When the world’s social media giants meet to discuss the most interesting jobs available online, creating fake accounts is not on the list. Fake social media profiles are the cannon-fodder of the propaganda wars. Automated and regimented, fake profiles can be deployed in tens of thousands within minutes and taken down almost as quickly.

But somebody has to create that cannon-fodder. As Twitter Public Policy has grown more adept at preventing automated account creation, a whole industry has grown up, employing people to create, name, register, and verify fake accounts.

Judging by the accounts they make, those people range from the starstruck to hyper-creative to the very, very bored. Some go to great lengths to give their throwaway accounts personality, and even a family. Others, frankly, can’t be bothered.

These are some of our favorite bots, gathered here to illustrate the different ways in which bot makers try to make their accounts stand out from the mass.

Girls and football

Many botnets use profile pictures of famous people, especially famous women. Bot creators seem to assume that more men than women use Twitter, men are more likely to pay attention to a beautiful woman, and when not staring at women, men watch football. Marketing experts are unlikely to disagree.

Many botnets seem primarily made up of beautiful women. One network, active in countries in the Persian Gulf in September, used profile pictures of actresses Cameron Diaz, Scarlett Johansson, Keira Knightley, and others.