For years Twitter users have sworn under their breaths as they have edited their tweets to fit within the character limit, sighed while splitting their thoughts into multiple tweets, or complained while taking a screenshot of their thoughts from the Notes app only to post the image to Twitter.
Well, complain no more, fellow Tweeters. Recently Twitter announced that they were doubling their character limit, giving us a whopping 280 characters to work with. After several weeks of letting only a select few have access to this update, it seems that everyone is now able to tweet at double the length, from Kim Kardashian to your second cousin that followed you randomly.
Not everyone seems to be happy about the update though. Most Twitter users have grown fond of the character restraint and loved being able to tweet their thoughts using as few words as possible, despite how tedious it could be. But I think there are benefits to this new update that most people don’t seem to be aware of.
Let’s think about the music-loving users of Twitter first. Many of us use Twitter to post song lyrics for a number of reasons. Some of us want to be deep and sentimental, some want to send a subtle message to someone who burned us, and others just want to channel our inner love of memes. Whatever the reason, you can post more than just one line of a song. Now you can post the entire first verse, and maybe even half of the chorus. Think about the possibilities that come from this and the wonderful messages that can be sent!
And speaking of memes, your ability to quote them just got even easier! Got an extra long one that you want to share? Well, now you can share the whole thing, or at least a little more of it than you would have been able to before! Or if you have multiple memes to share, you can just cram five of them into one tweet. You’ll be the coolest kid on the internet!
Celebrities and companies will enjoy this newfound freedom as well! Now their promotional tweets that we absolutely love seeing all over our feeds will be twice as long, and even more fun to scroll through. Can you imagine how many millennial jokes Taco Bell will be able to fit into one tweet now? Or how many breakfast jokes Denny’s can make with a 280 character limit? The very thought of it makes me giddy.
Even our president can get in on the fun! You know how he posts five tweets about an issue that really bothers him? Well, now he can post two or three about that issue, and then post another tweet or two about a different issue. Whenever he wants to threaten North Korea or yell at the media for not talking about Hillary’s emails over a year after the election, he can do that with more space in each tweet than before. Thank goodness!
Yes, with the new 280 character limit, Twitter gives us the opportunity to throw conciseness right out the window! Even if the very thought of reading through long tweets doesn’t appeal to you, just think about how much fun people can have while ranting about others or quoting memes with double the characters!