Twitter finally lets you add reaction GIFs to retweets

Hey, would you look at that. A change to Twitter that won’t immediately be universally reviled.

The social media platform announced Monday that, starting immediately on mobile, users can add GIFs to retweets. That’s right, you no longer have to just slap a downward pointing finger emoji on your retweets and call it a day. 

“Starting today, you can do something new with your Retweets – add a GIF,” Twitter explained in an email to reporters. “Now, the same photos, videos, and GIFs that you add to a Tweet can be added to a Retweet, making it easier to share what’s on your mind and join the conversation when you can’t find the right words.” 

This change, which is sure to at least temporarily clutter everyone’s timeline with garbage tweets until the novelty wears off, is not yet available on desktop. That might help to explain why desktop users (like this reporter) are seeing a bunch of poorly formatted tweets that, at present, look like someone accidentally hit the “Tweet” button too soon. 

But hey, small steps, right?

So here’s to you, Twitter. Thanks for making our timelines a little more joyous. 

Well, assuming no one abuses this new GIF power for trolling, that is. But hey, what’s the likelihood something like that would ever happen on Twitter?