Culture

Twitter’s Favourites Icon Is Now A Heart, And Insecure Bros Are Very Worried About It Being “Gay”

Pictured: THE GAY AGENDA.

by Meg Watson  4 November 2015

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Whether it’s debating if a re-tweet is or isn’t an endorsement, or deliberating whether to ‘like’ a Facebook post about someone losing a loved one, there’s often a lot to consider in the seemingly small actions we take online. At its best, a wrong move can lead to awkward conversations or passive aggressive subtweets, and at its worst it can result in people losing their jobs.

That is the small qualification I’m going to give before delivering this: a story about the fact people are losing their minds over a small heart symbol. Stay with me.

In a blog post published overnight, Twitter announced it would be changing its favourites icon from a star to a heart and re-naming them “likes”. This is a move they’ve trialed to much success on their live-streaming platform Periscope and it’s generally intended to make things simpler for new Twitter users.

“We want to make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use, and we know that at times the star could be confusing,” they wrote. “You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favourite. The heart, in contrast, is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones. The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people. And in our tests, we found that people loved it.”

Being introduced across all platforms and devices today, the reactions have been somewhat less positive — with some issues somewhat more nuanced or rational than others. Journalists, for instance, who have previously used the tool as a means to bookmark content have seemed worried about their actions being misinterpreted, and a bunch of regular users have also found the new icon too simplistic or “loaded“.

Alternatively, thousands of raging Twitter bros are freaking out for another reason: that the small icon identical to the one they likely use every day on Instagram will make them look slightly less heterosexual. The argument is slightly less convincing.

Presumably taking a quick break from populating the #nohomo hashtag and protesting the new all-female Ghostbusters movie, these very confused men have been met with a significant wave of backlash that’s made everyone else forget about their own relatively justified disdain for the heart.

In fact, the response has been so big it’s completely turned some people on side.

Hot tip: someone’s now created a Chrome extension which changes the heart to any emoji of your choice. Whether you like the heart icon or not, you now have the option of going through all the confusingly homophobic tweets and contributing either a poop emoji or a rainbow.

What a time to be alive.

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