And fuck the rebranding attempt. I’m a manchild and even I realize when something is too far. You wouldn’t even see ‘X.com’ in a schlocky movie like Ultraviolet. Anyway. While I’m shouting at clouds, fuck that detritus of a website. The absolute worst of social media’s impact on humanity, condensed into a comfortable, what? 280 characters? Or did it go back to 140? I freely admit I spend next to zero time on the website, and haven’t since 2016 (take a wild guess why Hint: it’s not exactly what you’re thinking.)
Have a thought? No need to expound on it, just shove it out there! No need to take a moment and think. More posts! More tweets, retweets and whatever other derivative of ‘tweet’ we can come up with!
Oh, and it’s popular. It’s truly the modern day town square, a place where with a simple signup and a few minutes of keyboard-work you can shout to literal hundreds of millions of people. Sure, most won’t even notice it and fewer will read it. That’s how it always is at first. But, build an audience, and eventually you can have scores of people looking at every half-thought you come up with!
And there’s no need for reciprocation, or any real connection. Just follow people! Maybe they’ll follow you back. Rarely, an actual discussion might happen–but no, that’s the minority of users. Most people just shout out into the abyss, and if someone shouts back at them, or about them, they’ll do the same!
I understand there is a precious minority of people that use Twitter for quick discussion, for getting a feel of ideas, or other generally-healthy reasons. I also understand that I’m no paragon of purity, toiling away as I shout my longer-but-woefully-tangential thoughts so Bobrov and Company can read them. But I’ll firmly plant my foot on the notion that Twitter, unless mindfully managed is a net negative for everyone using it–and I hate seeing it become too big to fail. It and Facebook really. We should all go back to MySpace. And don’t even get me started on what services like Discord have done to the very concept of having your own personal corner of the internet.
