What Is 'The Ratio' And What Does It Mean To Get 'Ratioed?' Twitter's #1 Rule, Explained

Scrolling through Twitter, one comes to know that one metric is king on the platform: The Ratio. Beneath the comments of every controversial tweet, there will almost assuredly always be someone crowing about "the ratio" of the tweet, or attempting to themselves "ratio" a tweet. What is this golden Twitter statistic and where did it come from?

What Is The Ratio?

At its inception, The Ratio was a mere observation of how Twitter seemed to work. In March of 2017, Twitter user @Briligerent pointed out, "If the Replies:RT ratio is greater than 2:1, you done messed up."

This simple tweet turned out to be far more influential than Brilligerent intended. Three weeks later, Luke O'Neil wrote a more formal theory of The Ratio for Esquire. In essence, the statistics of a proper "ratio" indicate that a tweet had made many people angry or that they found it disagreeable, inspiring more angry comments than retweets, which tend to indicate the tweet was agreeable to the retweeters.

The addition of quote retweets to the Twitter experience altered the definition of a Ratio somewhat, but the fundamental principle is the same: if a tweet generates more discussion, as represented by replies and quote retweets, than agreements, represented by retweets and likes, then chances are it's an unpopular tweet.

How Did The Ratio Become A Meme?

Once Twitter users had a grasp of what The Ratio was and what it signified, it essentially became the Twitter equivalent of a scoreboard. At a certain point, one didn't even need to come up with a salient point to "dunk" on a bad tweet — all they had to do was point to its ratio and the job was done.

This led to the word "ratio" itself becoming an insult and a meme. For example, the popular L + Ratio meme became a sort of copypasta that could be found under disagreeable tweets, with people noting that the above tweet would suffer a terrible ratio amidst other insults.

Additionally, some people will attempt to "ratio" a tweet themselves. This entails a person showing up under a disagreeable tweet and betting that theirs will receive more favorable statistics than the original post. It usually will involve the phrase "Take this ratio," though it's not always successful.

What Does It Mean To Get Ratioed?

The Ratio is one of several golden rules of Twitter that have come up over the years, all of which tend to indicate that a tweeter has severely angered the site's users. It's closely related to the "Twitter's Main Character" rule, which states that nearly every day a Twitter user will post a take so disagreeable that the entire site dunks on it for a day.

The Ratio has become a powerful weapon on Twitter, and if you ever find yourself getting ratioed, it may be a good idea to go private for a couple of days.

For more information, check out The Ratio on Know Your Meme.