Life

People Are Freaking Out Over This Twitter Change

Sad news for fans of social media sites with 140-character limits today:: Twitter timeline backgrounds are gone, meaning we're no longer able to customize the background on all our favorite tweets will appear. Instead, Twitter has changed all timeline backgrounds to one color, and one color only: White. And yes, it's as hard on the eyes as you think it is.

Many thought the sudden change was an error in their account or some kind of joke, but Twitter executives have confirmed it as a network-wide alteration. "We're removing background images from the home and notifications timelines on web for all users. Now, background images are only available where logged-in users will see them publicly (tweet pages, list pages and collections pages)," a Twitter spokesperson told Mashable.

To be honest, it kind of seems like a step backwards in social media innovation, since customization and individualism are two very important factors that are driving online media right now. I'l admit that I'm not sure what Twitter was thinking with this one — and it seems that many are in agreement with me, as there has been no shortage of reactions from the Twitterverse over it. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that everyone is full-on freaking out, possibly in ways that are just a tiny bit over-the-top. Here are 15 of what I think are the most dramatic reactions — although there's plenty more where these came from.

1. The Ugly Truth

2. The Enraged Rampage

3. We're Literally On Our Knees

4. Shame! Shame!

5. The Shade Is Real

And I'm not talking about the lamp shade.

6. You Forgot to Ask for Our Permission

7. It's Like the Change Is Permanent or Something

8. Eff This

9. Now Is the Perfect Time for Our New Favorite Word

10. What Do We Have to Do to Make You Change It Back?

11. This Is The Worst Thing Ever

By which I mean that it is clearly the most important, terrible thing to happen, ever, in the entire course of human history.

12. Is My Perfectionism Showing?

If you were going to do this, Twitter, would it have killed you to make it plain white instead of off-white?

13. Default to Neutral

14. It's Too Much for My Delicate Eyes

15. One Word: Boycott