THREAD: This is a thread about Reply Guys. I like it when tweets go viral coz I'm a big show-off and Twitter is responsible for most of my career. When you go viral you get new followers, fun replies, sometimes even industry interest omg. But you also get: Reply Guys.

As soon as something goes viral your mentions are flooded with Reply Guys of all different species. For this particular viral-ish tweet here are the categories:

PUNCH-IT-UP REPLY GUY: This breed of Reply Guy rewords your humorous tweet and behaves like he has written a hilarious take. "More like people who wore shitty fashions of the past now don't want to put on a mask lol". Not "more like", mate...EXACTLY the same.

FACTCHECK REPLY GUY: An evergreen Reply Guy. They will factcheck whatever you tweet. In this case expect to see a lot of "sounds more 2004 than 2003" replies. But trust me, if you know a LOT about a subject and you tweet some facts a Reply Guy will "actually, it's" you.

UNSOLICITED ADVICE REPLY GUY: You've complained about a thing, sometimes a thing from years ago. This Reply Guy will pop up to tell you where you've been going wrong and what you should do in future. If you say "I didn't ask for advice" they get EXTREMELY offended.

TAKES IT LITERALLY REPLY GUY: You are not writing a fun tweet, what you're doing is stating an absolute fact and he will reply to it with sincerity and gravitas. "The reason the shoes were pointed" he'll intone "was replicating a popular mod era look". FASCINATING M8 IDC.

CHANGE THE SUBJECT REPLY GUY: A very common Reply Guy, he sees your tweet and wants to talk about something else entirely. He'll reply with "hey Sooz, seen they're doing a sequel to the Sonic movie?" etc. It's to establish to everyone that he's more of a friend than a fan.

OVERFAMILIAR REPLY GUY: You're a Girlfriend Experience. They bring up something from your past that you've mentioned in passing or on stage. "Did your ex dress like this, the one you told us about last month?". When this Reply Guy shows up I draw all the curtains in the house.

LIFE STORY REPLY GUY: He saw you post personal anecdotes and assumes that replying to you with HIS life story will be very interesting. "Back then I didn't wear bootcut jeans and pointy shoes" he'll reply, "I wore baggy jeans and t-shirts, sometimes I wore knee-length shorts...

...but mostly baggy jeans. My shoes were usually Vans or Converse, I think in 2003 it was Converse. My gf wore the same but we broke up in 2010, no idea what she's up to now".

Thank you, Life Story Reply Guy. Thank you.

NOT FUNNY REPLY GUY: This Reply Guy doesn't find your tweet funny. And he needs to tell you. He needs you to know you are not funny to him, a Reply Guy. Also included in this is: Unfollowing Reply Guy. He tells you he is unfollowing.

DISGUSTING REPLY GUY: Sometimes Reply Guys want to show the world they are edgy, out-there fellas not afraid to push the boundaries of comedy. So they will write something disgusting about shitting or cumming. I don't know why they think this will work.

"NO SEXISM PLS" REPLY GUY: It's important that women aren't sexist and luckily Reply Guys are around! "Like women's fashions back then were better" they'll chastise with a photo of bad 2003 women's fashions.

PERSONALLY ATTACKED REPLY GUY: If you're a Reply Guy with 26 followers it makes sense you'd see my tweet and know that I am PERSONALLY attacking you, personally. So the righteous and entirely reasonable thing to do is: tell me I made him personally feel bad about what he wore.

Personally Attacked Reply Guy is very very keen to tell me "ACTUALLY I WILL BE WEARING A MASK ACTUALLY".

Great?

RIGHTEOUS REPLY GUY: He isn't OFFENDED but he wants to stand up for what's RIGHT unlike me, the writer of a humorous tweet. "Let people wear whatever they want!" he'll battle-cry. Or he'll find a reason why some people can't wear masks and therefore I'm just being discriminatory.

ASKS YOU ON A DATE REPLY GUY: Fucking DMs you and asks you on a date. Genuinely. This happens. A LOT.

All these Reply Guys frequently come with these emojis:

Thank you for enjoying my thread about Reply Guys. If you recognised any of the Reply Guy behaviour as your own don't worry, just accept you are a Reply Guy, squirt! If someone calls out your Reply Guy behaviour you are probably their 1734632th Reply Guy that week.

*unfollowed*

Oh yeah, just to add:

MOTIVATIONAL LIFE COACH REPLY GUY: My style of tweeting is sometimes "lol I'm a hot mess haha" and the idea is people laugh. But MLC Reply Guy sees that as an opportunity to remove all humour and patronise with "believe in yourself x".

ARE YOU REALLY SURPRISED REPLY GUY: I say something about the government or some far-right mouthpiece and this Reply Guy chimes in with "are you really surprised [person] did that?".

See also: Expecting Anything Different Was Your First Mistake Reply Guy.

Me: "Oh Jesus, turns out Ivanka got a massive $30million cash injection just before the 2016 election"

Reply Guys: "Are you really surprised by that?" "Well expecting anything different from Ivanka Trump was your first mistake"

I AM FULLY STALKING YOU REPLY GUY: You tweet, you notice an error in the tweet thats been up for under a minute then tweet it again with the error fixed and a Reply Guy tells you what the error was and adds a wink emoji. I lock the doors.