I just finished composing a thread of tweets with some thoughts I wanted to share before Twitter disappears. Right now, it feels like the Wild West, and I really don’t want to stick around for that.
What follows is the thread of tweets that I wrote on Twitter (currently in draft). I’m putting it here just in case that any part of the thread is enough to get me kicked off if Twitter. I’ve already started the process of reaching out to friends and letting them know where else they can find me.
Here is the thread:
I have been awake for too many hours, and my chronic illnesses are causing pain. As a distraction, I’ll be posting random thoughts for a while … or until Twitter turns into a puff of smoke and floats into the ether.
News websites that have Twitter accounts should be required to make it clear if the article they tweeted is behind a paywall – or worse – fades away after the first paragraph. Not all of us can afford to buy every subscription – and important news should be free!
It is abundantly clear that Elon came here “to bury Twitter, not to praise it” (to paraphrase Shakespeare). I highly doubt he’s gonna be able to yolo his way out of this one!
I don’t have a link tree. It appears the site is overwhelmed right now – for some reason (sarcasm). So, if you want to find me outside of bird site, I recommend you send me a DM. If I know who you are, I’ll likely follow you on other socials. NOT doing Facebook, though!
In addition to Twitter, I’m on Tumblr, Instagram, and on Mastodon. I also have not one – but two – YouTube accounts. One is mostly for playlists. The other is mostly video games.
If I disappear shortly after posting this thread, it might be because the Shakespeare tweet made someone grumpy. Can’t imagine who that might be… I’m going to copy this thread to my website before posting it – for reasons.
When I first started using Twitter, it was back when we had 140 characters to work with. Wrote several haiku poems – which fit the character limit. Some were published in a limited run. You likely won’t find those books anywhere now (unless you already got one).
I’m Generation X, and have gotten really tired of watching interesting social media sites crash and burn. Starting over again is annoying and tedious. I think those in my generation would sum this up as: “Whatever.”
One thing I really like about Twitter is that it was easy to find my friends here, especially in the early days. Was following a whole lot of podcasters back then, after meeting them through NaPodPoMo. Good times!
One of the things I really hate about Twitter is that, in order to feel comfortable using this website, I needed to block a ton of “Ne’er-do-wells” in order to feel safe here. Was necessary, as stress makes some of my chronic illnesses worse.
If you are a friend and have questions for me, send it in a DM. I’ll try and answer it.
I’m already seeing tweets that point out some terrible humans that were suspended from Twitter – and who are now allowed back in. I’m not going to stick around for that hot mess.
In short, I don’t think Twitter is gonna last much longer. I’ll end this thread with a video that seems fitting the current situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdWGp3HQVjU
(It’s “Eve of Destruction (1965) by Barry McGuire). YouTube won’t let me embed it here.
Twitter’s Last Days? is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites.
If you enjoyed this blog post please consider supporting me on Ko-fi. Thank you!