The Walking Dead: Twitter

I joined Twitter in 2007. I had my share of concerns and complaints about it, but unlike some other social media websites, Twitter appeared to at least try and do better. Even those anemic attempts at stopping dis/misinformation and suspending a few literal Nazis seemed like huge steps in the right direction. Twitter internal culture had all signs of moving in the right direction as well. And then Elon Musk happened. And it all disappeared in just a couple of weeks.

Elon Musk is an entirely mediocre technocrat, who was born into bloody emerald mining wealth, lied his way through life, got lucky by coming across more money, and bullied and lied some more to hoard filthy, inappropriately, incomprehensibly huge wealth. He’s emotionally inept, unintelligent, and thin-skinned. Combining virtually unlimited wealth with personal qualities of a technologically inclined cross between a troll and a gopnik, we get a new CEO and owner of Twitter.

In just a few weeks, this troll managed to destroy however little good will Twitter had, and level Twitter’s hard-earned reputation as a place where right decisions are made slightly more often than elsewhere. He managed to turn Twitter into a cesspool: it’s nazi and white supremacist sympathizers’, far-right conspiracy theorists’, and various cults’ free-for-all.

The bad news is there’s no coming back from this for Twitter: Twitter as we knew it for almost two decades is gone forever. A petty billionaire took it over and turned it into another parler, gab, or truth social with 4chan flair. It’s over, done. Twitter is no more, even though the website is still chugging along.

The good news it that Musk’s erratic, uninspired, directionless convulsions as Twitter’s head showed once again (and to a much broader audience) how utterly average he is in his abilities, how salty and vengeful he is, and how no amount of money can prevent a person form making truly dumb decisions. As it turns out, money doesn’t make you smart, and a rich person could very well be an idiot. Wealth doesn’t indicate intellect, and intellect doesn’t necessarily result in wealth.

I’d left Twitter once in 2019 and spent most of that year on Mastodon. I ran my single-user instance, made a couple of friends, and overall enjoyed the experience. Still, old habits die hard, and I slipped back to Twitter as my default social media.

This time, it’s final. I’ve deleted all my twits, deactivated my account, and moved to Lounge Town, a public Mastodon instance I now run.

While I do plan to reactivate my twitter account later, lock it, and park it to announce where to find me now (in too many places I’ve used links to my twitter over the years), I have no plans of ever logging back in. To me, Twitter is truly, finally, and irreversibly dead.

For those of you who want to keep in touch, feel free to join Lounge Town, subscribe to RSS or my newsletter (still dormant), or email me if needed.