By VERONICA SPAGNA
We should all be at least a little familiar with Donald’s Trump famous Twitter account; @realDonaldTrump.
The president’s tweets are bold and mostly childish, they can be categorized as a form of entertainment, mostly because they are hard to take seriously. He attacks anyone who offends him and twitter seems to be his main medium of expression.
But how will Donald Trump respond to an offense made by a robot? I’m talking about a robot’s Twitter account responding to the president’s tweets with videos of a robot designed to print and set fire to them.
Since Donald Trump has opened his Twitter account in March 2009, he has gained more than 27 million followers and sent out around 35,000 tweets. His tweets bring with them a lot of controversies and are very condemning, leading to disappointment in the president even among people who voted for him.
This Tuesday a new account was introduced on Twitter with the description “Giving Trump’s tweets the attention they deserve.”
Since it went live, the account called @burnyourtweet, has posted a video each time @realDonaldTrump has tweeted. The videos posted consist of a robot printing the tweet on a piece of paper. The paper is then moved above a lighter, which sets fire to the paper and tosses it in an ashtray.
The video captions “I burned your tweet.”
After just one day of replying directly to Trump’s twitter, @burnyourtweet gained more than 10,000 followers. Many seem to praise this ritual and numerous reporters called it genius. I feel like it can be seen; as a work of art, a form of expression. A message that can be interpreted in various ways, but that shows clear disapproval in Donald Trump’s statements.
Behind the twitter account and the building of the robot is engineer David Neevel. A creative technologist from Portland who currently lives in Amsterdam.
He reasoned that Donald Trump’s tweets continuously cause negative emotions and the robot can isolate feelings because of its immunity to them.
Trump’s tweets depict his thinking. He is supposed to be a leader and an inspirational figure as he is the president of one of the most powerful countries in the world. His Twitter topics are improper for his position. His tweets can be inflammatory and, in this case, the response is a robot that turns his words into ashes.