Normally for twitter when you tweet something, you can choose to place an ‘@’ sign and they’re username to tag them in the tweet. It’s a way of mentioning them in a tweet to make sure they see it. Subtweeting is another form of tweeting when you tweet something vague, but specific enough that someone who knows the person might be able to discern who that person is tweeting about. The purpose of it is to target a person without ever being direct by saying something like, “I didn’t want to see you tonight anyway” or “Do you even realize you’re the loudest person in the room?”. Subtweeting allows people to say whatever they want in an indirect way to say spiteful remarks without direct interaction.

Tweeting already allows people to instantly project their thoughts online in an instant, but we often don’t think about the power or effect that might have. These harmful thoughts we think to ourselves do so much more damage than we realize, and while saying them is bad enough twitter makes it worse. It invites the entire world to join someone’s direct message against another person, and they are rewarded through retweets and favorites. Subtweeting is a toxic way for people to express their thoughts and allows them to find validation in attacking others.

For some subtweeting is a way to rant or vent feelings into a machine, and while it may help them they don’t often realize about how it can be harmful to both them and the subject. For the subject they are targeted and made the center of attention, they see a crowd of people commenting and favoriting it which makes them feel targeted by a larger group. For the person tweeting, rather than actually resolving their feelings they continue a cycle of hate that is projected onto whoever the tweet is directed towards.

Subtweeting fuels a toxic culture of cyberbullying and hate that only serves to hurt everyone involved. It is a childish way to let out anger and blow off steam. Of course, everyone has done it once in their life to express their anger, but it never serves to accomplish anything or help either party. It is a childish way to approach a situation by creating a crowd that focuses on one individual and making the person who had created the tweet look immature and spiteful. Social media is a vital tool that we can use to express our problems and issues, but we must be careful to recognize the way in which other people and ourselves abuse this platform to create spiteful messages and attack people’s character while compromising our own.