Twitter is killing the egg profile picture

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 31 March 2017

Twitter will no longer use the iconic "egg" profile picture for users who have not yet uploaded their own avatar, Fast Company reports. Starting Friday, Twitter is replacing all egg icons with the silhouette of a colorless, gender-less human, and all users who had previously been represented by an egg will be booted over to the new design.

Twitter has spent many long hours trying to figure out how to kill the egg. The colorful symbol "had become universal shorthand for Twitter's least desirable accounts: trolls (and bots) engaged in various forms of harassment and spam, created by people so eager to wreak anonymous havoc that they can’t be bothered to upload a portrait image," Fast Company writes. As a result, people who were simply slow to beef up their profiles would end up "using a troll's clothing in some ways," said Twitter's senior manager of product design, Bryan Haggerty.

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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