I had a tweet do numbers in August (by my standards, 20K likes) and I felt ... nothing. Not even horror and the white nationalists who show up on any tweet with any traction.
Well, my phone broke over the weekend and I can't get back in to the 2FA app I used for Twitter, and the idea of contacting support to get back into an account that objectively makes my life worse? I'm done.
It's not high minded principal. It's just not worth it any more.
This captures really well where I'm at. As recently as six months ago, abandoning Twitter as a full-time freelance journalist seemed like absolute folly, but now? It's minimally lost functionality, and the cost of being as invested in Twitter as I was for the last, oh, 15 years just doesn't make sense.
Twitter is not coming back...the trajectory was clear from the onset of Musk's acquisition.
The question that I have is why legacy media (NYT, WaPo, WSJ) continue not only to post on Twitter, but to run ads on the platform...while said platform and its owner are viciously attacking the ADL, and ramping up stochastic terrorism in the weeks preceding the Jewish high holidays.
What does this say about our "papers of record" and their role in our democracy when they are complicit in creating dangerous conditions?
“Likewise, keeping a dormant profile means I can continue to use third-party tools to reconstruct the list of people I used to follow on Twitter as they migrate to Bluesky and Mastodon.”
Could you point me to those third-party tools you mentioned? Thanks in advance!
I tapped out of my mostly anonymous twitter account recently. I used it for breaking news and to occasionally scream into the abyss. As a user who has no professional eggs in that basket there is nothing there anymore. That said, all of the other services don’t supply the news fix either. Threads is basically doing what they read in the “Nudge” book. Mastodon confuses people for reasons that are beyond me. Bluesky is all my cool friends talking about stuff.
"But at this point, staying on Twitter because there’s no replacement is a bit like saying “I still drive my old gas guzzler because I can’t afford a new car,” when the old gas guzzler is missing a tire and the steering wheel. …Dude, accept it. You just don’t have a car anymore." — Brilliant.
I wonder how Bluesky is. For now, (and it has been so for a while), my audience (by far not as large as yours) is mostly on LinkedIn, which is OK.
I followed you after the Bret Stephens incident, and never regretted it
I left Twitter last December when Musk feuded with journalists about the @elonjet hullabaloo.
I tried Post and Mastodon, but alas, it didn't click with me, so I am away from all social media at the moment, and I am much more relaxed.
I had a tweet do numbers in August (by my standards, 20K likes) and I felt ... nothing. Not even horror and the white nationalists who show up on any tweet with any traction.
Well, my phone broke over the weekend and I can't get back in to the 2FA app I used for Twitter, and the idea of contacting support to get back into an account that objectively makes my life worse? I'm done.
It's not high minded principal. It's just not worth it any more.
Cue Sheryl Crow singing "My Favorite Mistake".
This captures really well where I'm at. As recently as six months ago, abandoning Twitter as a full-time freelance journalist seemed like absolute folly, but now? It's minimally lost functionality, and the cost of being as invested in Twitter as I was for the last, oh, 15 years just doesn't make sense.
“It’s a lot harder to organize collective action when everyone isn’t in the same place anymore.”
Indeed, this is part of the non-financial objective driving the acquisition - and takedown - of Twitter.
Twitter is not coming back...the trajectory was clear from the onset of Musk's acquisition.
The question that I have is why legacy media (NYT, WaPo, WSJ) continue not only to post on Twitter, but to run ads on the platform...while said platform and its owner are viciously attacking the ADL, and ramping up stochastic terrorism in the weeks preceding the Jewish high holidays.
What does this say about our "papers of record" and their role in our democracy when they are complicit in creating dangerous conditions?
“Likewise, keeping a dormant profile means I can continue to use third-party tools to reconstruct the list of people I used to follow on Twitter as they migrate to Bluesky and Mastodon.”
Could you point me to those third-party tools you mentioned? Thanks in advance!
I tapped out of my mostly anonymous twitter account recently. I used it for breaking news and to occasionally scream into the abyss. As a user who has no professional eggs in that basket there is nothing there anymore. That said, all of the other services don’t supply the news fix either. Threads is basically doing what they read in the “Nudge” book. Mastodon confuses people for reasons that are beyond me. Bluesky is all my cool friends talking about stuff.
I would love to hop to Bluesky instead but still waiting for an invite. Are they at capacity or did they stop adding people?
I'm still aghast that someone can spend $44bn on something just to run it into the ground, and still have fanboys talking about how incredible he is.
What is your Mastodon ID? Or Threads, or Bluesky? Your substack bio, and anything I can google just point to your defunct X account...
"But at this point, staying on Twitter because there’s no replacement is a bit like saying “I still drive my old gas guzzler because I can’t afford a new car,” when the old gas guzzler is missing a tire and the steering wheel. …Dude, accept it. You just don’t have a car anymore." — Brilliant.
I wonder how Bluesky is. For now, (and it has been so for a while), my audience (by far not as large as yours) is mostly on LinkedIn, which is OK.