A mean-spirited tweet criticising women for complimenting one another on social media has gone viral after thousands of women replied by complimenting one another.

The irony was not lost on those who responded to the original tweet, posted by a user who goes by the name of Lewis, which read:

“Sick of going through Insta and seeing girls commenting on other girls pictures 'look at u!! and 'have you seen yourself’ grow up man you don't even know each other.”

His tweet has garnered nearly 10,000 likes since it was posted on Thursday and more than 1,7000 responses, mostly from women complimenting one another in a bid to poke fun at Lewis’ insulting message.

“I’m Lewis and I get mad at women being nice to each other,” teased one user, whose tweet racked up a staggering 44,000 likes.

She was met with a flood of commenters complimenting her on the lip gloss she is pictured wearing in her profile image: “Ya lipgloss is poppin sis,” one wrote in a tweet which has since gained nearly 25,000 likes.

“Girl your skin care routine needs to be dropped bc you’re glowing,” quipped another.

From thenceforth, the floodgates of compliments opened, with thousands of Twitter users - who presumably have never met in real life - writing praiseworthy comments to one another and asking about each other’s beauty regimes.

“Both of you have amazing brows,” one person responded to two users in the thread.

“Oh man, you in your cover photo makes me swoon. That is such a beautiful colour on you,” added another.

Thousands of responses later, it transpired that Lewis’ original tweet had been completely forgotten, with the responses from women taking centre stage.

“Everyone commenting positivity in this thread is absolutely beautiful!” wrote one person.

“I think girls need MORE of that not less !!” added another.