Twitter's (and X's) Star and Heart Buttons

Abstract Twitter's 2015 change from the star to the heart button caused many participants to antagonistically respond. This modification was supposed to enable participants’ easy and frictionless engagements. Nevertheless, it caused friction, including journalists’ identification as dismissed super users who were contaminated by the heart's feminine references. I employ close reading to study news stories, posts, and Twitter's narratives about the buttons. I cite academic scholarship on friction, feelings, buttons, and gender scripts as a means of arguing that Twitter's heart button was sometimes understood as frictionless, but it was also refused because of negative connotations. While such scholars as Sebastián Lehuedé and José Medina argue that individuals can employ friction to intervene in intolerance, my humanities study underscores how gender and sexuality norms are reproduced.