile increased, so did its mystique. Developing theories as to who, or what, was behind Horse Ebooks became a popular pasttime. The more optimistic theories suggested that Horse Ebooks was a form of "twitterature" ...a term meant to define micro-fiction and poetry written within the boundaries of the platform's 280 character word count. Notable authors such as Neil Gaiman and Jennifer Egan have been known to experiment in this genre. But arguably the leading theory was that this profile's tweets were exactly what they appeared to be, a bizarre form of spam. And its poetic value was purely the accidental result of an imperfect spambot. Many recognized the markings of a Markov Text Generator. A predictive algorithm meant to mimic the writing style of whatever text it's given as reference. Using the ebooks its was promoting as a source, it stood to reason that the string of text it generated... ...although largely nonsensical, would occasionally be surprisingly beautiful. This theory went so far as to pinpoint the actual individual believed to be behind it. Following the domain name of the Horse Ebooks website revealed the owner to be a Russian web designer named Alexey Kouznetsov. Confirmation came when it was discovered that Alexey was also employing similar strategies to promote other ebooks of equally specific themes... ...such as "Action Ebooks" and "Mystery Ebooks." Blogger Adrien Chen offered to pay anyone who was willing to go to Alexey's address and confront him. Although many fans didn't want the mystery solved, and the blogger's offer was met with backlash. When taking all evidence into account, it was safe to assume Horse Ebooks was simply a Russian spam bot... ...whose attempts to avoid Twitter's spam filter produced snippets of found poetry. So, was the mystery solved? Well, yes and no. The full answer is a bit more complicated. As many noted, the more popular Horse Ebooks became, the more the posts shifted away from advertising... ...and simply became a venue for bizarre mantras. This revelation couldn't quite be explained by the spam theory, and lended quite a bit of credence to the literary theory. In order to fully understand what was truly going on behind the scenes, we must momentarily leave Twitter... ...and look at a seemingly unrelated YouTube channel that concurrently amidst its own equally peculiar saga. Pronunciation YouTube channels are something many of us use. Whether it's an obscure word, a name we've never heard, or something in a foreign language... ...these resources can be incredibly valuable in ensuring one doesn't embarrass themselves in a public speaking situation. Pronunciation Book was a channel that, on the surface, simply provided this unexciting, yet necessary, service. Although, after watching only a few of its videos, one tended to get the feeling that this particular channel was doing something... ...different. The word choices this channel included were a bit all over the place, ranging from the inanely simple... ...to the pandering of early 2010's meme culture... ...to the oddly specific. And similar to Horse Ebooks, normal uploads would be interspersed with the occasional non sequitur.... Such as this video titled "How to Say Sorry to Your Girlfriend" And the ominous "How to Ask for Help in English" It became clear that something deeper was going on below the surface with Pronunciation Book. Although most of the comments tended to be users arguing over the pronunciation in the video, as is common with these type of channels... ...many expressed their intuition that they were witnessing something alien. And on Jul 9th, 2013, those intuitions proved correct. Beginning with the number 77, Pronunciation Book began to count down. "Something is going to happen in 77 days." "I've been trying to tell you something for 1,183 days." "Something is going to happen in 76 days." The 1,183 days is a reference to the date Pronunciation Book began uploading, revealing what many had been speculating all along. The pronunciation videos were a pretense, and the channel's true purpose would soon be revealed. Evoking the same qualities as Horse Ebooks, Pronunciation Book was taking the mundane and predictable... ...and completely subverting expectations. The early 2010s appeared to be rich with this type of artistic experimentation. It's worth noting that, nearly simultaneously, another YouTube channel with a similar approach, was succeeding in creating its own experience. As the countdown progressed, the voiceovers became increasingly abstract. "It is impossible to shirk their deft appraisals." "Our perfect systems thrown into the void." "Something is going to happen in 13 days." Predictably, responses ranged from confusion to excitement. Some were perhaps overly optimistic. Having a deadline to the big reveal seemed to inspire a sense of urgency in the online sleuth community. Members of 4chan and the subreddit, r/TheDays, seemed especially motivated to uncover as much as they could before the countdown reached its end. After discovering a clicking noise at the end of each of the countdown videos... ...members ran them through a Spectogram, a program which provides a visual representation of audio frequencies... ...to produce this image of a suited man pointing. Although without context, there wasn't much to make of this image, aside from the pessimistic theory of an upcoming Rick Roll. Reading deeply into the lines spoken in many of the videos, online news outlet The Daily Dot, pushed forward a theory... ...that the countdown would end in an announcement for a reboot in the sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica. In this write-up, which I'll link in the description below, the lines are each interpreted in order to fit some moment in the TV show... ...in an attempt to justify the theory, which, in hindsight, was probably just a product of wishful thinking. As the countdown continued, collaboration intensified. "In our abstraction we shall shine more bright." "Something is going to happen in 10 days." A color-coated Google Doc transcript of all the videos was shared around the forums for more convenient analysis. More theories surfaced. Many seemed to point the finger at video game studio Bungie... ...who had recently announced their new IP, Destiny, and who was no stranger to incorporating unique viral marketing into their promotions. And with Pronunciation Book's frequent use of the word "chief" this theory had about as much credibility as any out there. Some of the theories weren't quite so harmless. In speaking with a former mod on the forum 77Days.net, a site which is unfortunately no longer accessible... ...she revealed that some of the more conspiracy-minded and apocalyptic interpretations of the countdown got a little out of hand... ...with a woman threatening to kidnap her children from her ex-husband and placing them in a bunker for protection. But these theories would soon be put to rest. The final day was approaching, and the reveal would be something no one could have expected. On September 24th, 2013, at the end of the countdown, Pronunciation Book uploaded this video: "Horse Ebooks" "It's morning in cyber space, and the systems are in love." "A spam bot and a channel--what would the parents think?" "Together again." "It's all just data in the net." "But we're just getting started." "There is a man named Dalton." "Dalton is dangerous." "He is rich, he is strong, and he is going to crash the stock market." "Sidewalks crack and streets go dark." "Ten thousand bankers shake and scream for Dalton's pyramid." "Where are the regulators?" "That's where you come in." There was quite a bit to unpack in this reveal, and it certainly raised more questions than it answered, at least initially. Was the individual behind Pronunciation Book the same author of the Horse Ebooks Twitter profile, or were they simply a fan? How were the two linked? Who was Dalton and what was the woman in the video talking about? Regulators? "I've been trying to tell you something for 5 years." Answers would come quickly, as the descriptions to the Pronunciation Book videos were replaced with a link to a website called Bear Stearns Bravo. Horse Ebooks also tweeted the very same phrase, It seemed Bear Stearns Bravo was what these two internet mysteries had been leading up to for years. So, what was it? Following the link revealed a choose-your-own-adventure game, taking place in the year 3000... ...centered around a fictionalized version of the banking firm Bear Stearns. Players chose to adopt the role of either a banker or a regulator... ...participating in the investigation and subsequent trial of the banking firm for various crimes. Choosing different dialogue options altered how the story progressed. The game itself could be described as satire, featuring bizarre characters and a comedic tone which occasionally bordered on absurdist. The game was relatively popular. In its opening weeks, as many as 30,000 players signed up. But the reaction was intense, with many fans outspokenly upset. This could've been a product of unmanaged expectations, or because the themes presented in Bear Stearns Bravo weren't striking quite the same chords... ...as Horse Ebooks or Pronunciation Book. It was very much its own thing. Or, for some, maybe the journey was just more exciting than the destination. Others loved Bear Stearns Bravo, and the fact that the reveal wasn't to promote a television show or a triple-A video game... ...but rather the unique creation by a small team of outsider artists was welcome and refreshing. And when reviewing many of the previous tweets and videos, one can find evidence of planning and foreshadowing... ...indicating that this was not some tacked-on game meant to capitalize on the success of these two sensations, as some suspected. But even with the release of the game, there were still many questions. Although the mysteries surrounding Pronunciation Book were answered with Bear Stearns Bravo... ...there wasn't the same sense of closure for Horse Ebooks. The leading theory that the Twitter profile was a spam bot created by web designer Alexey Kouznetsov seemed air tight. Those who had ordered ebooks from the website posted that this individual's name even appeared on the receipt. How could this theory be wrong? Well, it wasn't wrong, only incomplete. Originally, Horse Ebooks was exactly what the consensus suspected it was--a spam bot using social media to advertise a product. But in 2011, the profile was purchased by Buzzfeed creative director, Jacob Bakkila. The price Bakkila paid for the profile? $250 worth of horse ebooks from Kouznetsov's website. It wasn't until after the profile changed hands that Horse Ebooks began to generate attention. But the enigmatic quality of these tweets weren't an algorithmic accident as most suspected. They were each curated by Bakkila himself, re-arranging and amalgamating phrases he encountered on various spam sites. "There was a wide assumption, at least before you took over, that it was purely algorithmic." "Just grabbing random bits of text from the internet and spewing them out." "None of them were automated." "It was performing as a machine." "Just trying to make it as authentically close to spam as possible." Pronunciation Book, on the other hand, was run by Bakkila's childhood friend, Tom Bender. And according to a New Yorker article by journalist Susan Orlean, the two have been orchestrating similar performances since high school... ...where they would put on bizarre plays which left their fellow students and teachers dumbfounded. As adults, the two belong to an artistic collective known as Synydyne, along with many of the actors seen in Bear Stearns Bravo. Synydyne is responsible for some delightfully bizarre art projects and alternate reality games such as "This Is My Milwaukee"... ...a spoof promotional video to encourage relocation to Milwaukee, which I'l link in the description below. In addition to Horse Ebooks and Pronunciation Book, Synydyne had some equally strange methods of promotion... ...such as advertising a phone number, which, when called, would be answered by Bakkila himself reading a Horse Ebooks tweet. Bakkila answering these phone calls could be witnessed in person if one was willing to follow an address listed at the bottom of the Bearn Stearns Bravo website... ...to a location known as "Bravo Spam" In addition to Bakkila sitting at a desk answering the phone, visitors could also watch several wall projections featuring clips from the game... ...while they stood in a tiny white building described as a hole-in-the-wall. The sagas of Horse Ebooks and Pronunciation Book were brought to a close. And as previously mentioned, fans either found the conclusion strangely fitting... ...or disappointingly anti-climactic, depending on who you asked. According to a study by CNBC, as many as 48 million Twitter profiles are considered to be bot accounts... ...filling much of our feeds with spam, risky clicks, and potentially malicious software. So, to masquerade as something so many are averse to interacting with, while cultivating such enthusiasm... ...is an impressive, albeit odd, achievement. The journey these two orchestrated was a puzzling one, and its destination, even more so. And despite whether or not the end result was one many agreed lived up to its expectations... ...the saga of Horse Ebooks and Pronunciation Book is undoubtably one that stands out as one of the internet's most unique anomalies. A thank you goes out to Reddit user, ShiversTheNinja... ...for answering many of my questions about this saga, including her own participation, which revealed things I couldn't have uncovered elsewhere. ShiversThe Ninja also runs a great subreddit, r/OrbisObscura... ...dedicated to the discussion of internet mysteries. If you're a fan of my channel, I'm willing to bet you'll love Orbis Obscura. I'll leave a link in the description below. Another big thank you to all my patrons. Your support and encouragement help me to continue making the best work I can. If you'd like to join them, I'll leave a link to my Patreon in the description below... ...as well as a link to my subreddit, where you can join the discussion of past, present, and possible future videos. Lastly, if you'd like to stay up to date on channel news, you can follow me on Twitter @AtrocityGuide.
This was an ARG that happened almost a decade ago that I was personally involved in, and Atrocity Guide interviewed me for this video. I was so happy to help her out, and the video turned out great! Thanks go out to her for promoting our sub at the end of the video as well! 😊
This video brought me here! It's nice to see a mystery with an ending, not something we get that often. I look forward to seeing more of what this subreddit has to offer!
I loved this.
A day of pleasant discoveries: Atrocity Guide through recommended, then Horse_Ebooks, Pronunciation Book and, last but not least - Orbis Obscura.