The Great Twitter Exodus
One world collapses, does another one begin?
The memes, the jokes, the endless, and I mean endless, shit shows that Musk is throwing at Twitter are very funny. Nobody’s denying that. But the looming end of Twitter means something much more than just dunking on the richest man in the world, essentially to his face.
Much has been written about the utility of Twitter for journalism, and much will continue to be made about the precarious state of journalism in general. But as a journalism student looking to network, connect, and reach out to sources, Twitter is a valuable resource. And I’m not just saying that ‘cause I’ve been on the site since 2011 and have over 22k tweets to my name.
No, what Twitter has is a unique market. One carved out over the better part of the last two decades. The amount of effort and resources it takes to create a good tweet doesn’t match up to the effort it takes to create a good primary piece of content for other websites. TikToks? 15 minutes minimum to get a good angle, reading, and content. YouTube videos? Forget about it. Hours upon hours of writing, filming and editing. Instagram? Hope you like taking and posting beautiful photos on a regular basis. Facebook? See, unless you’re a scrappy upstart looking to start a genocide, you’re out of luck. Now repeat each process over and over until you build an audience. Feel exhausted yet? Yeah.
In short, Twitter is too crazy for boys town (Facebook), too much of a boy for crazy town (4chan).
The threshold to be a personality on Twitter is also much lower than other websites. This allows niches to be carved out and built if the quality of tweets is consistent. It’s how people like Chad Loder, Ken Klippenstein, and Jordan Uhl can make their presence on the platform felt. They aren’t just journalists or people who cover hate-movements (though they are very good at that work), they’re also personalities, and people we’ve come to know and love through consistent interaction. This funnels people to their coverage, more than it would if they were just a byline in a newspaper. Personalities, by the way, that you can interact with directly, without slipping into DMs, sending a friend request, or sending an unprompted email. This factor is also, unfortunately, one that leads people like Jackson Hinkle to have any sort of presence. I’m not under any illusions that this process isn’t value-neutral. Hate-mobs and fascists also thrive on Twitter, but let’s not pretend that’s a Twitter-exclusive problem.
If Twitter officially goes down, all these journalists (myself included) will have to self-promote and make connections elsewhere. This might happen, as Mastodon is once again touted as a sort of Hellsite legacy character, but a lot of people I’ve seen try it out have been disappointed with the interface, an overly complex start-up effort, and racism. The argument that a new competitor will come and fill the internet market also reeks of neoliberalism. I remember circa-2017, when the YouTube adpocalypse came around, there were endless discussions on reddit that basically ended up with someone taking the position that YouTube’s position as Internet-Video King was tenuous at best. The next best option would surely come along, compete them out of the market and provide a better service for all of us. Still waiting for that to happen.
This may not sound like a huge problem, networking sucks. Literally nobody likes it. But this factor allows good coverage on issues to come from unlikely places. Leftist coverage specifically thrives over the Twitterverse. Jeremy Appel’s coverage in The Orchard is largely supplanted by his Twitter following. Places like Passage and The Maple get a large amount of their readers from Twitter. Face it, you’re probably here cause of my Twitter. Admit it. Look at my eyes and admit it, you bastard. When are you going to tell the truth? You think I’m playing around here?! Where’s my wife you son of a bitch?!
Sorry, got a little too into it, but you get what I’m saying.
I sent out a poll asking my followers about whether or not they would subscribe to my future theoretical substack. It got 17 votes, which is actually pretty good for a small account like mine, and the majority said yes. I’m not sure whether this will be where I shift some posting energy, do some journalism, or conduct some interviews, but I do know this I’m going to migrate somewhere else to keep building an audience.
I don’t think Twitter’s actually going to disappear any time soon, but it’s absolutely sinking. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll stop posting when you peel the app from my cold, dead fingers, but its relevance is definitely shifting. Musk is destroying the app, whether intentionally or just by being the bad businessman we know him to be, so it’s not unreasonable to start building a life raft. Hopefully you join me.
Right after you tell me my wife’s safe you sick fuck-
Sorry.