No More 'Open For A Suprise': Twitter Drastically Alters Its Automated Photo Crop

Say goodbye to memes like Open For A Surprise and photo algorithm parodies. Yesterday, Twitter announced that pictures posted to the timeline will finally stop being cropped, allowing most pictures to appear in all their glory—for mobile users, at least.

no bird too tall, no crop too short

introducing bigger and better images on iOS and Android, now available to everyone pic.twitter.com/2buHfhfRAx

— Twitter (@Twitter) May 5, 2021

Prior to the update, pictures on Twitter would be cropped to fit a specific dimension, with users having to click the picture to see the full image. This led to some obvious frustrations among users, particularly artists, as the most interesting thing about the images they posted would often be cut off. It also led to the "Open For A Surprise" meme, which saw users intentionally manipulate the cropping algorithm in order to hide the most noteworthy parts of images they posted.

Last year, issues with the cropping algorithm grew more serious as users noticed that it appeared racially biased after a Twitter user posted a picture of Barack Obama and Mitch McConnell and noticed the crop focused on McConnell's face instead of Obama's. Others noticed a similar issue with the featured when they experimented with posting photos featuring black and white people. As the controversy brewed, Twitter Chief Design officer Dantley Davis wrote, "it's 100 percent our fault. No one should say otherwise. Now the next step is fixing it."

It's unclear if Twitter changing the cropping feature is a direct result of that controversy, but it should alleviate some of the frustrations for artists and photo-memers. Sure enough, after the announcement was made, users quickly started experimenting with it using shitposts, so much so that a certain big-hatted cartoon character trended on the platform.

Doug Dimmadome says Twitter crop is still a thing pic.twitter.com/uxkWqVDgSD

— 🦋+carlos+🦋 (@RichHomieCarlos) May 5, 2021

Since Twitter crop is gone, here's Doug Dimmadome, owner of the Dimmsdale Dimmadome pic.twitter.com/00ZmluUt5V

— Hamad Ahmad (@Hamad_theGreat) May 6, 2021

There are 2 kinds of people when they heard about Twitter not having the crop:
A) People reposting their more vertical art so the crop can't mess with it

B) People posting Doug Dimmadome-esque memes to test the limits of new Twitter (spoiler: it doesn't show everything) pic.twitter.com/jq3xO4b3fl

— Celja (@Celja100) May 6, 2021

The new cropping algorithm, users discovered, does still have its limits (so you don't have to worry about Do You Love The Colour of the Sky spam). Twitter clarified that images with 2:1 and 3:4 aspect ratios will show in full, meaning not every picture posted to the timeline will be safe from getting cropped. Still, the announcement has been a boon for artists, who are now able to show off their full pictures without worrying about how the Twitter crop will ruin it.

No more twitter crop!!#SakusaKiyoomi #haikyuufanart pic.twitter.com/4lIjo33DnB

— Chaz | comms, hospital au & bb | ( •˘ ᴗ ˘• )✨ (@ChazCC1) May 6, 2021

Stupid sexy Witcher's butt is free from twitter's crop now!??!! ✨🍑 pic.twitter.com/i2vWDNhnCj

— SNEGOVSKI🦎 (@Snegovski9623) May 6, 2021

#NoCropArt TWITTER CROP GONE CRABRAVE pic.twitter.com/LH8GUmsqgi

— kit (@k1ttlet) May 6, 2021

Unfortunately, if you're reading this article on desktop, you won't notice the difference. Twitter has yet to announce when they're implementing the feature for desktop users.