I tweet about a lot of things. Food, work, the weather, cute Japanese things… If I’m completely honest with you, though, I’ve never once in my life felt an urge to livetweet my period. I did once tweet through an old episode of Top Gear, but not my period. It’d probably go something like this:
Tub of Ben & Jerry’s. Three bags of Milkybar Buttons. Hot water bottle standing by. Okay, let’s do this! #SharkWeek
It’s been eight minutes. All of the chocolate is gone. #SharkWeek
23 minutes down. I’ve scraped the spoon against the ice cream tub so hard it’s gone through the side. #SharkWeek
Might’ve snapped the spoon in half. I say half. It’s in 7 pieces. #SharkWeek
I found one more Milkybar Button! This is the best day of my life. #SharkWeek
That moment when you can’t tell if the hot water bottle is leaking or if you are. #SharkWeek
I didn’t fill the hot water bottle with Ribena. It’s definitely me. #SharkWeek
OH GOD WHYYYYYYYYYYY #SharkWeek
And so on.
However, this week I’ve read an interesting article about other women who are broadcasting their menstrual cycle all over the internet every month. Sure, we’ve all used that picture of the lift full of blood from The Shining to illustrate our most horrific days, but there’s a proper community out there to share it with.
If you look up the hashtag #LiveTweetYourPeriod on Twitter and Instagram, you’ll find hundreds of women talking about their monthly meltdown.
I for one didn’t know that Instagram has apparently been removing photo posts from women chronicling their periods. Okay, I do have limits on graphic imagery, but an exasperated face, a cartoon ‘strawberry jam’ blood puddle and a related hashtag do not an offensive post make. Where are we drawing the line on that one?
Ladies, how do you feel about livetweeting your period? All those of you who can lift your head from the comfy sofa long enough to tell us, tweet away.
