Twitter users are a funny bunch. British Twitter users are even funnier, creating witty, sarcastic retorts to any social media change.
In the last week, Twitter announced that is was increasing its character limit, from 140 characters to 280. Double the amount of characters, and double the amount of fun. Except the change has been met with mixed reactions, with many asking why other platforms were not prioritised above the character change.
Here are the best responses we’ve found to the 280 character change:
The sarcasm of NBC….
Still not enough, @Twitter. #FNL pic.twitter.com/LY9y79g66l
— NBC (@nbc) November 7, 2017
…the requirement of an edit button instead….
All we wanted was an edit button.
All we wanted was an edit button.
All we wanted was an edit button.
All we wanted was an edit button.
All we wanted was an edit button.
All we wanted was an edit button
All we wanted was an edit button. #280characters— Brian Ross Adams (@BrianRossAd) November 7, 2017
…J.K Rowling wasn’t impressed either…
Twitter’s destroyed its USP. The whole point, for me, was how inventive people could be within that concise framework. #Twitter280characters
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) November 8, 2017
…but NASA were enjoying the change….
. * .
*
* . ️ . ✨ *
. *
Thanks @Twitter, we can
always use more space
. . .
. * ** ☄️#280characters
— NASA Goddard (@NASAGoddard) November 8, 2017
…so were the London Ambulance service (check out the Twitter thread with the police and the RNLI!)…
NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW NEE-NAW #280characters
— London Ambulance (@Ldn_Ambulance) November 8, 2017
….and Man City.
280 characters means we can now go…
AGUEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO pic.twitter.com/pEZyuK5tg2
— Manchester City (@ManCity) November 8, 2017
Despite increase in length, Twitter predicts most users will keep their tweets short. In fact many users have complained about the change and prefer to use 140 characters.
In a blog post, Twitter wrote “we – and many of you – were concerned that timelines may fill up with 280-character tweets, and people with the new limit would always use up the whole space….But that didn’t happen. Only 5% of tweets sent were longer than 140 characters and only 2% were over 190 characters.”
So….we’re not sure what prompted the change, but it will be interesting to see the take up of the full amount of characters.
Oh, and as an FYI, the new limit will not apply to tweets written in Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Apparently this is because east Asian languages tend to be more succinct, conveying almost double the amount of information within a single character.
Twitter should bring back the fail whale. That would make everyone happy.