MySQL: Large VARCHAR vs. TEXT?

I've got a messages table in MySQL which records messages between users. Apart from the typical ids and message types (all integer types) I need to save the actual message text as either `VARCHAR` or `TEXT`. I'm setting a front-end limit of 3000 characters which means the messages would never be inserted into the db as longer than this. Is there a rationale for going with either `VARCHAR(3000)` or `TEXT`? There's something about just writing `VARCHAR(3000)` that feels somewhat counter-intuitive. I've been through other similar posts on StackOverflow but would be good to get views specific to this type of common message storing.