Ever since Twitter’s inception in 2006, users around the world have found it difficult not to comment on their own tweets. Be it a typo correction, an apology, a second thought, or an addendum, the only way to correct yourself on Twitter is to tweet another tweet. The worst of all the multipart tweets is an uncouth revisory tweet, the most humiliating kind that ruins your whole feed.
When people notice a post that reads “My last tweet was meant as….” in the middle of a large and confusing timeline, they’re just going to scroll past you. The last thing they’ll do is actually check what the eff you’re on about and browse through your past posts to find out.
Highly followed people—as well as low followed ones—keep having conversations with themselves, assuming others have (un)followed suit. Sometimes these weird retracts last for days, with no chance of them being understood when stumbling upon one tweet. The golden rule of tweeting is Every Tweet Must Stand On Its Own. More and more users are ignoring it now.
Here are some disturbing examples of people trying to tweet multipart tweets:
They did not adopt. Elton and David are my friends.
— Michael Caine (@themichaelcaine) December 28, 2010
(Caine might be referring to Elton John, who knows?)
lol
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) May 19, 2014
(She presumably meant to comment on a previous tweet about bad reception)
Relative lads
— Luke wokling (@Luke5SOS) May 10, 2014
(This dude from the band 5 Seconds of Summer commented on a previous photo)
That was fun
— Joshua Haddow (@joshuahaddow) May 22, 2014
(I can’t even decipher this)
Illustration by Jason Reed