Where to next?

To me, the writing is on the wall. Here’s my Twitter prediction:

In 1–2 years, it’ll feel like Facebook did after the moms showed up and young people shifted most of their posting to Instagram.

“You still use Twitter?” “Yeah, it’s the only place I can keep in touch with certain people.” “Oh, that sucks.”

In 2–3 years you’ll log in for the first time in a few months. It’ll be full of brands, a few people you never really knew that closely tweeting inane shit, ads, and the odd “haven’t tweeted in a while — anyone still on here?”

The new owner immediately sacked the entire Human Rights, Accessibility, AI Ethics, Public Policy, and Curation teams. Possibly others. I don’t want to use a Twitter that doesn’t have those things. I’ve already had the guy blocked and his name muted for months.¹ I don’t want to drive his car, I don’t want to use his social media platform, and I don’t want to spend time with people who think he’s okay.

Even if the dust settles and my personal Twitter experience remains fine, it’s already exhausting. Constant stream-of-consciousness “announcements” and uncertainty around new features or policies that may or may not be implemented isn’t fun or interesting. I don’t have any desire to make mid- to long-term bets on someone else’s company or my daily online life. As someone said (in a tweet), it took only one week for him to entirely destroy the userbase’s trust. It seems like the only people having fun on Twitter right now are trolls with illustrated profile photos. I get the sense that’s going to continue to be the vibe.

So where to next?

Social media has always been a large part of my online life. As a kid I used guestbooks, chatrooms, and message boards. In my teens I was an early adopter of the some of the earliest profile sites with dumb names like like RateMyInfo and What The Dilly. They were mostly full of weirdos like me; when the normal people at high school finally found MySpace, we entered a different era. I went online to get away from everyone but eventually they found me. Still, I did Facebook, did Instagram, and I’ve been on Twitter for almost 15 years.

A few people have asked me if I’m going to use Mastodon next. It seems like that’s the go-to lifeboat, at least for my tech-inclined social and professional circle. I’m just not drawn to it. Mastodon is like Twitter but more complicated and worse in almost every way. It’s possible I might start syndicating posts there if it reaches critical mass and seems interesting enough, but I’m not rushing over.

I asked myself why I would join another social media platform right now and I simply had no good answer. “Everyone else is doing it” isn’t enough. Right now I’m just looking forward to having my time and attention back.