Flown the Coop

Honestly you guys, I’m pissed that Twitter is falling to pieces faster than [insert whatever thing is worse here]. Out of all the social media platforms, it is by far my favorite in terms of ease of use.

I’m also not a sad, pissy Adorno marxist who believes that social media makes us stupid. Humans have always been stupid fools, with or without technology! I do believe they have the capacity to connect us in ways that enrich our lives, but I don’t buy into the techno-utopia either.

Yes, I spun up this blog because I think having a space to write longform is good, but I don’t have the time to write in-depth. I do enough of that at my day job.

Twitter’s perfect for screaming about skating or music or the countless things I am interested or despise. I have forged many friendships over the platform, and probably made just as many enemies (if not more).

Other platforms don’t do it in the same way that Twitter does it for me. Facebook? So great to know the boring people from high school are giant norms with children now. Instagram? Well, it was once a fun place to post a nice picture but now the only way to reach out to my friends are stories because it’s nothing but ads for bras and protein shakes. But I have one Reply Person who feels the urge to respond to every single one of my updates and I JUST DON’T CARE. I don’t use Tik Tok, because I’m not 14. Listservs? Ah yes, let’s travel back in time to a moment when I was 14 and older men used to creep on me but the admins would tell me “they had no control”. Mastodon? Because there’s nothing more annoying than a Wannabe Twitter where every smug academic shushes you about “performativity,” as if their whole careers aren’t built upon such a concept. And no, I don’t wanna subscribe to your fucking Substack.

It makes me mad and frustrated that despite ALLLLL we’ve been through, social media has not been recognized as mass communication tools that require regulatory oversight, like radio or television. I don’t know if that could have prevented the onslaught of Russian bots in the 2016 election or whatever, but it certainly would have maybe built in some accountability into the way these systems are designed and managed, in addition to making sure they weren’t acquired by billionaires, who treat them like baseball cards to be traded.

Who knows what will happen next, but I guess there’s here for now and I’ll ride these platforms out until they pull the actual plug.


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