Seeing Scott’s posts get retweeted into my non-sideways timeline years ago sent me into a corner of the internet that was... good. A respite from the hellscape that site can be.
1) It's an outlet for the inane, often cursed thoughts that I regularly have rattling on my brain and would have IRL friends wondering what the hell was wrong with me if I expressed them out loud.
2) The community and genuine friends I made along the way. There are a number of places I would not have gone to and awesome people I would not have met if not for twitter.
Before I signed up for twitter, I read somewhere that "Facebook makes you hate your family but Twitter makes you love strangers" and after 6 years or so I think that's right.
If it goes, I'll miss the real time element. Following a bunch of fun people and we all get to watch Alabama lose at the same time, then I get those same folks thoughts later on the red wave that wasn't. Twitter is for schadenfreude, I guess is what I'm saying?
Like you, I have had 3 major friendships come about specifically from Twitter. It's also truly nice to have a place on the internet where you're in charge of what you see and I feel no social pressure to follow people I "know".
Nov 9, 2022·edited Nov 9, 2022Liked by Scott Hines
I joined twitter in 9th Grade. It has been the place that I get way too much of my news since google reader went down. Its where I have laughed at jokes, and where I got updates in real time of where the bayou was flooding during Harvey. I am not a very social person on it, but it always has felt like a place I could read along and be on the outskirts of the communities because it allowed so much overlap of the areas of the internet in one place instead of being a niche blog/discord/forum.
Guess I didn't include my favorite moment: A writer who I enjoyed her writing had a song stuck in her head and could not figure it out based on the fragments she remembered. I had just been listening to that song and sent it to her and was right. Was just a fun moment of serendipity.
I am extremely introverted, but I think a large part of that is that I have so rarely met people IRL that really see the world the way that I do. I always thought I was kind of on my own and didn't fit in. On Twitter, I have come across so many people that share my values, empathy, and sense of humor that I no longer feel like a weirdo. It's like spending most of your life on a different wavelength and feeling discordant, only to suddenly harmonize with a bunch of likewise individuals.
I don't think I am alone in this. Twitter has allowed so many people to form communities that would have otherwise never come together. It has helped the disenfranchised and discriminated against build strength to resist.
I also love the way it is set up. You can consume it in snippets or huge chunks. You can chose your level of engagement (which helps when you are an introvert): you can meet IRL or stay anonymous depending on your comfort with "breaking the fourth wall". You can curate who is talking to you and shut down bad actors easliy. Most of all, it is words. You read it, so you get great word play, puns, and jokes that wouldn't work in a more video-centric medium. Reading is important for brain health and even though it isn't War and Peace, you are still engaging those centers of your brain. My sincere hope, like others, is that he will just lose interest and move on to his next hare-brained grift that will somehow still manage to make him infinitely richer despite being inherently stupid.
I might not have reconnected with the woman who is now my wife if I hadn't tweeted about a weird thing that happened on a flight I was on (and then wrote about it for my blog and appeared on national TV the next day). That's the biggest thing Twitter has done for me. I've also met many people online who have become offline friends, learned new perspectives about the world around me, and had a place to share my thoughts and feelings in good times and bad. I can do some of those things on Tumblr, or Facebook, or Instagram, but not all of them, and not in the same way.
That said, I did tell my doctor last week that for my mental health I could probably spend less time on Twitter. Maybe it would be better if the site went away and we found something else to do with our time.
Also, Scott: my wife would still like to hug your dogs for at least 27 minutes each.
This was a sweet post. I know, a somewhat strange descriptor for an article about Twitter. You almost made me sorry I missed the experience. I've only visited Twitter a few times, and when I first started on Substack I kept hitting the share button, but after a while I realized I have no presence there and no history and it wasn't really worth sharing my posts there, so I stopped. And while I can't relate to your feelings of loss over Twitter, my heart understands the ache that accompanies the end of something or someplace I've enjoyed. 💟
I got a lot of things I need to work through. Twitter has helped me do that lately, as well as acting as a place for me to try to be funny and grow my silly lil newsletter and meet some nice people, both in the confines of cyberspace and sometimes in person. if Elon Musk takes that away from me, I'm not gonna be happy to say the least.
I technically met my husband on a different, now defunct social media site (RIP Fancred) but Twitter was where we actually got to know eachother. So definitely him, yeah.
Nov 9, 2022·edited Nov 9, 2022Liked by Scott Hines
Twitter allowed me mostly to connect with one community, and leave when I needed space/time. I appreciate the few I still connect with from that community.
And it has allowed me to find another community that is vibrant and which I’m learning a lot from. Some of the younger members/leaders have very good/interesting thoughts that are making me think.
Maybe eventually I will re-connect with more from the first community. At the moment though I’m still finding my way in some areas and being very careful. Such that lists are a good method for observing while keeping a certain distance.
Andrew from Twitter: "We hear you. We're working on it."
I will say the Edsubbies (if you know you know) have done very well to keep community going when the infrastructure around them is crumbled to dust. We've done our darnedest to keep the community intact, but like you said, it morphs and adapts to the new walls that envelop it. Sometimes for the better (new content and different discussions, new members) and sometimes not (long lost members lose track of where the group migrates).
I left early because I hate endings. And it sucks, because I know I'm missing out. But even before Elawn, I was finding that I was being taxed more by it than it was bringing me joy, so I used this as an excuse to make a clean break.
But my goodness, I am part of a vibrant community of friends that I know really well and genuinely care about from Twitter and I will do my damndest to do the work. It won't always happen but we kept DUAN going after Kinja came for us all, we'll find a new home somewhere.
Let’s be honest, it’s this.
Seeing Scott’s posts get retweeted into my non-sideways timeline years ago sent me into a corner of the internet that was... good. A respite from the hellscape that site can be.
Also, Hockey Twitter can be a fun place too.
I'll share two things:
1) It's an outlet for the inane, often cursed thoughts that I regularly have rattling on my brain and would have IRL friends wondering what the hell was wrong with me if I expressed them out loud.
2) The community and genuine friends I made along the way. There are a number of places I would not have gone to and awesome people I would not have met if not for twitter.
Before I signed up for twitter, I read somewhere that "Facebook makes you hate your family but Twitter makes you love strangers" and after 6 years or so I think that's right.
I met my wife on twitter lol
If it goes, I'll miss the real time element. Following a bunch of fun people and we all get to watch Alabama lose at the same time, then I get those same folks thoughts later on the red wave that wasn't. Twitter is for schadenfreude, I guess is what I'm saying?
Like you, I have had 3 major friendships come about specifically from Twitter. It's also truly nice to have a place on the internet where you're in charge of what you see and I feel no social pressure to follow people I "know".
I joined twitter in 9th Grade. It has been the place that I get way too much of my news since google reader went down. Its where I have laughed at jokes, and where I got updates in real time of where the bayou was flooding during Harvey. I am not a very social person on it, but it always has felt like a place I could read along and be on the outskirts of the communities because it allowed so much overlap of the areas of the internet in one place instead of being a niche blog/discord/forum.
Guess I didn't include my favorite moment: A writer who I enjoyed her writing had a song stuck in her head and could not figure it out based on the fragments she remembered. I had just been listening to that song and sent it to her and was right. Was just a fun moment of serendipity.
I am extremely introverted, but I think a large part of that is that I have so rarely met people IRL that really see the world the way that I do. I always thought I was kind of on my own and didn't fit in. On Twitter, I have come across so many people that share my values, empathy, and sense of humor that I no longer feel like a weirdo. It's like spending most of your life on a different wavelength and feeling discordant, only to suddenly harmonize with a bunch of likewise individuals.
I don't think I am alone in this. Twitter has allowed so many people to form communities that would have otherwise never come together. It has helped the disenfranchised and discriminated against build strength to resist.
I also love the way it is set up. You can consume it in snippets or huge chunks. You can chose your level of engagement (which helps when you are an introvert): you can meet IRL or stay anonymous depending on your comfort with "breaking the fourth wall". You can curate who is talking to you and shut down bad actors easliy. Most of all, it is words. You read it, so you get great word play, puns, and jokes that wouldn't work in a more video-centric medium. Reading is important for brain health and even though it isn't War and Peace, you are still engaging those centers of your brain. My sincere hope, like others, is that he will just lose interest and move on to his next hare-brained grift that will somehow still manage to make him infinitely richer despite being inherently stupid.
I might not have reconnected with the woman who is now my wife if I hadn't tweeted about a weird thing that happened on a flight I was on (and then wrote about it for my blog and appeared on national TV the next day). That's the biggest thing Twitter has done for me. I've also met many people online who have become offline friends, learned new perspectives about the world around me, and had a place to share my thoughts and feelings in good times and bad. I can do some of those things on Tumblr, or Facebook, or Instagram, but not all of them, and not in the same way.
That said, I did tell my doctor last week that for my mental health I could probably spend less time on Twitter. Maybe it would be better if the site went away and we found something else to do with our time.
Also, Scott: my wife would still like to hug your dogs for at least 27 minutes each.
8 years ago I tweeted excited in all caps about LeBron coming home to Cleveland and got a new good friend out of it that I DM with almost everyday.
This was a sweet post. I know, a somewhat strange descriptor for an article about Twitter. You almost made me sorry I missed the experience. I've only visited Twitter a few times, and when I first started on Substack I kept hitting the share button, but after a while I realized I have no presence there and no history and it wasn't really worth sharing my posts there, so I stopped. And while I can't relate to your feelings of loss over Twitter, my heart understands the ache that accompanies the end of something or someplace I've enjoyed. 💟
I got a lot of things I need to work through. Twitter has helped me do that lately, as well as acting as a place for me to try to be funny and grow my silly lil newsletter and meet some nice people, both in the confines of cyberspace and sometimes in person. if Elon Musk takes that away from me, I'm not gonna be happy to say the least.
I technically met my husband on a different, now defunct social media site (RIP Fancred) but Twitter was where we actually got to know eachother. So definitely him, yeah.
Twitter allowed me mostly to connect with one community, and leave when I needed space/time. I appreciate the few I still connect with from that community.
And it has allowed me to find another community that is vibrant and which I’m learning a lot from. Some of the younger members/leaders have very good/interesting thoughts that are making me think.
Maybe eventually I will re-connect with more from the first community. At the moment though I’m still finding my way in some areas and being very careful. Such that lists are a good method for observing while keeping a certain distance.
Andrew from Twitter: "We hear you. We're working on it."
I will say the Edsubbies (if you know you know) have done very well to keep community going when the infrastructure around them is crumbled to dust. We've done our darnedest to keep the community intact, but like you said, it morphs and adapts to the new walls that envelop it. Sometimes for the better (new content and different discussions, new members) and sometimes not (long lost members lose track of where the group migrates).
I left early because I hate endings. And it sucks, because I know I'm missing out. But even before Elawn, I was finding that I was being taxed more by it than it was bringing me joy, so I used this as an excuse to make a clean break.
But my goodness, I am part of a vibrant community of friends that I know really well and genuinely care about from Twitter and I will do my damndest to do the work. It won't always happen but we kept DUAN going after Kinja came for us all, we'll find a new home somewhere.