Talking about my X
A meme created by me in late 2022
In November 2022, I wrote a post called ‘Is our time doing bird about to end?’. You might want to read that first before this one, or just click on it so that I can get the dopamine hit of another page view. I’m cool with either. Back then, just as X (or Twitter as it then was and still is, I just like the callback to referencing a Judge by their previous title) had a new owner, the first wave of people began to reconsider their engagement with the platform given the direction it looked like it would take.
Now in midsummer 2024 the exodus appears to have happened. I don’t think anyone is surprised that it has, but perhaps that it has taken so long. In late 2022 the mood music suggested Twitter would implode as advertisers walked away and only paid subscriptions would be useable. Twitter’s owner market tested a number of radical changes to paid accounts - limiting the number of tweets or tweets that could be viewed each day, for example - without implementing them. The reaction to the mere threat being enough to garner an understanding of whether change would be well received.
Sure, the amount of spam grew larger than the Hormel Foods factory. The site was rife with bots, some with more clothes than others. Paid accounts were prioritised over free ones and the For You feed curated for someone other than me. But it remained largely useable. In my previous article I wrote about the need to curate all social media. The algorithm will never match your mind and while the ability to choose who you follow, mute, block and whether your account is private exists, you have a great deal more control than I suspected would remain free. Legislation, the threat of it or reduced usage has helped keep the status quo.
All of that changed in late July. This post won’t comment on the events that precipitated a great number of users in the UK leaving twitter. I’ll leave that to my more erudite friends in the law and those who tweet in ALL or paRTiaL caps. Over the last few weeks I’ve watched countless people I follow leave twitter (silently or with an announcement), disengage with the platform, wholly or partly (silently or with an announcement), or explain why they are staying. I have done none of these things.
Why? Well because I don’t know where I stand. What I loved has gone. Twitter in its heyday provided mirth, useful information and debate. Not from me. I tweeted photos of food. Because if you don’t photograph it, it doesn’t exist. Or something. I remember fondly, possibly with a rose tinted screen protector, how much fun it was be part of a discussion or to catch up with people’s lives. I had spent time filtering out the noise I didn’t want. I actively sought out a number of contrary views and knew that some would be a difficult read. Crucially, my enjoyment of twitter and social media generally increased when I remembered that someone you didn’t know or follow who chose to pick a fight, wants the attention of your followers, not to debate and discuss.
I can and will briefly mourn what I miss. I know we can’t go back to that. I know that some believe we can recreate it elsewhere. Maybe. But I wonder if that time has passed. Whether it’s Bluesky, Threads or Mastadon, will we create the same atmosphere as before? Do we all want to? I am acutely aware that my experience on Twitter was different to those with significantly more or fewer followers. I openly wonder if part of me mourns the loss of a decent following because we’ve all drifted off elsewhere. Was it of its time? A period where social media and the people I interacted with, perfectly intersected. I’ve made a number of really good friends from my time on Twitter. We converse over WhatsApp. Some of them would debate the word ‘converse’ and say ‘Mainly Ish sending me things he’s found online, often with a comment he’d dare not tweet’.
Was the frisson of spice on Twitter both annoying and part of what made it work? Bluesky is currently a little bit school disco as most of us stand around the edge watching the few people break out their early moves. My threads feed is largely overly long threads on airline travel (interesting), dating horror stories (reminding me of how lucky I am to have found the most wonderful partner) and brands being genuinely amusing - shout out to Marmite and Channel 4. (Also a description of Sundays when I was a student). Mastadon continues to be a hot mess; the analogy of servers being like emailing someone on a different email service just doesn’t hold. It’s too complicated for a product that needs a much lower barrier to entry and usage.
With a fairly but not totally open mind then, I am on Bluesky and Threads, but still have my Twitter account. I am tweeting largely the same content across all three (eg this article) and I’ll see where I end up.
Perhaps this marks a change in my use of social media. I mean I’m weeks away from releasing a series of videos on LinkedIn.
No really, I am.
Serious Ish on LinkedIn with a series of videos on enhancing presentation skills in the workplace.
And if a couple of puns happen to make their way into the final script, well that’s not going to harm anyone.
Ishan Kolhatkar has cluttered his iPhone screen with more social media apps.
https://x.com/ishkolhatkar on Twitter
https://bsky.app/profile/ishankolhatkar.com on Bluesky
https://www.threads.net/@ishankolhatkar on Threads