BDCWire

The hashtag #MasculinitySoFragile began trending on Twitter Wednesday.

Originally, it was a way of shedding light on how strict notions of masculinity are hurting men and women alike.

But what started out as a way of criticizing American hyper-masculinity turned into a full-on Twitter hurricane.

Some people on Twitter—both men and women—saw the hashtag as a direct attack on the entire male population, rather than a criticism of the expectations Americans put on men and the social constructs that are imposed on them.

The priority switched from exposing the harms of masculinity to straight-up mocking.

It’s hard to discern which tweets are parody and which ones are absurd jabs and overreactions.

By Thursday, the original purpose of the hashtag had not been totally lost–plenty of people who are still posting about it are trying to discuss the harms of hyper-masculinity. In this sense, the conversation hasn’t entirely been derailed.

But the propensity for folks to react so viscerally to #MasculinitySoFragile kind of proves the point that, well, masculinity is fragile.

Lesson learned: Twitter is not the most effective mode of communication to have these kinds of discussions.

You can’t really have a nuanced conversation when you’ve only got 140 characters to work with.