It all started when @ndoto replied to one of my “eeyup†tweets saying that he wished there was a Big Macintosh Twitter bot that would reply with an “eeyup†if you sent a tweet containing “eeyupâ€.
For those who aren’t in the know, Big Macintosh is a character on the cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It’s a slight re-imagining of the original show, headed by the same creative mind behind Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends – an awesome show with clever writing. Needless to say, that same maturity (but kid-appeal) carries over to the new My Little Pony. I suppose I should clarify that I’m not enough of a fan to call myself a brony, but I do think the show is about 20% cooler than most other things on television – and Big Macintosh is by far my favorite character. :)
I’ve always wanted to make a Twitter bot, so I jumped at the opportunity. In this post, I’d like to share some of the technical details, and decision making, that brought @BigMacinbot to life.