Twitter is killing the egg profile picture

Twitter will no longer use the iconic "egg" profile picture for users who have not yet uploaded their own avatar, Fast Company reports. Starting Friday, Twitter is replacing all egg icons with the silhouette of a colorless, gender-less human, and all users who had previously been represented by an egg will be booted over to the new design.

Oh, the Twitter egg has gone! Replaced with person made up of egg type shapes. #RIPegg pic.twitter.com/exvauiEBor

— Neil Saunders (@NeilRetail) March 31, 2017

Twitter has spent many long hours trying to figure out how to kill the egg. The colorful symbol "had become universal shorthand for Twitter's least desirable accounts: trolls (and bots) engaged in various forms of harassment and spam, created by people so eager to wreak anonymous havoc that they can’t be bothered to upload a portrait image," Fast Company writes. As a result, people who were simply slow to beef up their profiles would end up "using a troll's clothing in some ways," said Twitter's senior manager of product design, Bryan Haggerty.

Today we must change our twitter avatars to the classic egg avatar in solidarity for #bringbacktheegg pic.twitter.com/3esUnFZbwr

— Jason (@ayyjqce) March 31, 2017

Haggerty added: "The eggs were all these vibrant colors, and you didn't pick up that something was missing. When we put [the new image] in there, it really highlighted the absence: 'Oh, this person doesn't have a profile pic.' Or 'Oh, I probably should put my picture on here. I don't look like I'm actually on this platform.'"

While changing the default profile image might not end Twitter's harassment woes, it certainly marks the end of an era. Read more about Twitter harassment, especially as it is directed toward women, here at The Week.