To Tweet or Subtweet....

Mrs. Richardson's class's latest project was creating an emoji and a message. Mrs. West and I are particularly enthused with the one outside of our rooms stating "They're Clowns". We are not sure if this was intentionally placed and if it refers to Drama, the 9th graders, or she and I. Regardless, I have enjoyed seeing the art pieces throughout the school and was puzzled by this one.

I enjoy Twitter and am fairly skilled at using it. However, I have never heard of a subtweet. While the emoji clued me in that this was a bad thing, I wasn't really sure why. So I checked in with Professor Google for some definitions.

Started with the dictionary...

sub·tweet

/ˈsəbˌtwēt/

Learn to pronounce

noun

INFORMAL

(on the social media application Twitter) a post that refers to a particular user without directly mentioning them, typically as a form of furtive mockery or criticism.

Ahh....and on to Urban dictionary...

subtweet

A tweet (message posted on the website Twitter) 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.

Someone wants to criticize a person with the username @JohnDoe on Twitter but without that person seeing the tweet in their Twitter timeline. Instead of tweeting "I think @JohnDoe is an idiot" they would subtweet "I think JohnDoe is an idiot" or "I think John Doe is an idiot". In each case the @ symbol is missing so the tweet would not appear in @JohnDoe 's Twitter timeline.

And then I read this article-https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-a-subtweet-3486077

My understanding is that subtweeting is basically gossiping about someone and letting everyone know, except that person(hopefully), how you feel.

Obviously this ex-boyfriend wasn't very good at the subtweeting because she found out. And yeah, that would make me sad. It's never cool when people talk about you and not to you.

I'm pretty sure I won't be intentionally subtweeting any time soon. I hate when people post really vague things on social media (which may be called vaguebooking?) and I try not to do that. If I can't say what I want to say directly on social media, I just won't post. And IRL, I admit, I gossip. But I try to abide by my personal rule of if I wouldn't say it to you, I won't say it about you.

Comments

Hiiiiyeeee!

I didn't post Friday because I was watching TV with my daughter. We were watching our favorite show-RuPaul's Drag Race. An interesting trend right now is that phrases from drag culture (which are also from African American culture-particularly women) are popping up on Twitter and are now mainstream. In fact, I have heard students saying these phrases up and down the halls and I have to giggle to myself because I doubt many of them know what they are saying. So here are few favorites and what they mean (just so you know). YAS! - This word was created as an exclamation to yell at drag queens while they were performing as a sign of support and encouragement. Spill the T/Tea-S lang for the word truth or gossip. Used in a sentence: "Girl, I'm about to spill the tea on everything that happened last night." Gagging- Used when something is so fierce, you can’t help but want to gag from the overload of extreme fierceosity. Sickening- Amazing, ...

Since you asked...it's Gif (with a hard G)

The discussion began with changing the cat on Everett's blog. Here's the Gif I used :) But do I call it a Gif (with a hard G like Gift) or a Gif (with a soft J like Jiff)? According to Newsweek (article link ) , it should be the hard G, like Gift. Reasons: *The "G" in GIF stands for Graphic , which is pronounced with a hard G. It's Graphic Interchange Format. *"Gift" is GIF's closest neighbor. *A computer would pronounce the acronym with a hard "G." *Our brains logically just want to pronounce it with a hard G. But the creator feels otherwise. In his acceptance of the Webby Lifetime achievement award ( Not going to lie-kind of cool to think about the real people who created the things that we use everyday and that there are awards for this stuff!) . He says (Jiff) I think I will probably still say it with the hard G because it makes sense to my brain.

A round of applause or making a point?

I speak with my hands. I am a very physical speaker both with my face and my gestures. The other day in one of my freshman classes, I made a statement to a student and clapped my hands after every word. I wanted to emphasize what I was saying. This was met with much more laughter than I expected. Coincidentally, there was a Tweet I saw a few days later that had the handclap emoji between each word. Ahhh..... The hand clap emoji when used in succession is a round of applause Why thank you! Between each word emphasizes your point Look at me being all relevant without meaning to. Where did this come from? According to the website Bustle, and several others I looked at, it comes from the African American culture. It is called "The Black Girl Clap" used often when a woman is explaining something (generally to a man). But online, according to Slate.com, it's become aggressive. When you do this you are ...

Walk the Walk

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