By far, Twitter is my favorite application. I use it to watch and share funny videos with my friends and to receive information about important national and international news. While I use Facebook, I usually tend to receive local and national news from Twitter. About 59% of Twitter users get news from the site. There are a multitude of unofficial categories in which I participate in and watch from afar.
Black Twitter: This is the biggest monolith I follow. A category of all ages ranging from young 20-somethings like myself to people 30-plus. Among Black Twitter users, various people tweet about food, movies, and childhood. When it comes to Black culture, this is where we bond or take serious offense to some people’s opinions. On Black Twitter, you’ll find questions about why men only respond to one part of a long extensive paragraph you send, or pictures of yams, greens, and cornbread asking which is your least favorite. You will also find people sharing their childhood memories with the hashtag #GrowingUpBlack.
#growingupblack
Mom: go get my purse
Me: I can't find it
Mom: if I find it ur getting a woopin pic.twitter.com/fUeO13gudA— Q U E E N B🐝 (@Queenbees19) October 17, 2017
Black Twitter is by far my favorite category because there I can find relatable memes and ideologies. Many media hubs will use tweets from Black Twitter to base entire stories or commentaries. There are certain members of Black Twitter that have huge followings but I feel like most black people are involved in Black Twitter.
Weird Twitter: I honestly don’t even know the age demographics here because most of the accounts on Weird Twitter will be of cats or carious random pictures. On Weird Twitter you will find bot pages dedicated completely to random items or phrases. For example there is an egg bot page (@eggbot___) that tweets all the different ways to make eggs about every five minutes. Weird! Weird Twitter also includes the pages that are based solely one one thing such as dogs, positivity, cats, etc. My favorite account from Weird Twitter would be @dog_rates. This page uploads photos (submissions from followers) of different dogs and rates them. The dogs are all good in this page’s eyes and no dog receives under a 10/10! I love going on this page when I’m bored or feeling down because what’s better than endless pages of puppies? Nothing.
Stan Twitter: Sadly, I used to be a member of this Twitter category. Stan Twitter includes accounts that are solely based on very intense and passionate fans who breathe, sleep, and tweet their favorite celebrities. Most of these pages upload many pictures of their fave and their avi is also of their fave and not the person who created the account.
#StanTwitter is the best Twitter. Nothing like a group of weirdos w/their favorite artist as their avi arguing w/other weirdos who's best
— Hot Pastrami (@mikeufc) September 22, 2017
This category includes many accounts from various fan bases such as the Rihanna Navy, BeyHive and TeamBreezy just to name a few. STANS are very intense fans (the name is derived from Eminem’s hit song “Stan” which is from the perspective of a seemingly deranged fan who just wants Slim Shady to answer his letters).
Parody aka Fake Twitter: This category is for all of the fake pages of celebrities and other random people. Most celebrities have a fake account in which the account has the same avi as said celebrity but will tweet random “advice” that I assume is either stolen from other fake pages or from the creator of the accounts. This category includes @FIirtationship, @CommonBlackGirI, @thegreatkhaalid, etc. Most of these pages say they are parodies but I don’t care because they are annoying. When I first joined Twitter these pages tricked me all the time. There would be various fake Nicki Minaj, Chris Brown, and Drake pages that included random quotes about love, life, friendship, etc. One of the pages followed me back and I thought my favorite celebrity followed me but I was sadly mistaken. Now, I only trust verified pages.
BWD is back! Come to SCE 300 tonight for amazing conversation! #WeGotYourBack #GSU18 #GSU19 #GSU20 #GSU21 #StateNotSouthern pic.twitter.com/WSfwWs9tKg
— BlackStudentAchieve (@GSU_OBSA) October 12, 2017
Local Twitter: This includes the city and sometimes the state where you are located. This category includes colleges because they tend to have their own little twitter space for advertising things happening on the campus. If I’m searching for a party or anything to go to, I can search #GSU, #StateNotSouthern or #AUC20 to find local events that I might want to attend.
Meme Twitter: Memes rule Twitter. Or they at least rule my timeline. Memes are funny gifs or pictures that relatably describe a reaction, feeling, or situation. Often, there will be a meme that captivates my timeline for a few weeks at a time. Then suddenly, after the meme gains mass popularity, there will be an account including popular versions of the meme. I actually find these pages to be helpful. You can find the funniest tweets about that meme in one place instead of searching all over for the comedy.
I’m sure there are many other categories of Twitter but these are the ones that were most prominent to me and my Twitter experience. My TL is very diverse due to the large amount of people I follow. I follow many people from Howard University, I follow people over the age of 25 and, of course, I follow some Stan accounts for my favorite artists (don’t judge). Whichever category you participate in, I hope you still get to appreciate all of what Twitter has to offer. Tweet away!
Keana Martin-Sanders is a 20-year old VOX alum and is obsessed with New Edition’s “Can You Stand The Rain.”