You had to be there
The golden age of Twitter is over
I’ve been thinking about leaving Twitter for a while, but every time I come to deactivate my account… I just can’t.
Am I addicted to social media? Or am I just clinging onto a place that once offered me a place of belonging?
When I first went freelance in early 2019, I started a Twitter account for Content By The Sea, which quickly became more of a personal account as I clearly can’t keep anything strictly professional.
Over the last few years, I have used Twitter to network with others in my field, many of whom have become good friends, and I’ve visited so many wonderful people in-person across the country.
Weirdly, when I first started working for myself, one of the most common questions I got was: “Won’t you be lonely working alone?”
The truth was, I was lonely in a traditional corporate job.
Most of my friendships were circumstantial, with only a few continuing past, leaving a role. If anything, these friendships were more of a bond formed over shared trauma, rather than long-term connections.
In the early days of freelancing, I met other freelancers both online and at in-person events. But, the best relationships were formed in just 140 (and later 280) character tweets during weekly Twitter chats like #ContentClubUK.
Twitter was the place I could go to speak to other people who were running creative businesses from their spare rooms. These people were not only doing similar things for work, but we also shared so many other common interests. I’ve even met loads of my freelancer pals in person. I’ve dragged Craig to many freelancer meetups and pub drinks with people I originally met on Twitter.
But recent developments on the platform are making me question whether Twitter is somewhere I want to spend time. Whenever I click on the X logo, I think about how I am contributing to the evil empire and its overlord’s already heavy pockets.
I believe in voting with you dollar and, by extension, your clicks. Brands can make statements through where they decide to advertise. For example, many companies have opted out of GB News ad breaks, as the channel doesn’t align with their brand morals. If I was to buy advertising for my small business, I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing so on Twitter.
FOMO is one of the major reasons why I have doubts about leaving Twitter (even though I should, and probably will at some point). If I’m not on Twitter, and I refuse to download TikTok… how will I know what everyone is talking about?
Twitter has always had a feeling of camaraderie, especially during generation-defining events such as ‘what colour is this dress?’, Ed Balls Day and #DrummondPuddleWatch. The pandemic perpetuated this, as many of us took to the platform to give live commentary on the UK government’s daily updates, using GIFs and in-jokes to make light of what was a truly awful time in modern history.
But since Elon Musk bought Twitter last year, the platform has been awash with issues, including poor spam filters, aggressive bots and right-wing lobbyists galore. Don’t get me wrong, the platform has always been toxic. Since its invention, I don’t want to romanticise something that has been a place people use to spout hate. I actually wrote about that last year…
However, it’s clear that the benefits (for me, at least) are no longer outweighing the downsides of the platform. And, for that reason, it’s probably time that I step away.
The reaction to the recent allegations against Russell Brand (which I wrote about last week) was really the final nail in Twitter’s coffin for me, with Musk himself posting several times in support of Brand.
Giving up Twitter will be hard for me, because this is where I found solace during difficult times. And I made so many great friends along the way. But the more I think about it, the more I realise that the platform’s golden age is over and… you had to be there.
There will be other online communities that will bring like-minded people together - Substack’s new mobile app is already helping to fill the void for me, as it brings together so many talented writers and creators and allows them to read and share each other’s work, without the distraction of bots or crappy ads.
I’ll also continue to lurk on Reddit for any and all ‘live’ events, should another submarine get lost in the sea, for example. And I don’t mind Instagram as a place to share photos and videos with friends and family via a private account.
But if and when I leave Twitter, it will feel like the end of an era. No more shouting into the void. No more freelance Twitter chats. No more puddle livestreams.
I know deep down that it’s the right thing to do, as the platform and how it’s run no longer aligns with my morals. But that doesn't make it any easier to click the little button and make it final.
Is anyone else considering leaving Twitter? I know some people who have already deactivated their accounts. If you are one of those… do you feel any better? Have you replaced the doomscrolling with something else?
This is the point in the newsletter where I’d typically say to let me know on Twitter, ha! So, if you have thoughts or want to chat then leave a comment on Substack or reply to this email for a confidential chat.
What I’ve been reading
Literary masterpiece set in rural Ireland following a group of thirty-somethings who return to their hometown just as the body of their long-lost friend is discovered in the woods nearby.
🎧 This Ragged Grace by Octavia Bright
Deeply personal memoir about Bright’s experiences with addiction and sobriety.
🔗 Haley Nahman’s weekly advice column Dear Baby touched a nerve this week as she explored the idea of being a fixer in a relationship.
When you see your role as that of a fixer—as someone responsible for cheering others up or pep-talking them out of every anxiety—you make your mood dependent on other people’s. This makes you extremely vulnerable to resentment. You sweat, you tiptoe. You come to see people’s humanity as a problem to solve—or a threat. Obviously, it’s not wrong to tend to someone you love who’s upset, but making your own mood reliant on theirs feeds an unhealthy dynamic.
The future of this newsletter
I’ve been writing Conversations By The Sea for three and a half years now, and it’s been a ride. It has been a constant in my life, and many of your inboxes - other than the break to have and raise a baby, I have worked to keep the newsletter consistent and my best possible work since day one. I am now both proud and terrified to be emailing over 1,000 people each week with my innermost thoughts and feelings about mental health, work culture and the online world.
In its current state, the newsletter makes no money. I write it during the evening or nap time, and the ideas typically come to me hours or minutes before I start to type.
I think it’s time to take Conversations By The Sea to the next level. Substack offers so many fantastic features and opportunities for writers, and I think I’m ready to tap into them.
However, there’s a voice in my head shouting things like: “Why would anyone support your newsletter? No one will pay for extra content from you. Everyone who subscribed did so by accident and will unsubscribe the next time you publish…”
My response to that is: If I don’t try, then I’ll never know! So, over the coming months, expect to see more from me. I am hoping to launch a (very affordable) paid upgrade to the newsletter, including all sorts of cool stuff like advice columns, interviews and podcast issues.
In the meantime, I’d really appreciate any feedback and thoughts on this new stage of the newsletter.
That's all from me this week. See you next Thursday.
Ellen x
Really appreciated your nuanced way of describing the whole twitter dilemma; it's a genuine mini-grief, and of course it is. When we connect with, attach to something there's always a form of grief associated with it changing, with letting it go.
So many non-twitter people don't realise what a sad thing it is, what a wrench it is to reckon with the reality that its heyday is truly over, and with that the good times we had on it. I know it sounds silly to some people to have an attachment to it, "it's just a website" -but for many of us, it was exactly what you say: a place of solace, of connection, of laughs. A place to turn to to process massive world events, even to track events live as they were happening. Remember how so fun it could be! I've laughed out loud so much at how funny people can be.
I'm conscious of feeling a bit overly sentimental, but I do think these are feelings we've had to grapple with, or even ignore as we tried to plough on, since EM bombed the whole thing last year. For me, such an anger comes with the fact that some guy can come and methodically dismantle a place where many people had found a community. Even if it's still technically functional, he made it feel different just by virtue of reminding us what can be done when someone like him decides to do it. He made it feel not safe anymore, he took something from it. To make connections anywhere you manage to is no small thing when so many people are there feeling isolated and alone and struggling to know how or where to even turn to find people to connect with. It is truly a loss regardless of if we'll be fine, or even better off, without it, regardless of if new and better iterations emerge to replace it. I know it probably was never going to be able to last forever, the same way nothing really lasts in one form forever.
But you're dead right when you say: you had to be there. I'm glad I was, even with all its negatives.
Thank you for writing this - it's lovely to see someone acknowledge that something that goes bad doesn’t negate the fact that it brought a lot of good.
Loved this Ellen - and I completely relate / agree.
As more of a writer, I always felt Twitter was the platform for me over the likes of Instagram or TikTok. And I’ve said before that all those platforms steal their best content from Twitter anyway!
It makes me so sad that the good no longer outweighs the bad. Even though I follow nice people, the algorithm is so messed up now that I get shown all the hideous, infuriating stuff from the accounts of terrible people anyway.
The golden age is over. RIP X