Retroversy

I hate it when people are like “Just migrate from Twitter! It’s not that hard!”

Yes it is. It is hard. Asking people to “just migrate from Twitter” is like asking them to move to another country if a fascist wins the election. It completely ignores the reasons why people build communities, and are loyal to them. Of course you can still hang out with the people, read the news and talk about the subjects you used to find on Twitter on other sites, but you won’t ever find an “other site” that has that exact combination of stuff you used to have on Twitter. I don’t Twitter to go because I don’t want everything and everyone I have chosen over the years to be disseminated across dozens of different services. I want Twitter. My Twitter, exactly the way I built it to fit my tastes and needs.

As vile as social media, and especially Twitter, can be, the site has played a huge role into changing me from the resentful, emotionally immature, sheltered kid I used to be into the person I am now. It is because of Twitter that I have friends, that I have opinions, ideals and values. I have never followed that many people because I have massive trust issues and basically only follow people I believe to be kindred spirits, but I have always felt as if the people I did follow have done a pretty great job at curating my timeline. Twitter has taught me so much, from pointless trivia over political ideologies to important facts I would never have known about if I’d stuck to reading national newspapers.

It hasn’t all been great. I’ve gotten into petty arguments. I’ve hurt people. I’ve lost friends over trivialities. I’ve had bouts of depression brought forth entirely by doomscrolling. I’ve been far, far too frustrated about the fact that my social media experience has always looked more like lurking and talking to myself than like the idea Silicon Valley tries to sell you. Social media has never been particularly social for me. I’ve never felt the dopamine rush of “going viral” and rarely seen my creative output rewarded with enough “engagement” to boost my confidence. Heck, It’s probably been years since I last had a truly meaningful interaction on that damn site.

It’s not Twitter’s fault, though. It’s mine. The last decade on Twitter has felt like screaming against a wall while the world moves at a thousand miles per minute around you. Yet at least it’s a familiar wall. A single wall. My wall. When Twitter eventually dies, that one wall will be replaced by an entire mansion’s worth of walls. A single wall is an obstacle. Many walls, however, is a prison. I have struggled for a decade to build a community for myself. I don’t want to lose it.