Are Twitter's birthday balloons broken?

We already know that Twitter is withering away like a sad little grape on a vine, but today it seems the party may really be over.

Yesterday, Feb. 2, a Twitter user claimed "TWITTER GOT RID OF BIRTHDAY BALLOONS" adding "elon is such a miserable little man he cannot bear the idea of anyone experiencing happiness." While Musk may indeed appear to be a miserable little man, we had to look into the claim about the balloons.

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Here's how the balloon feature usually works: When you sign up for Twitter, the site asks for your birthdate. When you view your own profile on that date, a note under your bio wishes you a "Happy Birthday" and a delightful little animation of multi-colored balloons floats across screen (PS tap to pop them). If you've made your birthdate settings public, the balloons appear to anyone visiting your profile, along with a message reading, "Today is their birthday!" Click the message, and the balloons appear again.

I did some digging, and I still see them on desktop on profiles that share their birthday publicly. But on the mobile app, the balloons are gone. And though "Today is their birthday!" still appears, you can't click on it for more balloons. Users are also reporting that they do not see the balloon animation when viewing their own profile on their birthday.

The only explainable reason for this might be happening is that you've turned off "reduce motion" in your Accessibility settings. To check on the mobile app, navigate to "Settings and Support" > "Settings and Privacy" > "Accessibility, display, and languages" > "Accessibility" > "Motion" and make sure "reduce motion" is turned off.

To see balloons, double check that you've toggled "reduce motion" to off. Credit: Twitter

If you tried that and the balloons aren't showing up for you today, I'm wishing you a happy birthday and encourage you to watch this hour-long animation of sweet little balloons to celebrate.