What The Heck Is Going On With Twitter?

I’m old. My social media usage goes back to AOL (which was very much “social media”) in the mid-1990s. I’ve seen some spectacular failures. Did anyone else really, really try to commit to Google+? I did, and it was a disaster. It was just awful from start to finish. Nicole’s contact list is still messed up because of the poor implementation of “circles.”

Against all odds, this is worse.

Here’s where I’m coming from. I still have Facebook, although I don’t like it very much and use it to stay in touch with a small number of people and a music group and that’s about it. I have an Instagram for cat photos. I have a blog (duh), and I have a Tumblr as a backup for it. Mostly, though, I use Twitter. It works for me; it’s easy to curate, you get a good mix of people you care about, people with common interests, and some interesting celebrities.

Therefore, I take no joy in seeing the meltdown that’s happening before our eyes on the bird site. The site always had a conservative bent when it came to moderation deciding which randos would pop up in my feed, but it wasn’t egregious and I could usually curate my way around it. Now? The owner is playing footsie with some of the worst of the worst, issuing nonsensical threats against imagined enemies and making up new policies on a daily basis, and the policies seem to have more to do with protecting his ego than anything.

I can live with that up to a point. What concerns me is his deep, abiding desire to turn the site into something approaching YouTube Red but worse. The idea of paying to see “fewer” and “better” ads leaves me cold; if I were to pay, I wouldn’t want to see any ads and I can’t help but shudder at the thought of what he considers “better” ads. This is the sort of thing that tips the scale from “annoying but acceptable” to “unusable.”

Of course, “acceptable” has its limits as well. If his own statements are any guide, he’s an incredibly naive individual when it comes to power and influence. That sort of thing attracts Real Bad People. It reminds me of the Anna Nicole Smith show, a “reality” show about a very damaged but also very wealthy individual who was surrounded by awful people who were trying their best to take advantage of her and didn’t give a shit that it was all being televised. My point being: If Twitter becomes another FreeRepublic wannabe or a dumber Truth Social? Yeah, obviously that is not acceptable and I’m out.

He doesn’t understand free speech, he doesn’t understand government, he doesn’t understand his own verification system, and, lord almighty, he has absolutely no clue whatsoever about the business he just bought for $44,000,000,000, or, essentially the GDP of Bolivia. As my bestie is wont to say, “This will end well.” Note: He never has to label it “sarcasm” because the context makes it obvious. Yes, this is a “subtweet.”

Is there some master plan, some gazillion-dimensional chess going here? It doesn’t feel like, but I could be wrong. Honestly, I don’t care much one way or another. If I guy spends all his time saying things that make him seem like an ignorant ass, I’m perfectly happy to take what he’s saying at face value.

To that end, I went ahead and set up a Mastodon account. And by “set up,” I mean “dusted off an account I made five years ago when there was some other Twitter-related crisis, or so I assume.” It’s @MrRidleyKemp@mastodon.social . To be clear: I’m not leaving Twitter (yet) and I’m not at all convinced that Mastodon will scratch that itch even if I do.

Like many people I know, I both love and hate social media and I’m not certain it’s good for me. I miss the days of blogs, of RSS readers, and tighter communities. Just for grins, let’s rank the SM sites I’ve used:

1. LiveJournal – Easily my favorite. It encouraged long-form writing, close communities, but still had the ability to expose you to new people and things.
2. MySpace – I didn’t really use it to its full capabilities. Think “shinier, more customizable, and much more popular LiveJournal, albeit at the expense of the focus on long-form writing.”
3. Twitter – You have to work to be clever and/or interesting with the character limit. Good balance of friends and celebrities.
4. Instagram – With the caveat that 95% of the people who want to be my “friend” and sexbots (a phrase that sounds much cooler than it is), it’s pretty harmless and fun to scroll.
5. AOL – It was fun to hang with the nerds and second wave of early adopters. My people.
6. Friendster – It was OK.
7. Facebook – You know how MSWord used to be a way to type things into a document and eventually because this bloated mess of functionality that no one wanted and made it slow, so people stopped using it?
8. Every Google Attempt At A Social Network (Google+, Wave, Buzz, etc.) – They were extremely naive, didn’t understand the space, didn’t understand what made it work for people, and WERE SUPER-INSISTENT ON REAL-NAME VERIFICATION WHICH BREAKS THE WHOLE DAMN THING SO WHY BOTHER?

Edit: How could I forget Ello? Ello was the most aesthetically pleasing SM I’ve ever experienced. I wish I’d spent more time there. Maybe someday I will. I understand it’s still around. It would probably land somewhere in the 3-5 range.

Where were we? Oh, yeah, if Twitter implodes? I don’t know. I’m tired of Facebook. Instagram would be easy to live without. Is there anything on the horizon that’s actually worth making a move to? I haven’t seen it. This whole thing is just painful to watch and it’s weirdly tiring.