The Subtweet

Looking at the article by Ashley Parker, Twitter’s Secret Handshake, everyone can see that the ability to launch yourself socially into the midst of public controversy is easier than purchasing a hamburger from McDonald’s. With the simple typing of a hashtag the entire world has a certain topic centralized for its viewing. What I have noticed in the four years I have been on twitter are two things that a lot of users do not care for one bit, the overuse of the hashtag and sub-tweeting about someone. When I say the overuse of a hashtag I mean that a tweet has very little content and is almost completely constructed with hashtag phrases. This comes to irritate people I think because of the unsuccessful attempt to get their point across in an actual sentence and making the reader rely completely on single words to understand the message. The subtweet is an issue that I have noticed extremely more bitterness towards! Urban dictionary defines the subtweet as: “A tweet that mentions a Twitter member without using their actual username. Usually employed for negative or insulting tweets; the person you're mentioning won't see the subtweet in their Twitter timeline as it doesn't contain the @ symbol that every Twitter username has”. This is a contradiction in my book due to the idea of talking behind someone’s back but also making it social. The only result in this method of communication is absolute drama. The reason I chose this topic is because the generation of kids in middle school and high school currently wield smartphones that are capable of creating a dramatic scene like never before that could even result in school policies being remanded or new ones enacted.