Twitter squeezes the fame bell-curve. The genuine celebrity becomes more accessible and so loses some of his lustre. The day he fires back 5 or 6 ill-tempered words, to the lad on the dole from Walsall, is when he loses the ability to become famous in the way that Michael Jackson, JD Salinger, or Howard Hughes did.
The ordinary man in the street is robbed of his down-to-earth (and perhaps slightly gullible) good nature, plus his enthusiast's curiosity. He quickly becomes a foot-soldier, however minor, and so has a role to play in the big fight. He's now regularly bending the truth, ever so slightly, to help his side win arguments - something he never used to do with people in the real world. He'll cherry-pick statistics that seem to back him up, while pretending to himself that those other more-inconvenient bits of data don't really exist.
So the shooting star as well as the noble underdog become people you don't really need in your life. The raison d'etre of both men becomes a little less clear and, to some extent, they're now just two hairs in a gin.
I've recently posted an article on my own Substack channel, in which I discuss the need to turn our backs on the tittle-tattle and return to our old way of life. Any feedback appreciated.
Morgoth, I agree the twitter identity/spat of the moment cycle is tedious.
I'm still on twitter, and my engagement is so minimal I've always felt like an outsider on the inside. Most of my tweets barely even land, with consistently 0% engagement in most cases.
The occasional, pithy reply I put on someone else's post might get a like or two, but I generally consider myself out of the conversation and not very good at "the twitter game".
Twitter is a pretty cursed format, I only engaged with it initially to try & unsuccessfully promote a now long defunct conspiracy blog I poured a lot of energy into many years ago.
I've always preferred long form content, particularly the essay/article (as reflected in this rambling comment...) I'm so relieved that the blogging format is making a resurgence, your posts on substack are a particular highlight.
I well remember your 'Liberated from Twitter' piece, three or four years back. Your aquarium analysis is very apt. Or, as the Bard himself would doubtless have described a Twitter debate: 'Like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'.
I'm quite proud of myself since I did that video. I've had a couple of lapses, one when the Trump election was fortified and Jan 6th when I wanted a front seat at the chaos. Then recently before Christmas.
I'm not on Twitter, either. I was banned like 5 or 6 years ago for "misgendering" a troon. I have not wanted to return; it's a huge time-waster in my opinion and ultimately boring and pointless. I notice that a lot of people on the right unironically think using Twitter is "activism" and will simultaneously say that nothing on the internet is real and that Twitter is really important. I'm glad I'm not using it anymore
From my perspective as a non-Twitter user, I can see some parallels with the guppies in my fish tank. All male, all competing for a female that isn't there, and all gradually losing bits of their caudal fins ('tails' to the uninitiated) in the struggle for perceived dominance. To the onlooker it appears as chaos, much as any attempt to follow a Twitter 'conversation' involves a tangle of posts that takes far too much effort to place in order or keep up with.
I ditched it all in 2013 - Facebook, Twitter, the smartphone. I wasn't even political back then, I just realised that I didn't recognise my friends any more. When I explained this decision, and what I thought would come of the new technology, everyone said I was mad. In the end I was wrong - things turned out much, much worse than I thought they would.
Fully agree that Twitter is a cesspit. Its not the real world nor does it reflect how people think or talk in the real world. A Podcaster that I've recently started following named Restoring Order spends an inordinate amount of time discussing the minutiae of Twitter bans, TOS, and different online persona. It is boring beyond belief. In addition many of his discussions start referencing extremely niche concepts, and as you said unless one burns a large amount of time on Twitter none of it matters one bit.
FYI I also quit Facebook and Instagram a few years ago and am much happier for it. Both of them were total wastes of time. There was about a day or two of family members complaining about me deleting my accounts and then they began to (sometimes) text or call rather than PM me. Other than for a few extremely limited cases, I find social media to be a waste of time at best, and actively destructive at worst.
This line sums up perfectly why I stopped using twitter last year:
"There's a permanent atmosphere of expectation that something is about to happen, that the next Latest Thing is about to drop, which leaves people constantly on tenterhooks."
In its defence it was a useful resource during the Covid fascism. It helped me connect with people and information that I wouldn't have otherwise, and I genuinely think it made a difference in stopping the UK becoming another Canada/Australia as I've no doubt the deep state was monitoring sentiment there ahead of making certain decisions.
However as time went on and things died down there was a temptation to spend all night scrolling always waiting for the next big thing that was about to break. But after turning off you realise there is more to life than twitter and you've wasted hours doing nothing other than reading arguments between people that just go around in circles.
I now find less scrolling and more long form reading is a much better use of my time, and an hour of reading will teach me more than an evening on twitter ever will.
I'm thankful for twitter in many ways. I would not know so many wonderful people had I not joined back in 2015. I think that is why I kept going back after ever ban. That changed when I sat down one day after buying a another sim to put in the burner phone I bought and I thought what the hell am I doing. Slowly over the last few years I have met the strange @'s I knew on twitter irl and I expect this will continue. So even though it was an absolute cesspit, I am grateful for it
When you see a twatish comment on twitter, it is so hard to restrain oneself. I just have to reply, because I know it is the closest thing I can do to kicking them in the bollocks. A poor substitute for the real thing, but some poor bastard has to do it.
With regards to that amazing colourful map of the Twitter network, you'll notice the pink dot that's further south than anything else on there. I reckon it represents a 4am argument two people had about which of the four hobs on a stove it's most natural for a man to choose when warming up a tin of spaghetti hoops - and, of course, which hob-choice proves you are really a closet lib-tard.
I'm in the 'Social Media is cancer' group. I did use Twitter once, early on. It was a great way to communicate with editors and publishers, and it was useful for cross-promotion of and by authors. But it very quickly became cliquish and the ability to express complex ideas did not happen with only 128 characters. It was and is easy to misunderstand people with such length limits. Now Twitter is best used to spread rage and laughter....too much of the former and not enough of the latter. Being subject to the rules of social media is a horrible way to live and having your career be held hostage to your Twitter posts or 'likes' even is a dystopian nightmare. To quote from a computer movie from a simpler time: the only winning move is not to play.
Likewise, I deleted my Facebook profile and I think I'm left with just LinkedIn, for business reasons.
Honestly, any dank memes worth knowing (which is about the only thing left worth mentioning on Twitter) will eventually bubble up to the outside "world" (the wider internet, in this case)
Great essay Morgoth, may it spread. But perhaps, not virally....
How is this not just interactive television? One turns it on and gets sucked in, no different from the soap operas my sister watched in the 80s so feverishly. The discussions she had with her friends were meaningless to me as I neither knew no cared about the people and their made-up drama. I find Twitter exactly the same except you get to write back to the author and tell them what a moron they are, then engaging in the discourse as deeply as one chooses. For you, sir, yes, it's lost marketing, but you have some of the best word-of-mouth on the internet. For us midwit plebs, it's "Eastenders" played on a stage where they can hear us.
I think you'll do better work being off that god forsaken cess pit, which I amusingly refer to as "twatter" - because it's full of twats in case that wasn't obvious. I prefer the more thought out long form writings which one can find on Substack and blogs in general. P.s. I think I've posted this before, but I can't remember so I'll do it again - this blog is one worth a follow, and you might find some of the writings interesting: https://www.ecosophia.net/
I was chuffed you added me during the short time you were back on Twitter. That account is now permabanned so I’m also looking in from over the wall. My patter is similarly for pubs and factories so I was always breaking the TOS. Bunch of wet wipes on twitter anyway.
I share your feelings about twitter, honestly I hope you are right.
Twitter squeezes the fame bell-curve. The genuine celebrity becomes more accessible and so loses some of his lustre. The day he fires back 5 or 6 ill-tempered words, to the lad on the dole from Walsall, is when he loses the ability to become famous in the way that Michael Jackson, JD Salinger, or Howard Hughes did.
The ordinary man in the street is robbed of his down-to-earth (and perhaps slightly gullible) good nature, plus his enthusiast's curiosity. He quickly becomes a foot-soldier, however minor, and so has a role to play in the big fight. He's now regularly bending the truth, ever so slightly, to help his side win arguments - something he never used to do with people in the real world. He'll cherry-pick statistics that seem to back him up, while pretending to himself that those other more-inconvenient bits of data don't really exist.
So the shooting star as well as the noble underdog become people you don't really need in your life. The raison d'etre of both men becomes a little less clear and, to some extent, they're now just two hairs in a gin.
I've recently posted an article on my own Substack channel, in which I discuss the need to turn our backs on the tittle-tattle and return to our old way of life. Any feedback appreciated.
Morgoth, I agree the twitter identity/spat of the moment cycle is tedious.
I'm still on twitter, and my engagement is so minimal I've always felt like an outsider on the inside. Most of my tweets barely even land, with consistently 0% engagement in most cases.
The occasional, pithy reply I put on someone else's post might get a like or two, but I generally consider myself out of the conversation and not very good at "the twitter game".
Twitter is a pretty cursed format, I only engaged with it initially to try & unsuccessfully promote a now long defunct conspiracy blog I poured a lot of energy into many years ago.
I've always preferred long form content, particularly the essay/article (as reflected in this rambling comment...) I'm so relieved that the blogging format is making a resurgence, your posts on substack are a particular highlight.
I might do a parody of a twitter thread one day as a post haha
Absolute barbarism.
I well remember your 'Liberated from Twitter' piece, three or four years back. Your aquarium analysis is very apt. Or, as the Bard himself would doubtless have described a Twitter debate: 'Like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'.
I'm quite proud of myself since I did that video. I've had a couple of lapses, one when the Trump election was fortified and Jan 6th when I wanted a front seat at the chaos. Then recently before Christmas.
Except for that, I'm twitter free.
I'm not on Twitter, either. I was banned like 5 or 6 years ago for "misgendering" a troon. I have not wanted to return; it's a huge time-waster in my opinion and ultimately boring and pointless. I notice that a lot of people on the right unironically think using Twitter is "activism" and will simultaneously say that nothing on the internet is real and that Twitter is really important. I'm glad I'm not using it anymore
From my perspective as a non-Twitter user, I can see some parallels with the guppies in my fish tank. All male, all competing for a female that isn't there, and all gradually losing bits of their caudal fins ('tails' to the uninitiated) in the struggle for perceived dominance. To the onlooker it appears as chaos, much as any attempt to follow a Twitter 'conversation' involves a tangle of posts that takes far too much effort to place in order or keep up with.
I ditched it all in 2013 - Facebook, Twitter, the smartphone. I wasn't even political back then, I just realised that I didn't recognise my friends any more. When I explained this decision, and what I thought would come of the new technology, everyone said I was mad. In the end I was wrong - things turned out much, much worse than I thought they would.
Hello there and welcome. I've fallen in love with your videos.
Your video on ''The Science'' weighed heavily on my second post on Chernobyl. I can't record at the moment because of a cold, though.
I've never had twitter. I don't want an app that's going to constantly throw up new things for me to be angry about.
Plus I'd probably end up getting a visit from plod for sending rape threats to Gary Linieker or something
Fully agree that Twitter is a cesspit. Its not the real world nor does it reflect how people think or talk in the real world. A Podcaster that I've recently started following named Restoring Order spends an inordinate amount of time discussing the minutiae of Twitter bans, TOS, and different online persona. It is boring beyond belief. In addition many of his discussions start referencing extremely niche concepts, and as you said unless one burns a large amount of time on Twitter none of it matters one bit.
FYI I also quit Facebook and Instagram a few years ago and am much happier for it. Both of them were total wastes of time. There was about a day or two of family members complaining about me deleting my accounts and then they began to (sometimes) text or call rather than PM me. Other than for a few extremely limited cases, I find social media to be a waste of time at best, and actively destructive at worst.
This line sums up perfectly why I stopped using twitter last year:
"There's a permanent atmosphere of expectation that something is about to happen, that the next Latest Thing is about to drop, which leaves people constantly on tenterhooks."
In its defence it was a useful resource during the Covid fascism. It helped me connect with people and information that I wouldn't have otherwise, and I genuinely think it made a difference in stopping the UK becoming another Canada/Australia as I've no doubt the deep state was monitoring sentiment there ahead of making certain decisions.
However as time went on and things died down there was a temptation to spend all night scrolling always waiting for the next big thing that was about to break. But after turning off you realise there is more to life than twitter and you've wasted hours doing nothing other than reading arguments between people that just go around in circles.
I now find less scrolling and more long form reading is a much better use of my time, and an hour of reading will teach me more than an evening on twitter ever will.
I'm thankful for twitter in many ways. I would not know so many wonderful people had I not joined back in 2015. I think that is why I kept going back after ever ban. That changed when I sat down one day after buying a another sim to put in the burner phone I bought and I thought what the hell am I doing. Slowly over the last few years I have met the strange @'s I knew on twitter irl and I expect this will continue. So even though it was an absolute cesspit, I am grateful for it
You were always one of my highlights on Twitter, Smirkie.
We had fun. One day we'll go fishing and have pints :)
Aye
When you see a twatish comment on twitter, it is so hard to restrain oneself. I just have to reply, because I know it is the closest thing I can do to kicking them in the bollocks. A poor substitute for the real thing, but some poor bastard has to do it.
With regards to that amazing colourful map of the Twitter network, you'll notice the pink dot that's further south than anything else on there. I reckon it represents a 4am argument two people had about which of the four hobs on a stove it's most natural for a man to choose when warming up a tin of spaghetti hoops - and, of course, which hob-choice proves you are really a closet lib-tard.
I'm in the 'Social Media is cancer' group. I did use Twitter once, early on. It was a great way to communicate with editors and publishers, and it was useful for cross-promotion of and by authors. But it very quickly became cliquish and the ability to express complex ideas did not happen with only 128 characters. It was and is easy to misunderstand people with such length limits. Now Twitter is best used to spread rage and laughter....too much of the former and not enough of the latter. Being subject to the rules of social media is a horrible way to live and having your career be held hostage to your Twitter posts or 'likes' even is a dystopian nightmare. To quote from a computer movie from a simpler time: the only winning move is not to play.
Likewise, I deleted my Facebook profile and I think I'm left with just LinkedIn, for business reasons.
Honestly, any dank memes worth knowing (which is about the only thing left worth mentioning on Twitter) will eventually bubble up to the outside "world" (the wider internet, in this case)
Great essay Morgoth, may it spread. But perhaps, not virally....
How is this not just interactive television? One turns it on and gets sucked in, no different from the soap operas my sister watched in the 80s so feverishly. The discussions she had with her friends were meaningless to me as I neither knew no cared about the people and their made-up drama. I find Twitter exactly the same except you get to write back to the author and tell them what a moron they are, then engaging in the discourse as deeply as one chooses. For you, sir, yes, it's lost marketing, but you have some of the best word-of-mouth on the internet. For us midwit plebs, it's "Eastenders" played on a stage where they can hear us.
I think you'll do better work being off that god forsaken cess pit, which I amusingly refer to as "twatter" - because it's full of twats in case that wasn't obvious. I prefer the more thought out long form writings which one can find on Substack and blogs in general. P.s. I think I've posted this before, but I can't remember so I'll do it again - this blog is one worth a follow, and you might find some of the writings interesting: https://www.ecosophia.net/
I was chuffed you added me during the short time you were back on Twitter. That account is now permabanned so I’m also looking in from over the wall. My patter is similarly for pubs and factories so I was always breaking the TOS. Bunch of wet wipes on twitter anyway.
I share your feelings about twitter, honestly I hope you are right.