Are you threading?

Facebook (I’m not calling it Meta), via its Instagram division, have launched a twitter competitor. It is called Threads. In five short days since launch, the service have already amassed over 100 million accounts. The major brands and personalities you're following on twitter have likely all jumped over to the new thing. So why haven't you?

I haven’t signed up for Threads because that would break my own rule of having nothing to do with anything Facebook (again, not calling it Meta). My own Facebook account have been long deactivated. So have the instagram handle. I’ve essentially convinced my friends to join me on Signal, therefore no need to keep the WhatsApp around. There will be zero nefarious ad-targeting (and probably spying) on me!

Besides, the whole point of leaving twitter is in large parts eliminating all social media apps from my everyday life. The other part obviously is Elon Musk’s utter mismanagement.

It’s sad to see twitter dying on a proverbial vine. Now that a worthy replacement have appeared - back by the biggest social media company of all time - I don’t see how twitter can survive. Locally here we speak of a doom spiral in San Francisco - the same can be said if people start ditching twitter in droves. There comes a point of critical mass, and there would be nothing worthy or notable remaining on the bird app. The party’s over at Threads.

I have to say, it’s a masterful way to set 44 billions dollars on fire. Monsieur Musk is like the Joker in The Dark Knight - torching the money he stole from the mobsters simply for sport. It’s sad to watch, honestly, because twitter will be but a beautiful memory. Forever lost to the pantheon of bygone social media apps.

Uh, what to do?

How are you handling the great Reddit blackout? Every subreddit that I care to go to have gone private in protest of the onerous API fee changes Reddit is set to implement by the end of this month. There goes the last bit of social media that I use! Though I would say Reddit is more like discussion forums. I quit twitter about a month ago, and you can’t pay me enough to use the Chinese spyware that is TikTok.

Interesting to see the (let’s call them) NSFW subreddits have not participated in the blackout protest. I guess horniness is still the dominant factor above all else…

The protest is only suppose to last a few days. But because Reddit refuses to backdown from the untenable API changes (effectively dooming any third-party clients), many subs have decided to stay private indefinitely to force a change. I say, good for them. A vibrant Reddit is good for the Internet. Plenty of times I’ve googled something, and ended up on Reddit with the correct answers to questions. Let’s take some momentary pain now, for a better long term future. (So un-American!)

Reddit is nothing without its army of volunteer moderators, and the millions of users contributing content. I am surprised the company have decided to essentially go to war with the people that made it great in the first place. The problem is: it’s extremely difficult to charge for something that was once free. Excellent third-party apps have sprouted up because the access APIs have been free. To now charge for those APIs, exorbitantly to the point of detrimental, is going to make people incredibly unhappy.

It doesn’t help that Reddit’s own official app is utterly garbage. The best way to surf Reddit is via browser, with an ad blocker on. Sorry, not sorry.

Hello, boredom

How is the no-twitter experience going for me? The complete lack of any social media! One word: boredom. Boredom is back in my life with a vengeance, and I have to say, it’s alright. Instead of watching the twitter feed scroll by on a separate monitor at work, I just zone out. Sure there was an initial itch to take out the phone, only to realize there aren’t any social media apps on there either. I either sit with the boredom, or go chat with my coworkers.

Boredom it is!

Twitter was how I got the news in the morning. The problem was: after I’ve read up on the latest news, the scrolling afterwards can be endless. Since deactivating my account, I’ve been relying on actual website. The good thing about those is the amount of new content is finite. I’d look at ESPN for the scores, and that’s it. No more scrolling. It’s really liberating.

What I do instead is simply lie on the couch and listen to music. Remember when we use to do that exclusively? Music wasn’t just background accompaniment. Back in the days of cassette and compact discs, we’d put on an album and listen to in attentively all the way through. No social media to distract, no smartphone to scroll through. I’ve reclaimed some of that experience, and it’s quite nice and relaxing.

It is said that the smartphone killed boredom. We’re so stuck to our phones now that I don’t think we know how to handle boredom. The horror of having to stew in our own thoughts for even one second. The itch to bring out the phones whenever we encounter boredom is immense. Would you be able to stand in a grocery store line just standing, waiting? You’d probably be the odd-looking one out. There’s something wrong with you, who is not face deep into your smartphone.

Don't want to go, unwilling to stay

Twitter is now owned by Elon Musk. What I am most sympathetic for is the roughly 50 percent of the workers who got fired the first week. It doesn’t bode well for the already suffering San Francisco downtown in terms of people traffic during the work week. Or perhaps a large cohort of those who were let go were working from home. Elon famously rejects remote work for his companies. He’s already demanded that any able body twitter employee must come to the office.

But what does Elon Musk taking over twitter mean for users like me? Well, nothing really. I’m as addicted to the app as everybody on there are. I cannot start my morning without a 10 minute peruse (more on the weekends!) of the bird app. Throughout the day, TweetDeck is present on the browser at all times. It’s like a slow IV drip that I cannot tear the needle out of my skin.

I mean, we were all hooked onto twitter during last Tuesday’s mid-term elections, weren’t we? The app has tremendous value during critical, news-making moments.

So despite talks of Elon going to ruin twitter - the roll out of verification for the masses have been predictably disastrous - I am staying until the bitter end. Elon may indeed take twitter down, but I am going down with that ship. There’s also an optimistic side: perhaps Elon can indeed make twitter better for all users. Obviously I don’t think we’ve seen any indication that would be the likely outcome, but it’s still very early days. Let’s see what twitter is like a few months out.

Healy Chen

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