Site of the Impact
Watching a friend or coworker out themselves as a Republican voter is jarring and upsetting and alarming: somewhere between watching a man open his trench coat to reveal a bomb strapped to his chest, and watching a man open his trench coat to reveal his naked body beneath.
(There is no good ending when a dude opens his trench coat in broad daylight. There is no good surprise waiting when a coworker says that he's “concerned about all this 'woke' nowadays.”)
I liked Twitter. I've moved to Mastodon and Bluesky where it's uncool to say so but fuck it: Twitter was fun as fuck. I liked the algorithm and the shared jokes and content. I miss the virality and the idea of a “person of the day” when some post or quote or trend blew up. I miss those volatile interactions between wildly different communities.
I miss Black Twitter. I miss Kente cloth hats and red eyes and Dr. Umar clips and how everyone agrees that Piccolo is black. I miss “Damn Bitch, You Live Like This?” and “Supa Hot Fire” and “When do we get our superpowers?”
I don't miss the big numbers or celebs or The Breakfast Club. Fuck all that. I miss the “this you?“s and the funny accounts i used to follow. I miss baddies posting thirst traps and Black artists putting their spin on characters that feel culturally, if not visibly, relatable.
I miss not wondering if I was seeing 20% of a post's comments or 100%.
I miss how vibrant that platform was and all the interests I could jump into and the breadth and depth of those adjacent pools. I miss that Twitter was fun and I felt comfy there riiiiight up until I didn't
I like how the Mastodon app feels and works, but that doesn't keep me from holding a place in my heart for the Twitter that now only exists in my memories.
I like who and what's on Bluesky, but that doesn't keep me from imagining a site that doesn't require 4 clicks to mute someone.
It's entirely possible that I trend towards dissatisfaction and will never stop pining for what I no longer have or what I haven't had yet. I'm ok with that. I'll accept the repercussions of my honesty too. Twitter felt cultural in a way that nothing else did. It was fun and now that's all over.
You ain't gotta be dead for me to miss who you were to me.
Find shorter thoughts at https://c.im/@NaClKnight