Why were these weird accounts following a bunch of people on Spotify?

Somebody sent a strange tip about Spotify to The Verge on Wednesday.

The email, with the subject line “Spotify Hackers,” claimed that “Every English account in America has two new followers, ! lucasrpx and ! vitornovaes.” The tipster followed up two minutes later to share a screenshot showing the profile pictures from the accounts, which featured characters from the Studio Ghibli movie Ponyo. Weird stuff.

This seemed pretty innocuous — we doubted …

account accounts america email hackers nick people spotify the verge weird