Few weeks ago, Fluffy or as most of us originally know him, Curious Gawker corrected me on my usage of the #humblebrag tag on Twitter. Considering I am either humble or extremely pretentious on Twitter, he definitely caught me trying to tread the middle ground. I like to pretend I’m cool like the kids so a lesson here and there helps. That and also, I hate seeing terms or the craze of our generation, the hashtags, being misused. That brings me to how people use or rather misuse the #TWSS or #TWHS, which stands for ‘That’s What She Said’ and ‘Thats What He Said’. The former is the original and the latter was invented by women who wanted to be as crass as most guys.
Instead of attempting to explain what the term means, let me simply defer to that all-knowing source on the Internet that is called Urban Dictionary []. It defines TWSS as:
A phrase used to turn a simple comment into a sexual joke
simple.
E.g. “This Math exam. Man, it’s so hard!” .. “that’s what she said”
More complex: “every time I pull it out I almost break my back” .. “that’s what she said”
Basically, the idea is to insert sexual innuendo when people are least expecting it thereby introducing awkwardness or disgust in the people who said it. It also usually has the added benefit of showing you in a good light sexually unless your brand of humor is be self-deprecating. Also, the joke is funnier if the sexual pun is not evident or obvious.
However, the way I have seen people use it on Twitter is to use TWSS if a woman says the original sentence or TWHS if a man says the original sentence. Such usage simply makes me #facepalm (look, another hashtag; more on that next time). If a guy ends up using TWHS or if a woman uses TWSS, then it automatically implies that they are gay which I know for a fact for some people that they are not. So unless they’re being sexually self-deprecating to a great extent or are simply clueless, don’t use the hashtags this way please. I’ve DM-ed (not a sexual act but simply means direct-messaged someone on Twitter) some people I know well [] and asked them if that’s what they meant. Almost always their reaction is that they didn’t know that’s how you use TWSS or TWHS. Just because a guy said it doesn’t qualify it for TWHS and vice versa for a woman.
I hope that cleared up lots of misconceptions. Next Twitter lesson: TBD.
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