Mourning My Beloved Twitter
Hello! We arrived back from Scotland last evening. Oh my goodness we loved our visit so much. We spent time in Edinburgh on the East Coast and Isle of Skye on the West Coast and loved getting to see the countryside as we drove back and forth. I just finished posting about the trip on Instagram Stories — see the highlights called Scotland and Scotland 2 for a report on the whole adventure. The highlands are spectacular, the city is magical. I could have happily spent many more days in Scotland.
But what’s really on mind? Twitter.
Are These The Last Days of Twitter?
I can’t even describe how sad I am about Twitter.
I know it might not make sense. I know so many people hate Twitter and find it absolutely unusable. But for quite a few years now, it has been such a helpful, wonderful place in my life.
I’ve learned a ton on Twitter. Everyday I am exposed to viewpoints and communities I had never considered before. As a distinct example, I remember happening upon #adopteetwitter a couple of years ago and it blew my mind and shifted my whole perspective.
I am always amazed when a big news story breaks and I come to it with my own assumptions and opinions, and then I get on Twitter and see dozens of different takes in response to the news. And almost always I realize the story is more complex than I understood at the beginning and that I need to adjust my assumptions.
Every time I’ve checked in on Twitter — even on bummer days — I find something that makes me laugh. The smartest, funniest people are just out there making free content on Twitter every day and I love them for it.
Twitter is always where news breaks first. When I’m regularly using Twitter, I feel like I am in the know on what’s happening in the world — both serious things and silly things. I really like the feeling of being in the know.
Sometimes the stand-out tweets I’m seeing are from people who I am officially following, but more often they are from strangers-to-me who are retweeted into my timeline. Just today I read this thread about “church for men” from someone named Laura Robinson, and this thread about teaching covid pathology from someone named kali49. I don’t know either of these people and it is almost impossible for me to fathom encountering their writings outside of Twitter.
It’s the easiest of the platforms to show support or spread a message. You can retweet a message with one button and instantly amplify a message.
There’s a “Share to Instagram Stories” feature that I found incredibly useful. I ended up creating a whole Instagram account just to share tweets I’ve found, tweets that I think my Instagram community might appreciate.
If I want to debate or discuss something on Twitter, I can use a laptop instead of my phone which makes typing out thoughtful responses a thousand times easier. Twitter makes replies and conversations easy to follow, and it’s all searchable (it’s basically the opposite of trying to have a public conversation on Instagram, which I find really difficult and quite maddening).
My writing has been seen around the world and shared to a much more diverse audience than I can access anywhere else. Twitter has allowed me the chance to defend and clarify my ideas and really test them in a very public way that has built my confidence.
Fun fact: The last acknowledgement in my new book was to Twitter.
And at the moment I’m typing this, all of these good things about Twitter still exist! But it also seems more and more likely that the whole thing can and will implode any day now. I was reading about something called the Trust Thermocline (in yet another Twitter thread), and it painted a picture of how and why the user base could evaporate really quickly.
In these possibly final days of Twitter, seemingly the whole site has come together to mock the new CEO Elon Musk, and at least that is making these last Twitter moments highly enjoyable. Currently about 70% of the tweets I’m seeing are like this:
It’s an in-between feeling. I’m definitely sad — I’m experiencing some type of mourning, and I’ve even shed a tear or two over what is happening. But at the same time, my day-to-day use of the site hasn’t really changed yet. I have a feeling that if it happens, it will happen all at once. That I’ll open the app one day, and scroll for a bit, find nothing of value, and close it again forever.
There’s a lot of talk on Twitter about moving to Mastadon. I haven’t tried it yet. I’m open to it, but I’m also tired. Instead of developing another presence on yet another platform — Tiktok or Mastadon or something that hasn’t been invented yet — my instinct is to keep using Instagram, and focus my energies on this newsletter and on my blog. But who knows, maybe I’ll try Mastadon out. Because if/when Twitter is gone, I’m really going to miss so many of the voices I’ve encountered there.
I don’t know what the replacement platform should look like, but I do think the world needs a public square.
Please Vote!!
Hey! Also! Don’t forget to vote! Tomorrow is the big day. Make a plan right now so that it will be much easier tomorrow to make sure you get to the polls.
For those who are curious, I vote in California (Alameda County) with an overseas ballot. I have the option of faxing my vote or mailing my vote. I can’t seem to figure out an easy way to fax things, so I mail my ballot.
Remember: there are so many people who want real progress! If we get out and vote, we can achieve actual progress. We’ve seen it happen! It’s real.
That’s all for now. Feel free to comment on anything I mentioned above, or whatever’s on your mind. I hope you’re having a beautiful November.
kisses,
Gabrielle
P.S. — I have some fun Ejaculate Responsibly updates! I’ll send another newsletter soon.
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I am enjoying Mastadon. It feels like the early days when people were just interested in chatting with others. I also like that you can block entire servers if need be.
After months of hemming and days of hawing (ie weeding my follows down yo the essentials to determine if staying was worth it), and then finally thirty seconds of deliberation and mental cataloging of the other places I could access all my favorite follows, I deleted the app from my phone this morning after EM told everyone to vote Republican. Funny what finally does it. I didn’t deactivate my account yet, but I might as well have since I only Twitter on my phone.