A few days ago, I saw a tweet that was retweeted and I followed a link to an article about favouriting tweets.
I opened my surprised eyes as it talked about things that seemed more fitting as terms from fiction riding under the radar of legality.
I chuckled as it talked about hate-faves, fist bumps and too hot to handles. I really can’t repeat any more or I might spit out my coffee.
I honestly didn’t think people used the “favourite” function for anything other than bookmarking tweets. Perhaps I’m niave and perhaps function is the operative word as if I choke on my coffee any more, I might need my bodily functions mopped up.
It made me giggle a fair bit actually. Is this making any sense to you? Honestly, it took me a while to get my grey matter around it.
I found out that wonder of wonders – people are actually favouriting tweets to say thank you, I hate you and much more.
This Twitter Revelation Began Simply:
@QHSEman1 Tweeted this link m.theatlanticwire.com/technology/201…
It seems to me that people could use a favourite to keep note of a Twitter id, to be able to refer to a tweet somewhere down the line and they could even favourite so that they remember to come back later on an anonymous account and rip me to shreds. I guess that’s a hate-fav. I’ve had a few of those. Perhaps a bit of ESP is in my future so I can tell the ones that like me from the ones that don’t. In all reality, I’d really like to know.
The revelation also led me to imagine what secret messages people are trying to convey to Google or Yahoo, or even Jeeves. Favouriting a website on your browser could mean you want to have its babies.
Joking aside, it seems it’s actually a very real issue and lots of different people use them for lots of different things.
If favouriting a tweet was with the intention of a favourite back, or a follow, or to show approval or “like” of a tweet, it might not be interpreted as that by other people.
There are several reasons for not using a favourite as anything other than simply bookmarking a tweet for later:
- Most people will have no idea why you are favouriting their tweets.
- Other people may use favourites very differently from you.
- It is most disconcerting to have tweets that are in effect non-tweets be favourited. I often wonder if I have a new troll if someone favourites a tweet that is simply a statement of gibberish or nonsense.
- Replies and mentions mean everyone knows what you mean and there is no wondering why.
- Lots of people have notifications turned off and don’t even use the e-mail address they sign up to social media.
- Favourites don’t show up in rankings, stats or anything else in my Twitter App of choice, so are pretty much pointless as kudos givers – especially if they may never be seen.
- There’s nothing wrong with using DM’s. That’s why there are there. Say thank you privately if you want to, and the tweeter will know exactly what you mean. Abusing DM’s is a completely different thing.
I did a quick trawl of the Internet and could only come to the following conclusion in answer to the original article which asked “what are you really saying when you favourite a tweet?”
“I’m either bookmarking it, or I’m in spy mode as only I know why I decided to favourite a tweet that you might or might know whether I liked or not and might or might not even ever find out about.”
Confused? I am.
It’s usually something entertaining to me. More like a nod to something worthwhile.
I’ve never tested it but I’ve been told by several SEOs that there are benefits in favouriting Tweets containing a specific Twitter ID. But I love the idea of a hat-fav.
I use it as a loin to come back to
I picked up on the use of this feature quite quickly from the different people I chat with and I have learnt who uses it for what. One lady uses it to save any links but the majority of my tweets that are marked ‘favourite’ are marked in order to end the conversation. This is the main reason I use the feature too. It simply means I have looked at the tweet and now that is the end of the conversation but I am not ignoring you. So basically it is a polite way to say ‘Stop, I don’t want to talk anymore right now’.
I’ll look at favourites in a whole new light now. Or be paranoid about what they actually meant by one.
A few times I’ve had random tweets favourite by complete strangers and actually gone to look at the profile that favourite it. IN each case it was a bot that had obviously been programmed to favourite random tweets in the hope that people would do what I did, because they had no tweets saying (I’m using American spelling because they all seem to) “I favorited your tweet to bring you this message….”. A recent one was “I favorited your tweet to remind you of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ”. God now moves in a VERY mysterious way!
Favourited tweets will have a while new meaning for me now as I ponder over how the giver actually meant it.
its so so true that people use the function for all sorts of reasons. I tend to use it like i would a like in FB, or to acknowledge something someone has tweeted to me so they know i got the tweet but sometimes there is nothing to say back but i hate leaving them hanging … this cyber world really is so confusing!