SJ Longthorne

Subtweeting about petty, innocuous shit does nothing but make others anxious. If you want to say something, say it directly – or better, just carry on with your day.

(And no, this is not itself a subtweet – at least, not aimed at any one person. Just commenting on something that has bugged me for a while. You're adults; you're better than this.)

What exactly is a subtweet? Like quote tweeting someone?

If my definition is correct, subtweeting is tweeting in response to someone else without actually engaging them via reply/RT/QT. Sometimes it's accompanied by a screenshot of what someone said (like a QT but they don't get notified) or the source is otherwise heavily hinted.

I can understand it in the case of, say, abusers, but more often than not it's used to make fun of others with differing but harmless opinions on harmless topics and just feels unnecessary and childish :/

A lot of tweets are just not considered for more than a few seconds, especially if it's part of some trending discourse against a person or publication that's high profile.

I think you're entirely correct on all these points. There is Twitter etiquette, but it also seems that people abuse the medium to indulge their darker whims in ways they wouldn't do 'IRL'. But Twitter IS IRL - we use it all the time.

I just wish more people would ask themselves, "Why am I tweeting this?" and treat folks on Twitter the way they would treat them in person, with courage and integrity.