Where it sits
The deniability is the feature, and the reason it stings more than a direct message would.
Tell it apart
What it doesn't mean
Different targets. Vaguebooking is deliberately cryptic posting to elicit attention or requests for detail, usually with no specific person in view. A subtweet has ONE specific unnamed person in its sights. Reference works list them as coordinate terms, not synonyms.
It is attested from December 2009 and was in Urban Dictionary by August 2010 — years before the press wave that began around October 2012. In a single two-month stretch in the autumn of 2013 the term appeared over 665,000 times on the platform.
What it really means
The first recorded subtweet announced itself.
2 December 2009: …& Yes that was a SubTweet. Somebody did the thing and then, in the same breath, named it — which is a fairly complete demonstration of how the tactic works, since the point was never really concealment.
The sub is not the Latin prefix meaning under. It is short for subliminal — people were writing subliminal tweeting in the same period, and that phrase got its own dictionary entry in September 2010. A clipping, not a prefix.
Which is the right word for the mechanism. A subtweet is a message pitched just below the threshold of accusation. No name, no tag, no notification — and therefore no moment where the target can reasonably object, because objecting requires identifying yourself as the subject of something that never named anyone.
That is the whole design. The deniability is the weapon, not a side effect of it. I wasn't talking about you is available at all times, and is technically true, and is the reason a subtweet stings considerably more than being told directly would.
It is worth separating from vaguebooking, which gets used as a synonym and isn't one. Both are oblique posts. But:
Vaguebooking hides an event and has no specific target — it is cryptic in order to be asked about. Well. That's that then.
Subtweeting hides a name and has exactly one target — it is cryptic in order to land.
One fishes for concern. The other throws something. Reference works list them as coordinate terms, not synonyms.
And the dating corrects a common assumption. Subtweeting is filed as a mid-2010s callout-era habit, and it is attested from December 2009, in Urban Dictionary by August 2010 — well before the press wave that began around October 2012. By the autumn of 2013 the word was appearing on the platform over 665,000 times in a single two-month stretch.
The behaviour, of course, is far older than the platform. Saying something loudly to the room while looking at one person is not an internet invention. What the internet added was a room with four hundred people in it, and a permanent record of the thing you can still claim was about somebody else.
Where it comes from
short for SUBLIMINAL, not the Latin 'under'
a post on the platform then called Twitter
Users wrote 'subliminal tweeting' alongside it in the same period, which settles what the 'sub' was short for — it is a clipping, not a prefix.
- 2 December 2009
Earliest known use, in a tweet that labelled itself: '…& Yes that was a SubTweet.'
- August 2010
'Subtweet' reaches Urban Dictionary — Know Your Meme dates the first entry to 9 August — defined there as talking about someone behind their back, but sort of in their face.
In real life
- 'Funny how some people only get in touch when they need a lift somewhere.' No name, no tag — and everyone in the friendship group knew exactly who it was about.
- 'Was that post about me?' 'I didn't mention anyone…' — the deniability that makes a subtweet work.
- She didn't tag her flatmate, but a post about 'whoever keeps finishing the milk and putting the empty carton back' was a subtweet all the same.
Questions
Q01Where does the 'sub' come from?
Subliminal. The full phrase 'subliminal tweeting' was in circulation at the same time and got its own Urban Dictionary entry in September 2010. It is a clipping, not the Latin prefix meaning 'under'.
Q02Is subtweeting the same as vaguebooking?
No. Vaguebooking is cryptic posting to fish for concern; subtweeting is an unnamed dig at a specific person. Reference works list them as coordinate terms rather than synonyms.
Q03When did the word first appear?
The earliest known use is 2 December 2009, in a tweet that labelled itself — '& Yes that was a SubTweet.' Three years before the press discovered it.
Sources
- Know Your Meme — Subtweet.
- Wiktionary — subtweet.
- Twitter — Wikipedia (rebranded as X on 23 July 2023).