TWITTER IS A JOKE

And maybe that's okay

I love Twitter.

I’ve been a user since 2009.

Its brevity and never ending scroll were immediately addictive to me.

Its ownership of Vine (where I started my content creator career) and integration with it undoubtedly helped with people discovering my videos way back in 2013. In fact, it was through a Twitter DM that I got my first brand deal with Disney.

It was a lifeline throughout the pandemic. Providing links to important information.
For Politics and News, it has been the go to place for anything that is happening RIGHT… NOW.
For example, numerous times I’ve seen friends in California post about an earthquake within 60 seconds of it happening.

It felt like Twitter was important and integral to staying in the know and up to date on… well, anything.

I love Twitter.

So, watching it devolve into just yet another online message board cluttered with grade school crass humour unbecoming of what I felt Twitter was supposed to be has been rough.

To be clear, there are no ‘liberal tears’ here.
More like "holy shit, some of these people are dumb as mud… or robots… or dumb as mud robots” tears.
Actually, to be fully clear, there are no tears at all but lots of sighs.
Why?

I’m not sure Twitter was ever actually what I thought it was.

When we read that Trump’s tweets were to be regarded as official messages from the President of the United States, it made Twitter seem official.
But then regardless of what weird/libellous/criminal/dangerous shit Trump would post… nothing would happen. None of it was taken as seriously as it was supposed to be taken.

A lot of us wanted Twitter to be more than it really was or is.

It’s often been referred to as an ‘online global townhall’, and that, I agree, it is.
It really is.
No, seriously.
While the term ‘townhall’ might initially suggest seriousness and polite discussion with respect and decorum, all you have to do is attend a real life townhall and you’ll quickly be reminded that townhalls are also full of crazy people with crazy views saying crazy things.

“Why has the position of comptroller never been held by a dog?! Why??”

In that light, Twitter starts to make sense.
In a venue where people are invited to share their two cents… prepare to be pelted with coins and the occasional button.

Twitter might not be the problem.
I think we are.

Twitter has been whatever its users made it to be.
Now it is also whatever Elon Musk decides it to be and that’s… fine.
It’s his money to lose… and lose… and lose (it seems).

Twitter is a karaoke bar.
One of those karaoke bars where there’s a live band that kinda knows 400 songs but really only knows about 30.
We all pile into that bar and some nights the people on stage are amazing and other nights it’s a middle-aged man who really convinced himself he knew how to sing ‘Islands In the Stream’… both Dolly and Kenny’s parts… but he was wrong.
That’s not a personal story.

Okay, it is.

Twitter is now like a karaoke bar owned by someone who has decided to replace the 400 songs you can sing list with Limp Bizkit’s Nookie mainly because LOL.

However like a karaoke bar we can choose if we want to stick around to see if the people who get up to sing are any good tonight or we can check in occasionally or we can go somewhere else.

Twitter is a joke…
and maybe that’s okay.

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