tweetheart

tweetheart

English

Etymology

Blend of tweet +‎ sweetheart

Noun

tweetheart (plural tweethearts)

1. (Internet slang) A Twitter user who is popular with others.
   • 2009 Alan Long, "Oprah may be America's Tweetheart, but she doesn't make the earth move Downunder!", Digital Ministry, 28 April 2009:

     My colleague in the US, Heather Hopkins recently covered the blaze of publicity around Oprah Winfrey starting to tweet and its immediate impact on Twitter’s US share of visits. In Australia the influences seem to be broader than America’s new 'tweetheart’.

   • 2010 Ki Mae Heussner, "Is Twitter Disproportionately Popular Among Black Users?", ABC News, 6 May 2010:

     When Vanity Fair published a story earlier this year on a group of all-American, all-white "tweethearts," the real Twitterati took the magazine to task for ignoring a growing force on Twitter: African-Americans.

   • 2010 Katla McGlynn, "Stewart Mocks Media's Obsession With Sarah Palin's Tweets", The Huffington Post, 3 December 2010:

     Thursday night's "Daily Show" began with another thorough take-down of John McCain's stance on Don't Ask Don't Tell, but afterward Jon Stewart moved on to McCain's 2008 Presidential running mate Sarah Palin, who he dubbed "America's Tweetheart."

     Palin has taken to Twitter to vent her frustrations with Obama's handling of the latest WikiLeaks document drop, but Stewart believes her outrage is primarily unfounded.

   • 2011 Victoria Solomon, "Simmons alum named 'America's Tweetheart'", The Simmons Voice, 3 March 2011:

     One of the latest twilebrities is Simmons alumna Julia Roy, '05. She was named "America's Tweetheart" by Vanity Fair, which called her a "26-year-old New York social strategist turned twilebrity."

2. (Internet slang) A Twitter user who is one's personal friend or within one's broader social networking circle.
   • 2009 C.J. Castillo, "Tweetups: Meeting the people behind the tweets", Victoria Advocate, 5 September 2009:

     "I liked the idea of people who don't really know each other except through short messages getting together and meeting for the first time, putting a face to a name, and also telling people how much I enjoy reading their updates," said Tim Lara, Twitter user @timothydanger. "Meeting new tweeps was nice too. I gained a couple of tweethearts since then and enjoy the banter. (My twitter is never serious)."

   • 2010 "No new Britney music in pipeline", Daily Mirror, 8 August 2010:

     "Just got the imaging for my new fragrance Radiance and thought I'd share it with all my tweethearts," she wrote.

   • 2010 "Louboutins, check! Make-up, check! Kim Kardashian is ready to buy a yoghurt", Daily Mail, 10 August 2010:

     Kim, 29, treated herself to the frozen snack following a photo shoot earlier that morning, which she wrote about on her Twitter account:

     'Morning tweet hearts! Heading to a fab photo shoot for ShoeDazzle.com!'

   • 2011 Richard Hinds, "No football or meat pies, it's down to foreign stars", The Age, January 27 2011:

     There is the local angle - if you are one of the desperate spruikers who interpreted Kim Clijsters' twittering "Happy Australia Day to all my Aussie tweethearts" as an indication her heart beats green and gold, even if her dress was only a half-hearted green.

3. (Internet slang) A Twitter user with whom one is infatuated or involved romantically, especially if they were first met through the service.
   • 2009 Luann Lasalle, "Tweeting with tweople: Twitter spawns new vocabulary - but beware of twitterhea", Winnipeg Free Press, 4 February 2009:

     "I actually met my girlfriend on Twitter," says Verdino, who has been tweeting for the last two years. "We call ourselves tweethearts."

   • 2009 "Learning Just How Tweet It Is", The Lowell Sun, 9 March 2009:

     When I got to my car and dialed up my friend to tell her about the tweetheart I just met she informed me she just got a tweet from Lindsay Lohan.

   • 2010 Stephen Hui, "Geek Speak: Taylor Lukacin, UBC student blogger", The Georgia Staight, 7 May 2010:

     Taylor Lukacin wants to help you find your “tweetheart”. This afternoon (May 7), the 20-year-old, White Rock-born blogger will give a talk at the 2010 Northern Voice conference that she’s calling "Social Media Flirting 101".

   • 2010 Mark Egan, "For Michael Caine's second act, another memoir", Reuters, 27 October 2010:

     "They did me a Twitter when I started this book," he said. "I had a load of girls who did the Twitter and I dubbed them my Tweethearts, and my true Tweetheart, my wife, does my Twitter now, because I can't do it."

   • 2011 Kate Jones, "Aussie tweethearts say 'I do'", Herald Sun, 16 April 2011 (used in headline only)