@DeepLeffen / Deep Leffen Bot

About

Deep Leffen Bot, or @DeepLeffen, is a parody account and Twitter handle based on controversial Super Smash Brothers player William “Leffen” Hjelte. The account generates parody quotes out of various sources of Leffen’s public statements through the 1558M version of OpenAI's GPT-2.^[1] DeepLeffen splices together various words from Leffen's written posts on Twitter and r/smashbros on Reddit. The result creates absurd remixes of Leffen’s writing on the account's page. The Twitter account itself currently has nearly 100,000 followers, and generally gains 10,000 likes and 1,000 retweets per post.

Origin

According to the account’s Twitter bio, the account launched in March of 2020. On Reddit, user u/DeepUltimate showcased a gag project among other computer-learning projects to improve competitive play and analysis of Smash Bros Ultimate.^[2] The Twitter bot had quickly amassed success in the general audience, with over 50,000 followers gained within a few months of its launch date.^[3]

The account's first post came on March 22nd, 2020,stating “I'm not scared to die LOL”.^[4]

The bot’s first set of posts appear to be tests of the bot’s writing, and bear no intent of being humorous. While no longer public on the site, user Yahooz! (@ASDI_Down) posted the original tweets as a reply to the extant first tweet. Yahooz states: “There were actually three earlier tweets that were later deleted, lost to time. The community was able to find them through the wayback machine”.^[5]

Spread

The earliest of @DeepLeffen’s tweets to break 1,000 likes was posted on March 22nd, 2020. The quote appeared to reflect the actual perceptions of the Smash Community as a whole, stating: “Anyone who claims that being a good player does not require him/her to be at least semi-openly racist is flat out lying, so yeah”. Another early post to break 1,000 likes was an image of Leffen’s Twitter account blocking the bot within five days of DeepLeffen’s existence. As of 9/6/21, the post has gained 166 retweets and 1,100 likes.

On March 29th, the account had its first post to break 1,000 retweets. The bot’s tweet referred to playing Super Smash Bros. Melee while in the nude, as it claims “Sakurai actually wanted Melee to be played like that.” The post received 1,100 retweets and 6,300 likes as of 9/6/21.

Online Presence

The account found its way towards other big names in the Smash community shortly after its creation. In particular, veteran Smash player “Hugs86" made several videos in which he reads and rates several of DeepLeffen’s early popular posts.^[6] The video, "Reading the BEST Deep Leffen Tweets" received over 115,000 views on YouTube after a year. Melee Streamer/Caster “Toph” made a video called “Live Reading Deep Leffen’s Rap Battle”, based on exclusive content on the bot’s Patreon page. The video received over 10,000 views as of September 6th, 2021.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References