Twitter just abandoned favorites for 'likes' and hearts

Twitter announced today that their longstanding “Favorite” function, long represented with a gold star icon, will be renamed “Like” and represented with a red heart.

The social media service announced the change via —you guessed it!— a tweet:

In an accompanying blog post by product manager Akarshan Kumar, Twitter attributes the change to the potential for confusion caused by the star icon and language of “favorite” (emphasis his):

we know that at times the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers. You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be yourfavorite.

The reference to newcomers might be an oblique reference to the fact that Twitter hasn’t added any net new active users in the U.S. for two straight quarters.

But the heart? Apparently testers love the heart:

The heart, in contrast, is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones. The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people. And in our tests, we found that people loved it.

More interesting is Twitter’s adoption of Facebook’s language of “like.” Meanwhile, Twitter’s veteran users (read: teens and media professionals) aren’t thrilled with the change:

https://twitter.com/YoungLungs98/status/661564451804565504

https://twitter.com/antemariedian/status/661562517131407360

To be fair, the hearts have some fans:

https://twitter.com/burbehrry/status/661566167128137728

https://twitter.com/yosuccke/status/661566477082857472

Anyway, see you all in 5 years when people are mad that hearts have been changed to something else. Is 10 a.m good for you then, too? Great.

Ethan Chiel is a reporter for Fusion, writing mostly about the internet and technology. You can (and should) email him at [email protected]