Dressing Up aibo: An Exploration of User-generated Content of Robot Clothing on Twitter

Robots do not need clothes to keep them warm or for other purely functional reasons; nevertheless, certain people choose to clothe their home robots. This paper contributes to an emerging interest in understanding the practice of clothing robots by analyzing how people dress up the pet-type companion robot aibo. We study a collection of 2320 Twitter posts with photos containing aibo robots in clothes provided for them by their owners. The collection of tweets spans four years (2018-2021). We report our findings regarding aibo clothing types, fashion trends, clothing choices in different use scenarios, and clothing sources. Our study provides insights into the benefits of clothing robots for users, different modes of robot fashion, and how users' current practices of robot clothing design and use can inform the future design of companion robots.