I’m straight edge. I don’t drink, smoke, or do drugs. When people learn this about me they always want to know why, and the main reason is because I have an addictive personality. My vice of choice for a long time was Twitter. I was a Twitter addict, a Twitter fiend, if you will. I was chronically online, often spending hours a day scrolling through the TL, looking at the latest viral tweet. And you know what? I had a damn good time. I know you’re probably thinking about how unhealthy it is to be on social media that often, and you’re probably right, but here’s the thing, as someone that’s quiet and reserved in real life, I’m also very very very opinionated. Twitter gave me a voice, a way for me to talk my shit in a place where others were forced to see. Without Twitter I don’t know if I would have been inspired enough to write my first novel (The Lover Boy, available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble), the novel that many are calling a “cult classic,” and “maybe the best book that I’ve read all day,” and “a very decent piece of literature.” But anyway, over the past couple of weeks I’ve seen my Twitter usage fall from around two hours a day on average to around 10 minutes a day. Tragic. I’m sure my loyal Twitter followers are deeply saddened by this news. I’m sure they will miss seeing all of the random, mundane, and sometimes mildly disturbing thoughts that come out of this demented brain of mine. If you want to blame someone, blame Elon Musk.
How did Twitter lose my devoted loyalty, you ask? Let’s start with the obvious, Twitter Blue. Trying to force people to pay to use Twitter is ridiculous. The whole point of Twitter is the fact that anyone could say anything. It’s as if all of humanity is in a big room together, shouting nonsense and having a good time. It’s free flowing, it’s creative, it’s unique, it’s a godless hellscape, it’s chaotic yet beautiful. Think about the coolest person you know, in real life or social media, do you think they would pay to use Twitter? The funniest and most clever Twitter users are not gonna pay for Twitter Blue, obviously. Twitter Blue just encourages and emphasizes the clout chasers that are willing to pay for Twitter and discourages the actual creative minds that really run the show. Using the analogy from earlier, it would be like all of humanity is together in a room, but only the ones that pay can get a microphone and be heard. The others just have to sit, watch, and get kicked out at a certain time. Which makes sense from a capitalistic perspective, I guess, but unrestricted access and a level playing field is literally the whole point of Twitter. If I wanted to feel excluded in that way I could just go to any social gathering. Twitter is the place where celebrities get mocked and the regular Joe can thrive. Twitter Blue is the antithesis to that.
The Twitter Blue thing was stupid and annoying, but honestly it didn’t take me long to get over that. The first real serious blow was the Tweet limit day. The day where Elon decided to implement a Tweet limit for the users. The most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. First of all, it was unclear. We were supposed to not be able to use the app after a certain number of tweets, okay I understand that, but does that mean scrolling past tweets, or actually clicking on tweets? It was never explained. The real dumb thing about it though, was that it forced us to see what life would be like without Twitter, and….it really wasn’t that bad. Okay, yes it was hard, yes I missed it, but I got through it just fine. I was always afraid to delete Twitter because I figured that I’d miss it too much, and that I’d be bored and lost without it, but no, I was fine. I never would’ve known that without the help of Elon’s own stupidity.
The real killshot though, was renaming Twitter to “X”. It’s ridiculous. The logo is so ugly it makes me not want to open the app at all. “Tweets” have been renamed to just generic “posts,” which I hate. Look, I’m a TWEETER, okay? If I wanted to make a post I’d just create a Facebook or whatever the old people are on nowadays. A generic “post” could never recapture the spirit of a “tweet.” A tweet is chic and contemporary. A post is something a well meaning mother does after taking an awkwardly framed picture of her kids. At this point it feels like a completely different app, which I guess I should be thankful for, because I don’t feel any attachment to it whatsoever. My addiction has been kicked to the curb. I may stop in for a few minutes every now and then just to see what the kids are going on about, but it doesn’t have the same hold on me that it once did. As someone who doesn’t have Facebook or TikTok, and only ever really cared for Twitter (I of course have Instagram but it just doesn’t hit like Twitter did) I feel kind of free now. I guess I have Elon to thank for that.
Twitter, you will be missed. It was a hell of a ride.
Just some guy on the internet 