How many of you have joined the new social media site from Instagram called Threads? I am downloading the app now.
Since Elon Musk took over Twitter, I joined a number of similar apps looking for an alternative. Among them Post, BlueSky, Sproutable, Mastadon, Notes (this site’s version, which I like very much), and I think another one I have forgotten about. They seem fine, but, except for Notes, I don’t use them much. The new apps have a lot to do to catchup to Twitter’s influence, but maybe since Threads is part of Instagram, it will be more successful. Part of the success of these things depends on a groundswell of people using it. It’s all about shared experience. I was just bemoaning that my in-real-time live-drawing might not continue if Twitter keeps tanking; however if Threads works, I am hopeful I can continue doing that kind of visual reporting there.
Speaking of Twitter, this morning I read this piece by Heather Cox Richardson, and in it she wrote about the Republican Party Offical Twitter posting a flag with one star on the Fourth of July. I went to Twitter and it had been deleted. But while there, I scrolled down a bit and was absolutely horrified. I mean, I should know this, but I didn’t. 99% of the tweets were negative attacks at Democrats, and specific Democrats, and they were all lies. If you want to get depressed, go do what I did and see for yourself.
I am not sure how we combat all the lying.
I’m not a fan of Zuckerberg’s, but he’s better than Musk, I think. I enjoy social media, and have gotten so much from it over the years—friends, work, information. Twitter helped me amplify my drawings, and I was very grateful for that. And, like Substack does now perhaps even more successfully, Twitter helped me go around legacy media gatekeepers, to connect with my audience on my own and find new communities to talk to with my work. Yesterday, a conservative judge ruled against the Biden Administration’s social media efforts, restricting its interaction with social media companies. I don’t fully understand this story yet, but I know that there have to be regulation of some sort. Obviously, the US government cannot restrict free speech, but there must be a way to regulate and help these companies keep their platforms as fair playing grounds for positivity, information and not just about hate.
I want to write more about this in the coming months. It’s kind of amazing the major shifts we are seeing in the media landscape now. It’s a bit dizzying, to be honest.
Thoughts?
I’m trying threads. But I think it’ll flash and flame out, go to a slow ember that is Facebook and Instagram. The tech to replicate twitter is super super simple. What is hard to impossible to replicate is proximity to power. Journalism and politics embraced twitter early on, entertainment after that. That’s basically the trifecta you need to create that neuro-network. Twitter acts like a huge spinal cord to the peripheral nervous system — well, it did. Jack understood that; Elmo and Zuck don’t. Not one damn clue.
Notes is just something else. It’s more like a salon or a gathering in the park. It’s smart; it aspires; it is curious... it’s fun because of those things. Unlike twitter, though, it doesn’t reward dumb. Can’t be proud of your ignorance on Notes.
Twitter gave me a lot of fun 2007-2020 where I played a few different characters linked to television stuff. I’m done doing that; it’s exhausting. Gonna take a little break from the acting and just be me for a while. We’ll see how that goes.
I find Notes too “serious” to replace the spontaneous vibe of Twitter and the others. Much (most?) of Twitter’s vibe, besides being toxic, isn’t at all spontaneous, it’s scripted.