It's the end of Twitter as we know it

and I feel fine

Four years ago, I deleted Facebook. Three years ago, I deleted Instagram. Two years ago, I deleted the Twitter app from my phone and after each subsequent log-off, I felt noticeably better. And so at this moment; at the end of Twitter as we know it, I feel fine.

But why? Why feel fine? I ask. Twitter was awesome, the defining space of our generation. Our lives on Twitter and “the grid” — that social media metaverse where we pruned our personas like bonsai trees — were something that our parents couldn’t have imagined. It was new and people like new when everybody is participating. But new can be exhausting; because eventually, it begins to feel old. (apologies for the tautologies)

When we first arrived, Twitter was a fun place. People were funny, smart and edgy. At some point, we stumbled across the rather obvious realization that we were the product and we’re not getting a dime for our time. That’s a fucked-up realization but probably even more fucked-up was our reaction: of course they’re selling our data but who honestly gives a shit? Twitter was fun, we ran a quick cost-benefit and decided we still loved the grid.

Yes, in the early years, Twitter was fun. Not MySpace-fun but better than Facebook. It was a joke we were all in on. Sure there were assholes but it was a party and any decent party has a few assholes to liven up the mood. When Twitter stumbled into the real-world, it was weird but it didn’t break anything.

The blue bird stopped being fun when we elected a Twitter president and when he used the platform to spur his followers into attempting to overthrow American democracy. And then it was very much not-fun.

January 6th, changed a lot of things — like 9/11, there’s an America before Jan 6th and an America after Jan 6th. And those two places look markedly different. I remember being outside the Capitol on that day and looking into the furious eyes of the people that Trump brought to Washington and realizing that the country wasn’t ever going to be the same. Something was irrevocably broken in America and, if we’re being honest, Twitter probably bore some responsibility in the wreckage.

Trump, of course, was thrown off Twitter following the insurrection. But the site still felt rotten, almost like a haunted place or the scene of a recent crime. If it had promised to make the world a better place (and social media’s implicit promise was precisely that it would make the world a better place), it had failed terrifically.

And now the Elon era. The richest man in the world bought a dumpster fire for $44 billion dollars and he wants us to pay him eight-dollars-a-month for a front row seat to watch it burn. Of course Elon doesn’t give a shit about “free speech” — he doesn’t even give a shit about earth. He regularly talks about humanity in the third-person, as if he weren’t a part of our species. Elon is going to Mars.

Or at least, he thought he was going to Mars. It turns out, no. He’s not going to Mars, at least not yet. He’s stuck on Earth and stuck with the rest of us that must live and die on this soon-to-be-climate-fucked planet. He might be the richest man on the whole planet but he’s still on the planet. In fact, let’s play pop psychology — maybe that’s really why Elon bought Twitter: because he couldn’t go to Mars.

We don’t know what Elon’s Twitter will look like. Maybe it will be hugely successful. Maybe everything will be beautiful and nothing will hurt. But I doubt it. And judging by the fleeing advertisers and general mood on Twitter-dot-com, everybody else doubts it too. Twitter in the opening days of the Elon era feels like a party that has clearly finished. We’ve drank up all the booze and the hostess is smoking a cigarette outside. And there’s nothing worse than staying too late at the party.

I had thought about giving it up entirely, deleting Twitter. I’ve deleted my account for months at a time before and found it’s wonderful. But Elon buying the site has offered me (as a soon-to-be-former blue check) one final bit of joy — the richest man in the world wants me to pay him eight dollars to retain an outdated status symbol. And I get to tell him lol no, fuck you and your dumpster fire.

And that feels better than fine. It feels pretty good.