Social Media Is Dead. Long Live Social Media.
As Musk Twitter begins, remember: The vibe on Twitter had already shifted. My Slate-pitch contrarian take about WHAT WILL HAPPEN NOW. (Hint: Maybe it won't all be bad?)
Happy Friday. If you’re not screensick, you may not want to read this. Go plan for your Halloween parties and your kids costumes. But for the rest of us, we can have a little bit of discourse as a treat. Or a trick.
Both.
So, everyone is freaking out, understandably, about the fact that a man whose thought-process boils down to “fuck it” now owns the most important cultural production platform on the planet. Twitter, it is being said, is about to be over.
My mom’s friends on Twitter — strangers she has met by being earnest online, and with whom she has actually formed real relationships in the DMs — DMed her overnight to share their phone numbers. They are leaving Twitter and want to stay in touch.
My boss and co-author tweeted asking where people will migrate to and the answers were revealing in how few there really were. Tumblr might come back, people predict. Or maybe Mastadon will finally take off. Or one of the new Blockchainy social media sites. Or my old boss Nick Thompson’s new alternative social platform thing.
A reporter I know (disclosure: and adore!) called me for a quote about whether “thought leaders should leave Twitter.” The short answer is no, but part of the long answer is: many already had.
(And the galaxy brain answer is: MAYBE WE ALL SHOULD LEAVE TWITTER AND EVERYWHERE ELSE ONLINE AND COMMUNICATE VIA CARRIER PIGEON THAT WE REVIVE USING CRISPR!!!!! Disclosure that my husband used to work for the wooly mammoth guy, but not on the wooly mammoth project.)
Some points to consider as we worry about what the future holds for Twitter and our online social media lives.
1. Twitter’s Many Quiet Quitters.
Many Twitter superusers — resistance fighters, blue-check influencers, media types, whatever — have being quietly quitting the site for months and maybe years. I definitely have been a stereotypical example of a certain kind of mid-level Twitter influencer over the years. And I can tell you: I and a lot of folks like me have been over Twitter for a while. Not just in a “this hellsite is hell” kind of way, but in a “I don’t even look at Twitter most days because my doctor said I need to lower the stress in my life” kind of way.
Twitter’s own internal research, which Reuters reported on earlier this week, shows that super users like myself have been way less active on the site over the past year or so.
My brother shared a tweet yesterday that I think is directly related to this point:
Since it’s hard to see in that embed, the tweet on the right is Twitter superuser and internet friend Farhad Manjoo asking why “Ben Dreyfuss and Matt Yglasias are 50%+” of his Twitter feed lately. The answer to Farhad’s question is, in my humble opinion, that Ben and Matt are some of the few Twitter superusers of that variety (read: media folks) who still use Twitter just as much as they always did. They rest of us have been getting quieter and quieter on the site for ages, so Farhad’s feed that once would have been filled with my inane thoughts along with Ben and Matt’s is now just…Ben and Matt.
(Something folks interested in building or keeping large platforms should bear in mind: if the chorus goes quiet, it’s easier for individual voices to be heard. If lots of folks continue to not use Twitter or to outright leave it, that’s an opportunity of sorts for those who remain.)
2. Entering the Social Fraying Era.
The Musk era heralds in a new stage for the internet, what I have been calling the “Post Awakening Internet,” as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the QAnon folks who think that once the powers that be are all redpilled and awakened to the realities they believe in the world will be awakened. Well, Musk is proudly redpilled. (My AP reporter friend reminded me today that in our book we cover the story of how Musk tweeted “Take the red pill” and Ivanka Trump quote tweeted, “Taken!”)
In fact, as soon as he took over the stewardship of Twitter Musk tweeted that he had let the bird free. Maybe a sink-like double entendre about giving the middle finger (flipping/freeing the bird) but a clear reference to the idea that he had unshackled Twitter from the politically correct moderator set he and his friends — Kanye West, for one — believe have been silencing the freedom of expression on the site. He got rid of much of the leadership, including Vijaya Gadde who was in charge of policy and moderation questions, so as with his sink stunt, Musk seems to have meant it pretty literally.
The post-awakening internet era will be chaos. It is already. But, despite the laws of entropy as I understand them, chaos eventually settles into a groove before disintegrating again. Particles explode from a massive black hole and form planets and stars and shit that then rotates on weird axises until ultimately dissembling into chaos again.
So, when the idiomatic dust settles, what will the contours of this new era actually be?
There was Web 1.0, Web 2.0, then the social media era. The social media era evolved from social networking (connecting people) to social broadcasting (turning all of us into journalists and content creators and clout chasers). Now we enter a new phase. Social fracturing? Social awakening? Social Decentralization? Fraying? The social fabric has been frayed for years, and now the social media fabric will, too. But you know what? If a scarf frays, you get a bunch of wool back with which you can make other things. Like, I don’t know, fingerless gloves or some shit.
3. BACK TO BLOGGGGGGGGS????????
The best case scenario if people really do stop using Twitter so much is that the Social Fraying Era heralds a return to the best parts of Web 2.0: THE BLOG ERA.
I mean, the newsletter trend was already bringing the blog back, and based on the chitter chatter on Twitter last night, it seems that many in the blue-check sphere of Twitter might take their thoughts over to a platform like this one. If people stop tweeting and start writing newsletter posts, well, a lot of shit would be better! To be totally frank! People would be forced, or have the chance, to write long, to get nuanced, to make their actual point rather than just share their most succinct bullet points, for one.
For another thing, the mainstream media is who gives Twitter the intense cultural cache and power it has. Twitter is the cauldron of culture and therefor the cauldron of our political world because it has for so long been the assignment editor of the mainstream media.
The reason media manipulators try to game the Twitter algorithm to get their hashtags and memes trending is not bc Twitter is so special or so great; it’s largely because of who is on the platform (the media and other cultural arbiters) and therefor who can amplify the ideas further. You trade a fringe idea up the chain into the mainstream media via the open internet — and Twitter is a key part of that. (Read The Media Manipulation Casebook, which I work on as part of my day job, to learn more about how this works.) So, if the blue-check mainstream media stopped paying as much attention to Twitter, stopped being on Twitter so much, it would quite literally stop being such an important platform. It would deconcentrate Twitter’s influence. (I am shocked Substack thinks deconcentrate is a word; if this newsletter had an editor I am sure they would make me change that to “dilute,” but lol, this is stream of consciousness thinking folks, so we don’t go back.)
4. Social Media NEVER Made Sense as a Business Model.
It’s relevant that the week Musk overpaid substantially to become the landlord to the world’s least profitable massive piece of real estate (the so-called global commons) was also the worst financial week for social media companies ever. Facebook is no longer one of the world’s top 5 most profitable companies. CNBC reported it now has a value lower than (GASP) Chevron. Facebook made money when it was allowed to sell our data to ad brokers with abandon, but once Apple made a little tweak and asked users if they WANT to OPT IN, the jig was up. (“There’s ads challenges especially coming from Apple,” Zuckerberg said on the earnings call this week. He has lost $100 billion in personal wealth in the last year.)
5. Protest, Punishment, Protection.
There’s three main reasons people are saying they will leave Twitter: The first is protest. Protest against Trump being replatformed — something Musk has said he would do — and Musk’s general stance toward speech moderation.
The second is punishment: Fuck Elon Musk, amiright????? Why give him the satisfaction of having another user on his site!
The third is fear. People already familiar with the harassment and hate that can follow from simply being a [insert non-White cis male identity category here] online are rightfully worried that Twitter will become even more toxic and dangerous for them now. As a form of preemptive self defense, it may make a lot of sense for some people to leave.
6. Celebrating on the Fringe
The far right is giddy with excitement that the media elite Twitterati will leave the platform. I know this mainly because of how many media elite blue-check types quote tweeted their glee with scorn. And how viral the jokes from the FREE SPEECH anti-democracy fringe are going. Case in point, a satirical tweet from author of The New Right, Michael Malice, which you should definitely not retweet if you’re worried about amplifying the fringe right:
DO NOT TRY IT. HE IS FUCKING WITH YOU LOL.
Also, I couldn’t help myself and checked in on the far-right communities I got to know well while writing Meme Wars, and wow, they are having a very happy day.
Musk speaks their language and, as the shitposter he has always been, tweeted:
(Please see the “Libs Can’t Meme” section of my book for context on that one.)
On the other hand, if the mainstream media Twitterati really left Twitter, there would be a hell of a lot less fodder for hate watching and cringe watching from the right, and it would be harder for them to get their idea trending in the mainstream, so, again, whatever your ideology, probably best to always be careful what you wish for.
7. Seeking a bright side.
Twitter killed blogs. With Google’s help when it killed Reader. Why blog when you could “microblog”? With microblogging we lost context and nuance, and gained “personal brands” that impacted everything from the kind of journalism that was produced to who wielded cultural and political power.
But man, imagine if people really did blog again? Imagine if Google, which also reported lower than expected earnings this week, decided to make a new product called, I don’t know, Google Reader or something, and it put all your newsletters and streamers and TikTokers into a single place you could navigate at your leisure?
If people actual leave Twitter — for protection, punishment, or protest - it will stop being the cauldron of culture. Some new place or format will become the terrain on which culture wars are won and lost, heroes and villains are forged, and anxieties and consensus emerge. Tiktok, newsletters, something else.
(But also, remember, most threats of mass migration are just that: threats. Probs we’ll all be fighting about this on Twitter in a few months.)
ARE YOU GOING TO LEAVE TWITTER?? DO YOU HAVE THOUGHTS ON ANYTHING AT ALL THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE? I WOULD LOVE TO READ THEM. SAVE ME FROM HAVING TO CLEAN MY HOUSE THIS WEEKEND. WOULD RATHER READ YOUR COMMENTS.
K LOVE YOU BYE!!!!
Deconcentrate is the right choice.
I’m probably not going to leave, though I hardly use it as it is. I love the idea of people making blogging explode again. Imagine what would happen to the average person’s attention span and empathy levels if nuance was not only available to them but PREFERRED. I sometimes think that long form prose as a format allows the reader to more easily distinguish quality writing (look! It has sources AND I’ve heard of them AND they’re reputable!) from someone just talking out of their butt and presenting their opinions as fact (hi 2whitemales podcasts) but who knows; maybe I’m the naivest of all.