The Twitter Divide: ‘Favourite’ Fan or a ‘Like’ Lover?
We have had much debate in the office surrounding Twitter’s ‘favourite’ star, and now the new ‘love’ heart. Should the star have been reserved for those extra special tweets (and is therefore fairly pointless) or should it be used similarly to Facebook’s ‘like’ button, used as a conversation ender, an acknowledgment of posts that don’t require a response and just to generally like a tweet?
The general consensus was that the Twitter star had a plethora of uses:
I want to you to know I read/appreciate your tweet, and/or that I:
- Don’t have a witty reply
- Have nothing to say in return
- Am being sarcastic
- Don’t want to RT it, it isn’t that good
- I support you/your tweet/your opinion
- Accidentally favourited it and can’t look rude and un-favourite
Though others, who didn’t agree, thought its primary or sole use was for: I think your tweet is truly excellent and therefore I will award you with a special star (because as we learned at primary school, stars are only for the best work).
And as if by magic – or that we evidently weren’t the only office in divide over its use, and Twitter’s ears were burning – Twitter removed the star and rolled out the Twitter heart, in a ‘love’ or ‘like’ Instagram-style, button.
But does the heart now remove the (arguably) multi-functional use the ‘favourite’ once stood for?
A heart, to some of us in the office, means nothing other than: ‘I love you and I love that tweet, please love me back’, which isn’t something that we’re particularly keen on. Although, to those who thought the starred ‘favourite’ was pointless, they now seem happier that there’s now more of purpose behind this tweet marking malarkey.
As if this star/heart argument wasn’t stressful enough, since its release, it now looks as if Twitter have had another change of heart, and are looking to give a multi-emoji option for user selection. Hopefully this will be an all-round crowd pleaser, although we’re not entirely sure on how this will work; ‘I monkey-hiding-eyes your post…’ we think not.
Bring back the humble star we say – or some of us do anyway!
What do you think about the star-to-heart (or possible multi emoji) are you a favourite fan or a like lover?