What your Twitter bio says about you

My first ever tweet was “revising for my french exam! :p #nervous”. Or something equally shit. We’re talking 2010, people. Dark, dark times.

Although I’ll send a tweet flippantly, the bio is the most important part of a Twitter account. Nine times out of 10, the bio is the deal-breaker when deciding whether another person is worth following. It’s to Twitter what the first image on your profile is to Tinder.

Trawling the internet for a bio quote that’s a perfect mix of witty, inspirational and clever was too much

Despite this, so many people get it badly wrong. If Twitter was more like Tinder, these are the people you should definitely left-swipe.

The uni whore

She can’t get enough of the Spanish kids on schooltrips and trillion Pret a Mangers London has to offer

This bitch just loves uni. She can’t get enough of the stuff. Ever since the “Your place at Bangor University has been confirmed” email came through in mid-August, she’s been eating, sleeping and breathing university life.

It’s especially bad when the culprit got into a London uni. Mere seconds after leaving the school hall, exam results still clutched in shaking hands, she changed her location on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, Piczo (etc. etc. etc.) to “London”, “London Living!”, “Essex girl lost in Central London” or something tragically similar.

Hate to break it to you, but in three years you’ll be in crippling student debt reluctantly changing that bio back from Hackney to Hertfordshire. At least you tried.

The gap year-er

You haven’t really ‘been away’ until you’re on a spiritual retreat breastfeeding a goat atop a mountain in Peru

11 out of 10 times, this person has one hell of a superiority complex. Yes, I’d love to hear your stories about treating African children as props for photographs and stroking “tame” (heavily, heavily tranquillised) lions, but only for about two minutes. Once you start pulling out the slideshow, my attention is lost.

I also don’t care how many annoying tan lines your numerous friendship bracelets have caused you. Do you know who might care? Your nan. Tell the stories of your mystical, life-changing travels to your nan so she has something to counter with when her neighbour starts talking about how her grandson got into Cambridge at 16.

The Gap Year-er’s bio is as cringe-worthy as they are in person, usually featuring the word “wanderlust”, or something Buddha might have said maybe at some point somewhere.

(Life hack: every time they tweet something shitty about their life-changing trip just link them to the Gap Yah video with no caption or context. Every. Single. Time.)

The LAD

He’s not really this much of a dick in real life i promise

Find him on Tinder and I guarantee his bio will be: “We’ll lie to our grandchildren about how we met”.

In Freshers Week, he’s the guy who downed the yard of beer thingy in thirty seconds flat, only to chunder Papa Johns down his Blue Inc. sexist slogan t-shirt straight after. He catcalls “ugly” girls in his Ford Fiesta “to give them a confidence boost”. He comments (in all sincerity) “wot a fuckin legend!!!!!!” on Lad Bible posts. Worst of all, he signed the “Bring Back Page 3” petition more than once.

Unsurprisingly, he’s also the kind of guy who loves hashtags, but doesn’t really get them. His bio will include a hashtag. Or numerous hashtags. Hell, he’s probably gone wild with the Alt-3 keys.

He’ll proudly declare allegiance to his football team, probably abbreviated, and yes, hashtagged. There’ll also be either a Weezy lyric, or some Biggie someone once played him, despite saying at the time: “this is shit, put on some of that Swedish House Mafia”.

Which reminds me, if there’s not the eye emoji, followed by the heart emoji, the house emoji and then finally the musical note emoji, he’s not a true #housemusic #shapecutting #beerdrinking #cheekynandos #LAD.

The smartarse

The dad joke extraordinaire

Their bio is about their bio. This type of person sucks and you should avoid them at all costs. Not only do they love puns, they actually try to talk to people on the tube. They probably forwarded you all those “funny” chain emails back in the days when everyone else was trying to get a girl to show her training bra on MSN webcam.

Examples of smart-ass bios:

“Jesus only had twelve followers and I have one hundred and eighty four, am I Jesus yet?”

“Don’t follow me, I’m lost.”

And my personal favourite: “Can’t sum myself up in 160 characters!”

Oh, my friend, you already have.

The baller on a budget

If you don’t know this person, then you are this person

He’s a “champagne lifestyle lemonade pockets” kinda guy. If he thinks it’ll get him a girl, he’ll buy out the whole bar – just as long as it’s a student night.

He wants his life to be like a hip-hop music video, but in reality, he’s more likely to be on SBTV than in YMCMB. Similar to the #LAD, his bio relies on a rap lyric, usually some aspirational sexist bullshit about “fucking bitches and getting money”.

Ever wonder who buys those expensive designer t-shirts Kanye made? This guy blew his whole student loan on them so he could routinely wear them to the SU every Friday night until they’re threadbare, while desperately trying to impress girls with his extensive knowledge of Drake albums.

The arty film-buff type

Me being sad at calling myself out on my own bullshit

I’ll admit, my bio is currently a quote from Girls. But hey, nothing like a bit of hypocrisy to make an article sound as arse-y as possible.

These people have decided to rely on a film/tv/book quote for their bio, sometimes an easily recognisable one, but often not. The latter is there purely to make you Google it and realise how #cultured and #deep they are. What do you mean you didn’t know the quote from that indie French-subtitled film I found once by chance in an incredibly niche bookshop in Soho? You animal. 

So, next time you’re updating that bio steer clear of these mistakes and you’ll be fine. In fact, play it safe and just put your name and what you do. Maybe throw in an inspirational quote for good measure. Actually, who cares? Put what you want. Own it, Gap-Year-lovin’ Maria. Twitter will be dead and buried in a few years anyway.