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Twitter Fleets May Be Gone, But #Fleetnik Will Live Forever

Tayo Bero
Last Updated August 3, 2021, 10:11 PM
Black Twitter is famous for coming together to make the online hellscape slightly more bearable. Last night, the community did it again with #Fleetnik. 
It all started when Twitter announced they would be removing Fleets from the app less than a year after they were first announced. “Fleets” was Twitter's version of “stories,” a way for people to share fleeting tweets and upload content that would only live on the app for 24 hours. Sadly, it never quite took off the way Twitter had expected. 
“In the time since we introduced Fleets to everyone, we haven’t seen an increase in the number of new people joining the conversation with Fleets like we hoped,” Ilya Brown, Twitter’s VP of product explained in a July blog post. “Because of this, on August 3, Fleets will no longer be available on Twitter.”
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It also didn't help that Fleet is the name of an "extra cleansing & relief enema" used to prepare for anal sex.
But rather than let the ultimately useless feature die a peaceful death, Black Twitter did its thing Monday night, and gave us one of the most memorable collective experiences since one Zola Wells narrated an insane road trip she took to Florida with a white girl she met at Hooters. 
In what will forever be known as #Fleetnik, folks were gloriously butt naked, and showing parts of themselves they would usually reserve for apps like Snapchat or their close friends on Instagram. And for those who may be too young to remember, the name “Fleetnik” is a callback to Freaknik, a real-life annual block party that started in the 80s, and saw thousands of young Black people from across the country descend on the city of Atlanta for a weekend of partying, performances and some very wild fun. 
Aside from the sheer scandalousness of the actual posts, the jokes that this has spawned made the event all the more fun and entertaining.
As some users suggested, August 2nd should now be a holiday, or at least a day to commemorate the event.
Some also reminisced about what would have happened if #Fleetnik had taken place in a different time, when timeline debauchery was far more common and frankly, wild.
As a few people hilariously pointed out, Fleets were still very much around by the morning of Tuesday August 3.
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Sadly, some were left out of the fun because they didn’t follow the right people.
Twitter has now officially removed Fleets from the app’s interface. While #Fleetnik may be over, like any good party, the memories of this night will last forever.
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