Twitter Fleets.

I’ll say it again.

It’s an actual name of Twitter’s latest feature that’s dividing users everywhere this week.

Please say sike.

Nah.

Snapchat Stories and Instagram Stories, there’s a new sheriff in town.

Twitter has joined the ephemeral content game by introducing Fleets, a feature that allows you to tweet momentary thoughts that disappear after 24 hours (if you ignore screenshots).

That thing you didn’t Tweet but wanted to but didn’t but got so close but then were like nah.

We have a place for that now—Fleets!

Rolling out to everyone starting today. pic.twitter.com/auQAHXZMfH

— Twitter (@Twitter) November 17, 2020

From a marketer’s perspective, it’s too early to tell if it’ll succeed like Instagram and Snapchat Stories before them.

Reactions have been, at least from what I’ve seen, have been mixed with more leaning towards the negatives. Honestly, I have yet to see anyone tweeting their excitement over posting a Twitter Fleet without chuckling at the mere mention of its name.

The Verge has outlined several advantages of Twitter Fleets. Firstly, familiarity is a strong point as Twitter users who regularly post on Instagram Stories should be able to adapt to Twitter Fleets with ease. Furthermore, it complements the social network’s purpose of sharing real-time content i.e. as it happens. Lastly, Twitter was always built for ephemeral content, so you have only a few characters to rock the Internet. No more, no less. Adding one-tap reactions (lifted from Instagram Stories) does not hurt either.

Personally, I was flabbergasted at first because Snapchat and Instagram have the “disappearing” content feature already. However, I do see Twitter’s intention of creating Fleets to combat the site’s incessant grapple with harassment.

One-tap reactions can be one way to spark healthier conversations on the platform. As is allowing private replies to Fleets since the site has shown us that things can escalate quickly (and ugly) in the DMs and under tweets.

Still, I think the jury is out on this one.