This is really well done. I'm glad to see you discuss the anti-capitalist embrace of Twitter. They were such enthusiastic early adopters of Twitter, and it makes me wonder how much of the move online degraded and defanged the movement.
Great micro history of Twitter. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and will keep it around as reference. I'd like you hear about your experience and thoughts regarding Bluesky and how it never really emerged as a public square in the way people hoped it would.
Thank you! This post actually started out as a couple of paragraphs worth of preamble to an article about Bluesky and just snowballed from there. I'll try and work up that latter piece on BS a little later on. I'll also think about your point about why it didn't seem to take off.
I don’t think an online public square will ever be a viable reality. Even at its heights twitter was less a public square and more an online version of legacy media where journalists could “let loose” and cancel people who stepped out of line. I don’t think anyone ever used it with their real name unless they were trying to sell something/build a brand.
Yes, actually agree. I was using public square as a lazy short hand. Though later twitter was much less about the legacy journalists and more about the posters who were good at twitter.
Maybe Twitter was more of a complex city with different plazas, commercial areas, places where people with mental illness congregated etc. There was a certain amount of serendipity to twitter. It was like Rao's soup analogy.
I think for me, I was sad that Bluesky never developed multiple layers or back alleys. It lacks the Jane Jacobs/Sennett disorder and chaos that makes cities interesting and always felt like too much like a top down, overly ordered project. A sort of religious commune or utopian project that never had enough variety to keep the system healthy.
Your concluding paragraph about networks makes a lot of sense. In those cancellation years you describe I seem to recall people being called out simply for liking a comment posted by someone outside their approved networks. The liked comment itself didn't need to be incendiary if the poster was "not one of us." Not enjoying a lot about the new X but I do think it was a good move to make likes private.
I remember before Cathy Young went fanatic, she published a very interesting piece on twitter where she disclosed many gender critical accounts were suspended not for actually disrespecting the rules, but as prevention. Because we're posting accurate info that harmed gender ideology views. I was one of those accounts. I got a permanent ban AFTER Musk bought it, right after I criticised the Surrey police, lol.
That's why, when wokists whine twitter became very violent after Musk, I get quite upset. Where were they when trans activists were describing how to k^&l Rowling? And, yet, I kinda miss that much more glamorous and witty twitter.
I was reminded at the end of all the people I see posting on X who embed their Bluesky handles in their usernames, presumably to indicate they'd rather be on there, even as they reluctantly tarry with the rest of us.
It's funny how twitter was always able to instil a sense of FOMO in people trying to leave. Eventually for me, twitter did get bad enough that it was easy to leave, but I do miss the energy of mid-late 2010s twitter. It does make me a bit sad that nothing will take it's place.
While I agree with you that a lot of people left because of Musk in particular, his changes also made the platform worse from a usability standpoint. The big one is suppressing outside links. That made the site more internal rather than a connector.
The algo was also heavily changed to promote the bigger accounts. So I hardly see any of my actual mutual followers anymore, and they don't see me either. That hollows out the site and people simply stop using it.
For example, you and I actually follow each other (I just checked), but I haven't seen your Tweets in my feed in who knows how long. I was like, "Oh, ya, this guy!" Because of this, a lot of accounts simply walked away and haven't logged back on in years. It's a digital graveyard.
Yeah, I had a paragraph about link suppression that I eventually cut and pasted into my other essay.
On the suppression of the follow relationship: that's exceptionally important, and only partially something one can remedy by using the "following" tab and muting/blocking accounts you don't want to see keep coming up on "for you." It's something that has also happened recently to Facebook, of course.
Yes, it seems like a lot of old traditional social media sites are going to a linkless feature to keep everyone in the ecosystem. The video and photo versions (Instagram and TikTok) never even really had good link sharing, so they probably don't feel different anyway. But really hurts the town square aspect that we used to have.
I just came across this article thanks to Freddie DeBoer. Wonderful work! This is the best description of the Twitter Era I've read. For me personally, the late 2010s/early 2020s was the most unpleasant political era of my lifetime. I have a stronger visceral reaction to it than anything else I've lived through.
Yes, the thing about “problematic affiliations” is that we all have them. You can’t let yourself be imprisoned by other people’s expectations in that way, although the affordances of social media (total transparency) do encourage that way of thinking.
Trying to solve an ethical dilemma that relates to this as we speak. The cost of living according to principles, vs the cost of being perceived to be in a basket of deplorables. Neither toll seems fair or just, but I guess at some point we all have to choose. Maybe leaving the network is the correct path.
This is really well done. I'm glad to see you discuss the anti-capitalist embrace of Twitter. They were such enthusiastic early adopters of Twitter, and it makes me wonder how much of the move online degraded and defanged the movement.
Great micro history of Twitter. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and will keep it around as reference. I'd like you hear about your experience and thoughts regarding Bluesky and how it never really emerged as a public square in the way people hoped it would.
Thank you! This post actually started out as a couple of paragraphs worth of preamble to an article about Bluesky and just snowballed from there. I'll try and work up that latter piece on BS a little later on. I'll also think about your point about why it didn't seem to take off.
I don’t think an online public square will ever be a viable reality. Even at its heights twitter was less a public square and more an online version of legacy media where journalists could “let loose” and cancel people who stepped out of line. I don’t think anyone ever used it with their real name unless they were trying to sell something/build a brand.
Yes, actually agree. I was using public square as a lazy short hand. Though later twitter was much less about the legacy journalists and more about the posters who were good at twitter.
Maybe Twitter was more of a complex city with different plazas, commercial areas, places where people with mental illness congregated etc. There was a certain amount of serendipity to twitter. It was like Rao's soup analogy.
I think for me, I was sad that Bluesky never developed multiple layers or back alleys. It lacks the Jane Jacobs/Sennett disorder and chaos that makes cities interesting and always felt like too much like a top down, overly ordered project. A sort of religious commune or utopian project that never had enough variety to keep the system healthy.
Loved this history. For me, the answer to the headline question is: a machine producing steroids for the ego.
Your concluding paragraph about networks makes a lot of sense. In those cancellation years you describe I seem to recall people being called out simply for liking a comment posted by someone outside their approved networks. The liked comment itself didn't need to be incendiary if the poster was "not one of us." Not enjoying a lot about the new X but I do think it was a good move to make likes private.
I remember before Cathy Young went fanatic, she published a very interesting piece on twitter where she disclosed many gender critical accounts were suspended not for actually disrespecting the rules, but as prevention. Because we're posting accurate info that harmed gender ideology views. I was one of those accounts. I got a permanent ban AFTER Musk bought it, right after I criticised the Surrey police, lol.
That's why, when wokists whine twitter became very violent after Musk, I get quite upset. Where were they when trans activists were describing how to k^&l Rowling? And, yet, I kinda miss that much more glamorous and witty twitter.
I was reminded at the end of all the people I see posting on X who embed their Bluesky handles in their usernames, presumably to indicate they'd rather be on there, even as they reluctantly tarry with the rest of us.
It's funny how twitter was always able to instil a sense of FOMO in people trying to leave. Eventually for me, twitter did get bad enough that it was easy to leave, but I do miss the energy of mid-late 2010s twitter. It does make me a bit sad that nothing will take it's place.
While I agree with you that a lot of people left because of Musk in particular, his changes also made the platform worse from a usability standpoint. The big one is suppressing outside links. That made the site more internal rather than a connector.
The algo was also heavily changed to promote the bigger accounts. So I hardly see any of my actual mutual followers anymore, and they don't see me either. That hollows out the site and people simply stop using it.
For example, you and I actually follow each other (I just checked), but I haven't seen your Tweets in my feed in who knows how long. I was like, "Oh, ya, this guy!" Because of this, a lot of accounts simply walked away and haven't logged back on in years. It's a digital graveyard.
I guess in the end, perhaps that's a good thing. It motivated me to start up over here. Perhaps that's the case for you, too. https://www.collegetowns.org/p/finally-admitting-twitter-is-dead
Yeah, I had a paragraph about link suppression that I eventually cut and pasted into my other essay.
On the suppression of the follow relationship: that's exceptionally important, and only partially something one can remedy by using the "following" tab and muting/blocking accounts you don't want to see keep coming up on "for you." It's something that has also happened recently to Facebook, of course.
Yes, it seems like a lot of old traditional social media sites are going to a linkless feature to keep everyone in the ecosystem. The video and photo versions (Instagram and TikTok) never even really had good link sharing, so they probably don't feel different anyway. But really hurts the town square aspect that we used to have.
I just came across this article thanks to Freddie DeBoer. Wonderful work! This is the best description of the Twitter Era I've read. For me personally, the late 2010s/early 2020s was the most unpleasant political era of my lifetime. I have a stronger visceral reaction to it than anything else I've lived through.
Great analysis, this helped me work through a few remaining fears / concerns about my own underlying connections to "problematic" accounts.
Yes, the thing about “problematic affiliations” is that we all have them. You can’t let yourself be imprisoned by other people’s expectations in that way, although the affordances of social media (total transparency) do encourage that way of thinking.
Trying to solve an ethical dilemma that relates to this as we speak. The cost of living according to principles, vs the cost of being perceived to be in a basket of deplorables. Neither toll seems fair or just, but I guess at some point we all have to choose. Maybe leaving the network is the correct path.