What Is A Subtweet?

    Additionally: what is an "intimifave," or a "canoe tweet," and why do they all make everyone so upset?

    In Twitter parlance, subtweeting is the act of tweeting about a person without including his or her Twitter handle. It's the online version of talking behind someone's back. But if you include someone's name in a tweet, but not their Twitter handle, is it still subtweeting? Or do we need a different word for that (to the extent that we need words for any of these actions)? Does it matter if the person being subtweeted (the subtweetee?) is famous, or has a popular online presence? Does it matter if the person follows you?

    There's also the question of whether subtweeting is immoral, or wrong, or somehow makes you a bad person. Does subtweeting bother people because it is truly mean, or because it intentionally breaks down the @-tagging, conversational framework that Twitter is built on, whereby you're very much able to track everything people are saying about you?

    Are you enthralled by discussing such intricacies? OK, good (if not, sorry):