I’m impressed with Twitter. According to most clickbait articles which appear on my Facebook newsfeed on the odd occasion I venture there, it’s got the perfect response to everything!

I’m impressed, because there was a period of about a year there when apparently Twitter couldn’t handle anything!

This husband just changed a diaper, and Twitter can’t handle it! 

This puppy’s having a dream, and Twitter can’t handle it! 

This child wrote a Valentine to their binman or whatever, and Twitter can’t handle it! 

Such titles are of course classic clickbait, designed to lure you in with the promise of the exceptional. What’s too insane for Twitter, that bastion of rational discussion, to handle!? What’s the perfect response in 140 characters to institutional racism!?

This trend of the perfect response I find interesting. It does kind of make sense that Twitter might manage to produce the perfect response, in some cases. Its character limitation lends itself to both stupid statements and witty, pithy replies.

Which is fine, except when you try to deal with complex issues with a single perfect tweet. I’ve written before about the state of online journalism. I think Twitter is the cause of the current trend of having a quick “perfect” response to an issue. I can sympathise with online journalists a little I suppose, as they probably feel a lot of pressure to respond as quickly and succinctly as a celebrity on Twitter.

As with so much on the internet though, I’m sure all of these “perfect responses” are just a passing trend, and there’ll be a new fad in clickbait articles in a few months. Outright lies perhaps: Look at this List of Ten 80’s Stars who now Look Older, and that Vague Sense of Inadequacy will definitely Disappear!

I certainly don’t see how you can improve on the “perfect” response anyway.