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.
Yes! This is exactly how I feel. Even after sharing it, I've had people reply like: "well, I never really used Twitter." That's great, but it was an important place for me for a while and somewhere I met some of my best online friends. It's not just a website at all!
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.
Sep 28, 2023·edited Sep 28, 2023Liked by Ellen Kate Boyle
As you know, I deleted it a couple of weekends ago after the Russell Brand story broke and I was appalled at the content on that hateful little platform. Whilst it felt quite kneejerk, I'd actually grappled with deleting my account for months. It wasn't a place that made me feel good, and life's too short for that.
What's interesting for me is the patterns in my behaviour that I've noticed since deleting it. For example, like today with the whole Sycamore Gap story breaking, I'd be shouting my head off on Twitter about it. I now have nowhere to take that energy. But why do I care? Why do I feel the need to express my emotions in this way? It's a very millennial "thing", I guess.
I don't miss it though, and I think not being on there will do my mental health and productivity a big solid!
It's promising to hear that you haven't had FOMO and actually feel better without closely following an even like this horrible tree felling. It's totally a millennial thing, like we all have to share the trauma in a (albeit digital) place??
Really interesting to read your thoughts, it really resonated as being how I felt about Twitter too. I recently deleted it, after starting it up back in 2011 and writing my Masters dissertation about it - it felt really sad to go, until the sign off message from Twitter/X felt like a giant middle finger response and it really made me rather at peace with my decision!
It went something like "Sorry to see you go #goodbye". The hashtag felt really rather wanky!
However, I do think it's helped my mental health and general overtired mind. I'm finding myself on my phone less, paying more attention to what I am doing in the evenings. I usually scrolled mindlessly through Twitter whilst watching TV - usually so I had a running commentary with whatever show I'm watching, but it often opened the floodgates to moronic toxic rants which then distracted me from what I was doing in the first place.
I half feel like I'm missing out. I couldn't join content club today which I do like, and the rugby world cup would probably be good fun on there - but have I lost any sleep over it? No, probably gained it instead.
Haha! That farewell message is an absolute joke. I deactivated my account yesterday and haven't even missed it. I think I was long overdue leaving, to be honest.
I feel like with everything going on in the news at the moment, doomscrolling is absolutely the worst way to spend my time. No good can come of it!
This is exactly how I feel! I met so many wonderful people on Twitter, including yourself and Craig, so I have nostalgic memories of the before times. The times when you could really curate your own content and filter out the crap. Now, no matter how much I filter, the algorithm feeds me stuff that's hateful. I don't know if I'll ever de-activate my account but I've already not posted in such a long time that my account is fairly dormant.
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.
Yes! This is exactly how I feel. Even after sharing it, I've had people reply like: "well, I never really used Twitter." That's great, but it was an important place for me for a while and somewhere I met some of my best online friends. It's not just a website at all!
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
It's all Claire's husband's fault!
DAMN YOU CLAIRE!!!!
As you know, I deleted it a couple of weekends ago after the Russell Brand story broke and I was appalled at the content on that hateful little platform. Whilst it felt quite kneejerk, I'd actually grappled with deleting my account for months. It wasn't a place that made me feel good, and life's too short for that.
What's interesting for me is the patterns in my behaviour that I've noticed since deleting it. For example, like today with the whole Sycamore Gap story breaking, I'd be shouting my head off on Twitter about it. I now have nowhere to take that energy. But why do I care? Why do I feel the need to express my emotions in this way? It's a very millennial "thing", I guess.
I don't miss it though, and I think not being on there will do my mental health and productivity a big solid!
It's promising to hear that you haven't had FOMO and actually feel better without closely following an even like this horrible tree felling. It's totally a millennial thing, like we all have to share the trauma in a (albeit digital) place??
Really interesting to read your thoughts, it really resonated as being how I felt about Twitter too. I recently deleted it, after starting it up back in 2011 and writing my Masters dissertation about it - it felt really sad to go, until the sign off message from Twitter/X felt like a giant middle finger response and it really made me rather at peace with my decision!
It went something like "Sorry to see you go #goodbye". The hashtag felt really rather wanky!
However, I do think it's helped my mental health and general overtired mind. I'm finding myself on my phone less, paying more attention to what I am doing in the evenings. I usually scrolled mindlessly through Twitter whilst watching TV - usually so I had a running commentary with whatever show I'm watching, but it often opened the floodgates to moronic toxic rants which then distracted me from what I was doing in the first place.
I half feel like I'm missing out. I couldn't join content club today which I do like, and the rugby world cup would probably be good fun on there - but have I lost any sleep over it? No, probably gained it instead.
Haha! That farewell message is an absolute joke. I deactivated my account yesterday and haven't even missed it. I think I was long overdue leaving, to be honest.
I feel like with everything going on in the news at the moment, doomscrolling is absolutely the worst way to spend my time. No good can come of it!
This is exactly how I feel! I met so many wonderful people on Twitter, including yourself and Craig, so I have nostalgic memories of the before times. The times when you could really curate your own content and filter out the crap. Now, no matter how much I filter, the algorithm feeds me stuff that's hateful. I don't know if I'll ever de-activate my account but I've already not posted in such a long time that my account is fairly dormant.