Fishbots!
As detailed at nixiepixel, a fishbot is a AIM bot that picks two random strangers and sends them each provocative conversation openers. The strangers are connected and have a conversation, each thinking they have been contacted by the person they are talking to.
Kind of annoying. It’s bad enough when absolute strangers try to chat you, but having a bot connect an unwilling person to you kinda sucks.
On a positive note, you might be thinking, “isn’t that clever!” or “how nice, a way to connect with strangers!”
But over here in real life it usually doesn’t work that way. Here’s an actual transcript which is pretty representative of how these chats go:
malnourishedcoho: Have you ever been diagnosed with a mental illness?
BRAIN: and is bulemia a mental illness
malnourishedcoho is now known as malnourishedcoho.
malnourishedcoho:Â whos this?
BRAIN: you are a coho victim
malnourishedcoho: huh
BRAIN: anything ending with -coho is a bot
BRAIN: that randomly connects strangers on IM
malnourishedcoho: i see
malnourishedcoho: get a ffucking life idiot
BRAIN: see to me it looks like you IM’d me first
malnourishedcoho: how
BRAIN: you said:
BRAIN: malnourishedcoho: Have you ever been diagnosed with a mental illness?
BRAIN: and I responded
BRAIN: but see it was actually this coho bot
malnourishedcoho: did not
BRAIN: yes, do you understand, it’s a bot
malnourishedcoho: stop being such a loser and go do sum worth while nerd
BRAIN: you are not very smart
BRAIN: I feel sorry for you
BRAIN: but you are probably a teenager
BRAIN: with low reading comprehension