PB1A - Tweetin'

What makes a tweet a tweet?

While the word “tweet” can mean the chirping sound from a bird, a “tweet” is also a post made on the popular social media website Twitter. With a 140 character word limit, tweets are often short and concise. It often contains abbreviated slang and chat acronyms due to its informal nature and word count restraint. Regardless of the content of the tweet, many tweets contain hashtags and emojis. Hashtags allow for easy identification of tweets that are under a specific topic, and emojis are an alternative way to express the emotions the Twitter user feels regarding the tweet he or she posted. When breaking it down even further, one can see that the content of the tweet comes in many forms, depending upon the “tweet-er.” Tweets range from jokes to opinions to quotes and much more. Posts can be about what is happening in the tweet-er’s life or can even be an angry subtweet, which is a post directed towards a particular person in mind without mentioning said person’s name. Subtweets are often critical, or in layman’s terms, subtweets throw shade. One of many popular examples of celebrity subtweets is this one from Lindsay Lohan, directed towards Amanda Bynes.  

On the opposite end of the spectrum, many tweets are directed towards another user. One can “@” a user to tag the other person in a post, notifying that other person of the tweet. Conversations can be held, as a result, over Twitter. Often, tweet-ers will @ a celebrity and in some lucky cases, will get a response back. Tweets are also likely to contain popular phrases or Internet slang. Using these types of phrases, such as “YOLO” or a trending hashtag, Twitter users hope to evoke a response from the audience by being relatable. The pathos of tweets and the generation of responses from followers can sometimes lead to a popular trend. For instance, the hashtag #dontjudgechallenge was recently a popular Twitter trend that prompted users to make a video where they would put makeup on themselves in a messy way, cover the screen, and then show how their normal faces. Here are some before and after pictures. 

This trend was a popular Twitter trend instead of a Facebook or Tumblr trend because of the nature of the tweet. Twitter makes it easy to embed multimedia, including videos. It also allows followers or other Twitter users to retweet and favorite the tweets. Retweeting a tweet, or reposting the tweet onto one’s own account, is an effective and fast way of sharing a post. This ease of sharing tweets allows for posts to become viral rather quickly. In addition to videos, many tweets contain photos. Often, these photos assist a caption to create humor. Many times, tweets have the goal of gaining attention in the form of retweets, favorites, and replies, and the addition of a photo can help appeal to the audiences’ pathos. The popularity of the tweet can depend on the ethos, or the credibility, of the author. If the tweet-er has a well-known reputation, then the tweet is more likely to gain more fame. Tweets can also be more serious and be responses to political happenings or current events. Evidently, tweets can have both an informal and formal style, depending on the user’s purpose. The audience, or followers, can choose whom to follow, depending on what type of content they would like to see. For instance, if one is a fan of a particular celebrity, he or she may follow the celebrity to stay updated on the celebrity’s life. Since people are not limited on what they tweet about, tweets have a wide range of content but still share the features that come with posting a 140 character blurb on social media.