On days like today, I wish Twitter also had a broken-heart option to go with their heart/like icon.
The heart/like button on Twitter totally makes me go “hmmm” at least half a dozen times while I’m checking out my feed. And judging from an exchange I saw between two of my followers today, I am not alone. Although I would probably not address another follower by using the word, ‘hoe’…call me old fashioned. Bitch, yes, hoe, no ; ) hahaha I kid, I kid.
Anyway, how one addresses a complete stranger, who’s first language is not English, is not the point of today’s post. The point about today’s post is this: what is the appropriate response to a Tweet that resonates with you, but you don’t LIKE it?? For example, today there was the shooting at the Champs Elysees, two dead, one police officer, and the suspect. A Twitter friend from Paris alerted me to this sad situation via a Tweet, and I wanted to let her know that my heart was with her, but I didn’t want to click on the LOVE button. This happens to me, multiple times per day, as I’m confident it does to you as well. I mean, what gives Twitter, why so behind the times? Apparently Facebook allows for you to respond with many different emoji icons, so why don’t you?? Since you don’t, you put all of us in this super strange zone, of wanting to let the person know we’re on the same page as them, but we don’t want them to think we love terrorism, or crimes committed against women, or missing children. So I ask this question: with the current Twitter platform how do we share our support of a delicate subject without coming across like a heartless ass?
It is tricky, and it’s something we need to find a way around, because ignoring a heartfelt Tweet about something awful isn’t any better than hitting that little LOVE button. Well at least not in my opinion. I honestly sit and stare at that heart a lot when reading a post that makes my heart heavy, such as a missing child, or a crime committed against an innocent, but then I also don’t want to be tweeting six thousand times a day, driving people to mute, hate, or worse, un-follow me. So friends, what should we do? Do we petition Twitter, ask them to also add the broken heart emoji for the things that make our hearts ache, but we still want the person posting to know that we’re with them in our sadness/disappointment? I say we do let Twitter know that we need them to give us some options other than love, ignore, or bog down people’s feeds with retweets.
And in closing, my heart goes out to Paris, Syria, and every other place where there is war, turmoil, uncertainty and the fear of terrorism on a regular basis. I will not stop praying for all this madness to come to an end, until the world finds some balance, some peace, some unity, and I hope that all of you will do the same.
