The Ratio / Ratioed
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About
The Ratio or Ratioed refers to an unofficial Twitter law which states that if the amount of replies to a tweet greatly outnumbers the number of retweets and likes, then the tweet is bad. Additionally, "to ratio" a tweet means to make a quote retweet or reply that manages to get more likes and retweets than the quoted post.
Origin
The Ratio began being noticed on Twitter in early 2017. On March 7th, Twitter user @85mf[1] tweeted a screenshot of a tweet by House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz which had 701 replies yet only 23 retweets and 108 likes. He captioned it, "Nothing on this site makes me happier than reply-to-RT ratios like this. That is the ratio of someone who fuuuuucked up" (shown below, left). On March 15th, user @Brilligerent[2] tweeted "If the Replies:RT ratio is greater than 2:1, you done messed up" (shown below, right).
Spread
On April 11th, Luke O'Neil of Esquire[3] published an article in which he outlined the theory of The Ratio, bringing the theory its widest audience yet. O'Neil referenced several tweets related the the United Airlines Passenger Removal as examples of The Ratio at work. He illustrated how United Airlines' tweeted response about the incident gained over 61,000 replies and merely 6,700 likes, and that the 10:1 ratio was evidence of the tweet's poor reception.
The Independent[7] wrote about O'Neil's Ratio Law two days after the article was published in Esquire. Following O'Neil's article, Weird Twitter and leftist Twitter began to take notice of ratios on particularly bad or controversial tweets. Popular examples include a tweet by Virginia gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart,[4] who tweeted "Nothing is worse than a Yankee telling a Southerner that his monuments don't matter." Twitter user @Papapishu[5] pointed out that the tweet's Ratio, which at the time stood at 1.4 thousand replies to 38 retweets, was "off the charts" (shown below).
On April 26th, O'Neil published another article in Esquire[6] about The Ratio, investigating a tweet by CNN pundit Chris Cillizza[8] in which he linked to an article he wrote in defense of Ivanka Trump which as of May 2nd, 2017, has over 1,400 replies and only 23 retweets (shown below).
Various Examples
Search Interest
Unavailable.
External References
[2] Twitter – @Brilligerent
[3] Esquire – How to Know If You've Sent a Horrible Tweet
[4] Twitter – @CoreyStewartVA
[5] Twitter – @Papapishu
[6] Esquire – RatioWatch: An Exclusive Interview With Some People Who Retweeted A Bad Tweet About Ivanka
[7] The Independent – How To Know How Well You Use Twitter
[8] Twitter – @Cillizza's Defense
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