Why don’t I just begin with the facts: you can’t favourite tweets with a star any more. Now, you “like” them. With a heart. An actual heart. As if Twitter is a place of love and belonging, and not the modern-day equivalent of a Gladiator stadium in which we scream for blood on a daily basis.
“We hope you like what you see on Twitter and Vine today: hearts!” Twitter said in a statement. “We are changing our star icon for favourites to a heart and we’ll be calling them likes. We want to make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use, and we know that at times the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers. You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favourite.”
What the fuck does that even mean?! We started the favourite train, TWITTER. And honestly if you’re a person who is just joining Twitter now and can’t figure out that pressing a gold star for a tweet you like but not enough to RT, then I don’t know. Maybe you’re Mark Zuckerberg. Maybe that’s who you are, and you should just go back to Facebook where everyone likes everything and your Aunt Marge posts political statements that are neither accurate or researched by anyone but whatever site she’s linking to. But no — no, even Aunt Marge (whose favourite caption is “makes you think”) would understand that stars also equate a job well done. That’s why they’re gold stars. Because you get one when you do a good job.
Anywho. I guess this is the life we’re now all leading. I guess Twitter is no longer going to be a place where we can make fun of things with relish and assert our opinions without emotions getting involved. (Gross.) Now, if you like a joke somebody makes, you’re going to heart it. You’re going to get your heart involved. I mean, is this a sext? Is that what this is? Because why don’t I just confess my undying love to every stranger whose jokes I like. Why don’t I just walk right up to every person on Twitter and give them all a big kiss on the cheek whenever I approve a thing they said. Why don’t I make them a Valentine and send it their way and tell them I choo-choo-choose them? Why don’t I just be sincere?
Well, no thank you. I’m not doing it. I mean, I am. I have to. I technically don’t have a choice because I love Twitter more than members of my own family and I will be here until my account is deactivated from my cold, frozen grave, but I want everyone to know that whenever I heart something, I am doing it with disdain and resentment. I am not handing out a gold star, but instead handing out a piece of my mortal body — my heart, duh — which there’s only so much of because hearts are only so big and I am therefore destined to become the Grinch once I stop having one at all.
So congratulations, Twitter. You’ve destroyed us. It’s all we had, and you took it away.
Turns out the 141st character was sorrow.
